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Abstract: In Beloved, Morrison tells people a story about a black slave woman who has a tragic life but never gives up her faith in self-growth. Through the different growing experiences of three generations, the fiction reveals the humble position of the black women and their difficult process of growth under the oppression of racism and sexism.
Key Words:Black womendiscrimination and oppressiontragedystrengthgrowth
I.The Tragedy and Growth of the Black Women
A. The Tragedy of the Black Women
Morrison chooses the 124 house on Bluestone Road in Cincinnati as the scene of the story. The time is 1873. Although it was 18 years ago when she escaped from the Sweet Home and killed her daughter. It was still a strong memory in Sethe’s mind. At the beginning of the fiction, it said that “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.” But “by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims.” The baby ghost was always in the house. It speeded the Grandmother’s death, and made the little daughter Denver eccentric. The whole story begins with a mysterious ambience, and it is even like a ghost story. In Morrison’s mind, brutal act from human being is crueler than slavery itself, so she bitterly attacks it and describes the real situation of black slaves in the world:
In Beloved, the schoolteacher is a typical white man; he seems to be impartial and objective. But what he and his nephews did was really brutal: in order to do so-called research, he used to gauge the black slaves, like the draught animals. One of the nephews had nursed Sethe while his brother held her down. The white people do good or evil things just as they like, and the black people have no choices, but receive all.
In Beloved, Sethe has to kill her daughter, and undoubtedly that’s a big tragedy. Besides, Beloved herself is a tragedy too. She comes to this world at a wrong time, and is killed by her mother. When she comes back, she is treated as an evil.
Although the daughter’s name is Beloved, she never gets love. Nobody loves her, she is just considered a ghost, and everybody expels her. In fact, the black women are born to be looked down upon. So actually, they are the most tragic people in the world. They always have to bear the pains and sufferings both from race and sex discrimination which is heavily imposed on them.
In Beloved, grandma Baby Suggs pondered color during her lost years. “Took her a long time to finish with blue, the yellow, then green. She was well into pink when she died.” She used the little energy left her for pondering all kinds of colors, except red and black which refers to the blood and the black people. She said, the colors wouldn’t hurt people. However, it’s the color that really hurts people, even kills people – the Blacks. In the whites’ opinion, being dark is ugly, and black is equal to evil, while being white is beautiful. Then the black women were faced with even more problems. Their figures were usually abused, disparaged, distorted and even used as weapons to attack themselves. Many black women couldn’t bear such miseries, they had to abandon their own figures, and turn to masks.
With the rise of feminist movement, some women began to realize that they should have their rights. Then, women began to fight for their own rights. However, they excluded the black women from getting into them. So, when the white women gradually win their rights in political or economic realm. The black women are still oppressed and have to live tragic lives.
B. The Growth of the Black Women
There is a motto of Irish Revolution – “You should sally out by yourself if you want liberty”—that’s fit for the black women absolutely. The black women must fight by themselves to win the liberty and rights. And also, people always say that where there is oppression, there is resistance. The black women’s situation is bad, but they never lose their faith. They are making unremitting efforts to find their ways to a better future. That’s their strength and growth.
Because of the slavery, grandma Baby Suggs was deprived of rights to be the others’ friend, daughter, wife, mother and so on, and she had seven children, but was allowed only to leave her little son Halle by her side. This is her only chance to be a mother. But at that time, the children of the slave mothers don’t belong to them; all of them are the private property of the slave owner, and like the tools of workers, they are treated equal to the livestock. Baby Suggs hates the Whites very much and she hopes there is a clear place left for her. But when the Whites break into the yard, she can do nothing, but just accept it, pondering color and waiting for death. Before she has been ransomed, she has no ideas about herself. After she gets freedom, she realizes that if the Blacks want to get liberty, they should know their own value, and learn to love themselves.
