南 京 晓 庄 学 院
本 科 生 学 士 学 位 论 文
从芭芭拉·史密斯的黑人女性主义批评视角看《宠儿》的弑婴母题童话的歌词
ON THE MOTIF OF INFANTICIDE IN BELOVED FROM PERSPECTIVE OF BARBARA SMITH’S BLACK FEMINIST CRITICISM
所在院（系）： 行 知 学 院
学 生： 张 林 枫krumping
笑嘻嘻笑嘻嘻指 导 老 师： 陈 永
研究起止日期：2010年naturein6月至2011fullscale>北大青鸟培训课程年4月
二○一一年四月
Abstract and Key Words
杯酒人生下载Abstract: Beloved by Toni Morrison is taken as the best of Morrison’s works. Bad on the real story of Margaret Garner, a black woman, Morrison has prented a full picture of the mirable situation of the black women under the oppression of slavery. The prent thesis attempts to make a tentative study on infanticide from perspective of Babara Smith’s black feminism theory. It mainly analyzes Sethe’s infanticide and prents what prompts her to kill her baby. Sethe is constantly expod to the traumas under the oppression of slavery, racism and xism, and her infanticide indicates her lf-consciousness and resistance to the oppressions.
Key words: infanticide; black feminism; Sethe
摘要：托尼·莫里森的《宠儿》被誉为莫里森的最杰出的著作。小说的原型来源于玛格丽特·加纳，一个女黑奴的真实经历。本文试图从芭芭拉史密斯的黑人女性主义理论角度探究这部小说的弑婴主题。本文着重分析塞丝的弑婴经历，并剖析其原因。在奴隶制、种族主义以及性别歧视三重压迫下，塞丝身心遭受巨大的折磨。塞丝的弑婴意味着她的觉醒和反抗。
关键词：挤压英文弑婴；黑人女性主义；塞丝
gacCONTENTS
On the Motif of Infanticide in Beloved from the Perspective of Barbara Smith’s Black Feminist Criticism
1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Beloved and Toni Morrison
Beloved prents the truths that even history sometimes fails to deliver. Morrison dedicates the novel to “Sixty Million and More” slaves and acknowledges the freedom that all the slaves yearned for (There, 2001). The publication of Beloved in 1987 shakes the American literary world, and is heralded as a milestone in American literary history.
关爱他人
Set in the Reconstruction era (1870-90) after the Civil War and emancipation, the novel revolves around a child murder ca committed by a desperate slave mother in Cincinnati, Ohio for protecting her daughter from the potential sufferings of slavery. It is inspired by a true story of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave from Kentucky who cho death for herlf and her children rather than suffering from the miry and indignity of slavery. However, she succeeded only in killing one and the rest were recaptured and sold. Morrison transplants the true story into the novel and creates the mother infanticide Sethe, and the dead baby Beloved (Andrews, 1999). This novel penetrates deeply into the hearts of black women and reveals their agonies and distorted maternal love under the multiple oppressions of xism, racism and class prejudices impod on black women.
Toni Morison is the first black female writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is hailed as a remarkable reprentative of black female writers. She believes that she is a “black woman novelist”, as she says, “As a black and a woman, I have access to a range of emotions and perceptions that were unavailable to people who were neither.” (Caldwell,
1994: 243)
Throughout her life, Toni Morrison has contributed to the study and development of black and women literature. In addition to Beloved, she has written even more novels. As a matter of fact, Morrison’s novels are cloly associated with two notions: “black” and “female”. Seven out of her eight novels are drawn from women’s unique experiences. In her writings, Morrison is dedicated to breaking the stereotyped black female figures portrayed in the canon of American literature,vividly creates a wide range of new images of black women, and prents the black women’s subjectivity. Besides, Morrison is also engaged in the description of black men and their relationship with women. Morrison’s great concern over the issues of black men exerts profound influence on other black women writers and stimulates the shift of the focus in black feminist criticism. Toni Morrison clearly knows her responsibility as an American black woman writer. She takes prenting the American social realities and destinies of common Americans as her major tasks. In Toni Morrison’s works, it is easy to perceive her nsitive insight, elegant language, talented writing and her honesty and outspokenness, with which she is able to
reexamine the black people’s experiences, especially the black women’s struggling against xism, racism and classism.
1.2 Introduction to Black Feminism
Black feminism is deep-rooted in the struggles of black women for generations. The introduction of black feminism into literature is of great importance. Among the black feminism critics, Barbara Smith is a forerunner. In her landmark essay “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism” published in 1977, Barbara Smith names black feminist criticism and explicitly states the three points: first, feminist criticism must recognize the long literary history of black women becau “black women writers constitute an identifiable literary tradition which parallels the tradition of Black men and white women”.(Showalter, 1985:174) Second, black feminist critics should “look first for precedents and insights in interpretation within works of other Black women.” (Showalter, 1985:175) Third, the politics of x and the politics of race and gender are critically interlocked in the writings of Black women writers. Beloved reveals Barbara Smith’s two basic principles that black f
eminist criticism is expected to follow. Morrison agrees with the notion that “the politics of x as well as the politics of race and class are crucially interlocking factors” (Showalter, 1985:170). Therefore, she makes an intensive analysis of how complexities of class, race, and x affect black women and the whole Afro-American ethnic group.
