A Study On The Theme Of Love In Toni Morrison's God Help The Child

Toni Morrison,a winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993,is undoubtedly one of the greatest black woman writers in the 20 th century in America.Her works have been gradually drawing the attention of a wider critics and audience for her epic power and expressive depictions of African American.Based on the research statuses at home and abroad,it is proved that few researches on the theme of love in Toni Morrison's classical works has been done,especially on God Help the Child,her new publication in 2015.When taking a panoramic view of her classic novels such as Sula(1973),Song of Solomon(1987)and Beloved(1997),readers can easily notice that the black people have suffered so much and also have been in a mental dilemma in their life due to racial and gender discrimination,patriarchal culture and other reasons.Apart from this,the temptation and invasion of consumerism on the black people in God Help the Child,another new element in modern America,makes them feel more confused and tortured about the meaning of their life.While love is regarded as the answer to the problem of human existence by Erich Fromm,a German social psychologist,psychoanalyst and humanistic philosopher who focuses on the contradiction between human beings and society,and the spiritual predicament of human beings especially in highly developed era.Therefore,based on the theory of love in Fromm's The Art of Loving,this thesis aims at conducting a dimensional study on the love in God Help the Child.This thesis consists of three chapters besides its introduction and conclusion.The introduction provides a brief introduction to Toni Morrison and her God Help the Child,a literature review,the theory concerned and the significance of the research.Chapter One is a microcosmic yet comprehensive study on kinds of distorted love between the characters in Toni Morrison's God Help the Child and then probes further into the way how they pursue love.Chapter Two focuses on analyzing their causes under the background of racial discrimination,gender discrimination and modern consumerism in America based on Erich Fromm's theory of love,which provides readers with a better understanding of Bride's difficulties in seeking love from people around her.Chapter Three aims to provide effective methods on Bride's reconstruction of her love.According to the theory of Erich Fromm,love is supposed to be divided mainly into motherly love,brotherly love,exotic love,self-love and love of God.Based on Fromm's theory of love,this thesis will probe into how the protagonist attempts to improve her relationships with her boyfriend Booker,her friend Brooklyn as well as her mother.All this above to some extent provides the protagonist with a way to build an appropriate philosophy of love from such three aspects as brotherly love,erotic love and self-love.In concluding remarks,this thesis points out that Toni Morrison's works always focus on how the protagonist struggles for a good life just as she has mentioned in her interview that writers should pursue a more profound philosophy of life.While God Help the Child gives a panoramic view of the modern African American confusion about their existence and then tries to offer some effective ways to deal with it.Then the Conclusion briefly summarizes the three sorts of distorted love as well as their causes and then tries to figure out how the protagonist Bride attempts to reconstruct her relationship with her boyfriend Booker.Besides,the author of this thesis also makes an effort to find out possible ways to help the protagonist deal with her relations with her mother,her friend,her beloved as well as herself,which can not only provide another new point of view for readers to appreciate Toni Morrison's works,but also reveal Morrison's efforts in exploring how the black people in modern American society reconstruct their subjectivity and fully develop themselves and then learn to live a good life.