And for Denver, at the end of the Beloved, she finally realizes the only way to protect her mother is “She would have to leave the yard, step off the edge of the world, leave the two behind and go ask somebody for help” “Know it, and go on out the yard. Go on.” With the encouragement of her passed grandma, Denver finally has the courage to go out the yard, and found her first job, then the second, and the third. When Paul D wants to express his opinion about Beloved, she stops him, “I have my own.” Denver goes out of the yard with self-confidence, she knows who she is, and finally she has found her identity. The three women’s changes demonstrate the growing process of the black women. No matter how hard the situation is, they insist on their faith all the time.
II.Black Women Nowadays
Today, more and more people realize, thought some improvement of the black women’s social position, that it is a problem that the black women are still treated improperly. They have found the black women’s advantages and know they are as the same as other peoples. After constant struggles, the situation is getting better, and more and more black women are gradually accepted by the society.
After they are oppressed by racial discrimination and sex discrimination for several centuries, the black women not only begin to feed their family, but also become leaders of companies or stars in media. And some of them are even in the army or the government. There are also many black women in the national or world’s athletics competitions who continuously win the first place, and break the record. They do a very good job in many areas. For example, in literature, news, music, dance, drama, and science, they make very great contributions to both America and the world.All of them are talented, beautiful and thoughtful. They show their own strength and power to the whole world. For example, the Talk Show Queen Oprah Winfrey is a black, and also a woman. She grows up in a poor family, but never gives up her study. When she first takes a job as the host of a TV program, many people detests her because she is a black. She uses her amiable charm to win the confirmation and agreement. At that time, the talk show is dominated by man, but after Oprah’s appearance, the situation is changed. She shares her painful experiences and frustration with people. People love her program, and make an idol of her. Now, she is one of the most influential and richest women, and becomes a symbol of America. She says that she believes she can prove to the whole world with her struggle that there is a way to the truth.
Conclusion:
Through Beloved, Toni Morrison shows the process of growth of three generations of the black women. The old generation realized their miseries, but they do not know how to change the situation, so they just accept them; the second generation is unwilling to be oppressed, so they try to find a way out. At the end of the fiction, the third generation finally finds their own identity, and then begins to build up a better future.
Bibliography:
[1]Morrison, Toni:Beloved. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000.
[2]Sharp, Saundra:Accidence of the Black Women. Beijing: East Press, 1998
[3]程锡麟, 王晓路:当代美国小说理论 [M]. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社,2001
Key Words:Black womendiscrimination and oppressiontragedystrengthgrowth
I.The Tragedy and Growth of the Black Women
A. The Tragedy of the Black Women
Morrison chooses the 124 house on Bluestone Road in Cincinnati as the scene of the story. The time is 1873. Although it was 18 years ago when she escaped from the Sweet Home and killed her daughter. It was still a strong memory in Sethe’s mind. At the beginning of the fiction, it said that “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.” But “by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims.” The baby ghost was always in the house. It speeded the Grandmother’s death, and made the little daughter Denver eccentric. The whole story begins with a mysterious ambience, and it is even like a ghost story. In Morrison’s mind, brutal act from human being is crueler than slavery itself, so she bitterly attacks it and describes the real situation of black slaves in the world:
In Beloved, the schoolteacher is a typical white man; he seems to be impartial and objective. But what he and his nephews did was really brutal: in order to do so-called research, he used to gauge the black slaves, like the draught animals. One of the nephews had nursed Sethe while his brother held her down. The white people do good or evil things just as they like, and the black people have no choices, but receive all.
In Beloved, Sethe has to kill her daughter, and undoubtedly that’s a big tragedy. Besides, Beloved herself is a tragedy too. She comes to this world at a wrong time, and is killed by her mother. When she comes back, she is treated as an evil.
Although the daughter’s name is Beloved, she never gets love. Nobody loves her, she is just considered a ghost, and everybody expels her. In fact, the black women are born to be looked down upon. So actually, they are the most tragic people in the world. They always have to bear the pains and sufferings both from race and sex discrimination which is heavily imposed on them.
