An Interpretation Of God Help The Child Based On Merleau-ponty's Theory

Toni Morrison,an outstanding African-American writer,has published 11 novels.God Help the Child is Toni Morriso's latest novel,which has attracted great attentions since it was published.Morrison's works are mainly themed on the growth and progress of black women,helping her to bag the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 for Beloved.With her fiery emotions and exquisite writing skills,she carefully depicts every character in the work,shedding light on the high degree of racial concern for the suffering and history of the black people.In terms of Morrison's first ten works,some scholars have used Foucault's Body Theory and specifically the female body theory to interpret their metaphorical meaning.According to Merleau-Ponty's theory,the author focuses on the changes of the body and the cogitative aspects in God Help the Child from the angle of the perception phenomenon of Merleau-Ponty,and the analysis of the dark skin's influence on personal development.Besides,the hero gradually returns to the innocence of children through the role of "narrative",seeking for self-release and completing the reconstruction of the identity of colored people.This paper interprets the self-realization and self-growth of the protagonist in God Help the Child through the explanation of such phenomena as perception and language.The research endeavors to establish that the trauma in childhood has an important influence on the personal growth and development of a child.Five chapters compose this thesis.Chapter One introduces the author and her works,the overseas and domestic study of God Help the Child,the introduction and interpretation of Merleau-Ponty's Body Theory,the structure,and the significance of the thesis.Chapter Two,Chapter Three and Chapter Four make up the body part.Chapter Two makes a comparative analysis of the traditional and modern evaluation of the black complexion.It explores the influence of the black's self-consciousness on the improvement of black social status,and reveals the deep relationship among national consciousness,cultural diversity in the new century,black civil rights movement,and the black social status.Chapter Three expounds the body intention in cognition and interprets the influence of body cognition in self-construction.With the analysis of Bride and Booker's body changes in the novel and the causes of body changes,the hero's self-transcendence and body self-construction get realized.Chapter Four uses narrative to interpret the body,bringing new hope and freedom to the hero.This chapter delineates in detail the process of Bride's self-realization,by using apt language to eliminate inner loneliness and misunderstandings with Sophia and getting estranged from his mother.Moreover,Booker and Rain are able to recover from the trauma and gain inner relief and freedom in the narrative.Chapter Five draws a conclusion that this thesis uses Merleau-Ponty's Body Theory to interpret the problem of body mapping from three aspects,namely,phenomenon,perception,and speech.Through the description of the body,Morrison discloses the unspeakable pain of the black people,women,and children in the society,and uses their bodies to speak for their own experiences and trauma.The author pays special attention to the difficult spiritual transformation process of the hero and children,and their self-construction and inner liberation.