On Beloved’s Identity In Beloved From The Perspective Of Deconstruction

Beloved is worldly considered the masterpiece of Toni Morrison, the famous Americanblack female writer. Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in1988and1993,respectively. Because of Beloved, Morrison won the honor to be the first femaleAfro-American Nobel Prize writer in American history. The infanticide story in Beloved isadapted from a real story Morrison came across when she was responsible for editing TheBlack Book. Morrison, adopting a unique perspective because of her Afro-American identity,created the profound work Beloved.Both overseas and domestic scholars studied Beloved from different perspectives, usingvarious critical approaches, among which many were related to Beloved’s identity. Accordingto previous studies, Beloved was taken as the reincarnating ghost child, Sethe’s mother and“Six Million and more” who died in the Middle Passage without their names known. Most ofthese researches, however, focus on Beloved’s physical identity, leaving Beloved’s spiritualidentity a vacancy to be explored. This thesis tries to study Beloved’s identity in a morecomprehensive way from the perspective of deconstruction---subversion of binary opposition,which aims to tear down the hierarchy. This thesis provides the readers new views tounderstand Beloved’s identity usually neglected in traditional reading.This thesis consists of six sections. Chapter one introduces Toni Morrison, hermasterpiece Beloved, and the value of this thesis. Chapter two concludes previous studies.Chapter three is the theoretical foundation which mainly introduces Derrida’s subversion ofbinary opposition. Chapter four investigates Beloved’s physical identity. By researchingBeloved’s identity as family and stranger, ghost and human, the thesis reveals the cruelty ofslavery and Afro-Americans’ desire to write their history. Chapter five focuses on Beloved’sspiritual identity. By researching Beloved’s identity as sin and forgiveness, the thesis revealsthe sin of slavery, Afro-Americans’ psychological colonization, Sethe’s possessive love andthe healing power of the black community and the ancestors. Through the research of ruin andsalvation, the thesis reveals that Individualism couldn’t change Afro-Americans’ fate, instead,they should rely on the community. Chapter six is the conclusion of the thesis which pointsout that America should remember history in a proper way, pay attention to the blackcommunity which provides unique power, and heal the pain instead of avoiding it; only in thisway a harmonious society could be achieved.