In Beloved, grandma Baby Suggs pondered color during her lost years. “Took her a long time to finish with blue, the yellow, then green. She was well into pink when she died.” She used the little energy left her for pondering all kinds of colors, except red and black which refers to the blood and the black people. She said, the colors wouldn’t hurt people. However, it’s the color that really hurts people, even kills people – the Blacks. In the whites’ opinion, being dark is ugly, and black is equal to evil, while being white is beautiful. Then the black women were faced with even more problems. Their figures were usually abused, disparaged, distorted and even used as weapons to attack themselves. Many black women couldn’t bear such miseries, they had to abandon their own figures, and turn to masks.
With the rise of feminist movement, some women began to realize that they should have their rights. Then, women began to fight for their own rights. However, they excluded the black women from getting into them. So, when the white women gradually win their rights in political or economic realm. The black women are still oppressed and have to live tragic lives.
B. The Growth of the Black Women
There is a motto of Irish Revolution – “You should sally out by yourself if you want liberty”—that’s fit for the black women absolutely. The black women must fight by themselves to win the liberty and rights. And also, people always say that where there is oppression, there is resistance. The black women’s situation is bad, but they never lose their faith. They are making unremitting efforts to find their ways to a better future. That’s their strength and growth.
Because of the slavery, grandma Baby Suggs was deprived of rights to be the others’ friend, daughter, wife, mother and so on, and she had seven children, but was allowed only to leave her little son Halle by her side. This is her only chance to be a mother. But at that time, the children of the slave mothers don’t belong to them; all of them are the private property of the slave owner, and like the tools of workers, they are treated equal to the livestock. Baby Suggs hates the Whites very much and she hopes there is a clear place left for her. But when the Whites break into the yard, she can do nothing, but just accept it, pondering color and waiting for death. Before she has been ransomed, she has no ideas about herself. After she gets freedom, she realizes that if the Blacks want to get liberty, they should know their own value, and learn to love themselves.
And for Denver, at the end of the Beloved, she finally realizes the only way to protect her mother is “She would have to leave the yard, step off the edge of the world, leave the two behind and go ask somebody for help” “Know it, and go on out the yard. Go on.” With the encouragement of her passed grandma, Denver finally has the courage to go out the yard, and found her first job, then the second, and the third. When Paul D wants to express his opinion about Beloved, she stops him, “I have my own.” Denver goes out of the yard with self-confidence, she knows who she is, and finally she has found her identity. The three women’s changes demonstrate the growing process of the black women. No matter how hard the situation is, they insist on their faith all the time.
II.Black Women Nowadays
Today, more and more people realize, thought some improvement of the black women’s social position, that it is a problem that the black women are still treated improperly. They have found the black women’s advantages and know they are as the same as other peoples. After constant struggles, the situation is getting better, and more and more black women are gradually accepted by the society.
After they are oppressed by racial discrimination and sex discrimination for several centuries, the black women not only begin to feed their family, but also become leaders of companies or stars in media. And some of them are even in the army or the government. There are also many black women in the national or world’s athletics competitions who continuously win the first place, and break the record. They do a very good job in many areas. For example, in literature, news, music, dance, drama, and science, they make very great contributions to both America and the world.All of them are talented, beautiful and thoughtful. They show their own strength and power to the whole world. For example, the Talk Show Queen Oprah Winfrey is a black, and also a woman. She grows up in a poor family, but never gives up her study. When she first takes a job as the host of a TV program, many people detests her because she is a black. She uses her amiable charm to win the confirmation and agreement. At that time, the talk show is dominated by man, but after Oprah’s appearance, the situation is changed. She shares her painful experiences and frustration with people. People love her program, and make an idol of her. Now, she is one of the most influential and richest women, and becomes a symbol of America. She says that she believes she can prove to the whole world with her struggle that there is a way to the truth.
Conclusion:
Through Beloved, Toni Morrison shows the process of growth of three generations of the black women. The old generation realized their miseries, but they do not know how to change the situation, so they just accept them; the second generation is unwilling to be oppressed, so they try to find a way out. At the end of the fiction, the third generation finally finds their own identity, and then begins to build up a better future.
Bibliography:
[1]Morrison, Toni:Beloved. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2000.
[2]Sharp, Saundra:Accidence of the Black Women. Beijing: East Press, 1998
[3]程锡麟, 王晓路:当代美国小说理论 [M]. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社,2001