A Quest For African-American Female Subjectivity —Based On Beloved By Toni Morrison

Owing to the hideous African slavery and existing racial discrimination, African-American females have suffered numerous tortures. Toni Morrison who comes from an African-American family has paid close attention to African-American females and made plenty of explorations in her novels to improve their lives. Through studies of her works, it is apparent that the construction of African-American female subjectivity is regarded by Morrison as the most effective way for black women to brave the unfair and complicated society. Based on her masterpiece Beloved, a quest will be made for viable approaches to achieve African-American female subjectivity.Pitifully, absence of African-American female subjectivity has been quite common ever since those women were materialized and enslaved about four hundred years ago. Without integral subjectivity, they have been haunted by white racism and always lived in deep frustration and anxiety. This thesis is devoted to probes into ways to establish their subjectivity by their internal explorations and comfort from interpersonal relationships.And by internal explorations, it means African-American females should obtain self-identity. This mission embraces efforts in two respects. One is to love their physical bodies. African physical attributes demonstrate their differences from the whites, but this is no reason for hatred of their own bodies unless they have internalized white racism which will ruin their lives thoroughly. And another aspect they should work on the pursuit of self-identity is the setting up of their proper cultural identity. The fact that they are born in America as offspring of African slaves has made many of them struck in embarrassment. Neither return to the Africa continent nor total acceptance of mainstream white culture encourages their searches for their cultural identity. They have to come to terms with American culture while deriving inspiration from African-American history, music and dance, and African religion as well.Pursuit of self-identity can be categorized as internal explorations for African-American female subjectivity. Moreover, external probes can be made from interpersonal relationships including motherhood, sisterhood and relations with males. Motherhood is quite precious for many African-American females. Scarred psychologically, they tend to consider their children as their clean, best and beautiful part of themselves. And their subjectivity can be raised when they try to protect their children desperately. However, their deep love for their children can also hinder the construction of their subjectivity. It is necessary for them to understand that if they manage to establish their subjectivity completely, their children will also benefit from it. Besides, sisterhood plays a significant role in the construction of African-American female subjectivity. Although vast discrepancies exist among women, African-American females can manage to make friends with and gain support from those who are in different racial, class and religious backgrounds on condition that the two sides are able to drop biases and care about each other whole-heartedly. The last but not least is African-American females’ relationship with males. Though living in a patriarchic society, African-American females are able to survive difficulties together with males. And African-American males can be trustworthy gentlemen because they are the same with their dark sisters when confronting white racism. And mutual caring and respect prove to be effective help for both of them to improve their lives.