摘 要

随着全球人口的快速流动，关于少数族裔的身份问题持续升温，相关分析近年来也逐渐增多。作为人类社会的重要反映，文学作品是分析身份问题的一大入口。在美国的少数族裔作家中，近年来非裔作家尤其值得注意。作为第一位且是唯一的一位荣获诺贝尔文学奖的女性非裔美国作家，托妮·莫里森凭借其高超的写作技艺以及其对于美国黑人文化的深刻理解，在美国文学历史上占据着重要地位。本文选其第五本小说《宠儿》，探索书中女性自我意识的觉醒，尤其是其中的黑人女性，例如塞丝。基于近距离的文本阅读和人物分析，本文旨在为书中女性自我身份的觉醒提供较为全面的分析与阐释。本文分为四个部分：第一部分从心理学角度介绍自我同一性的含义，并简要探讨了书中的女性身份；第二部分具体阐述书中的女性角色；第三部分分析自我身份意识的觉醒之路；最后一部分为全文的总结。

关键词：托妮·莫里森；《宠儿》；黑人女性；自我身份

Abstract

As the global population mobility accelerates, the issue about the identity of the minorities has become heated and therefore the relevant analyses have increased in recent years. As an important reflection of the human society, the literature works are a good way to analyze the identity problem. Among the minority writers in America, the African American writers have been notable in those years. As the first and the only African American female writer who has been awarded the Nobel Prize, Toni Morrison stands in the history of American literature with her consummate writing techniques and the deepest insight for American Black culture. This paper chooses her fifth novel, Beloved to probe the awakening of women’s self-identity, especially the black women, such as Sethe, the protagonist in Beloved. Based on the close textual reading and character analysis, this paper aims to provide a virtually comprehensive analysis and illustration for the awakening of women’s self-identity. There are four parts in this paper: The first part is an introduction to the self-identity from the perspective of psychology and the specific discussion on women’s identity. The second part is an elaboration of the female characters in the book. The third part illustrates the awakening and construction of self-identity through several generations. The final part is the conclusion of whole paper.

Key Words: Toni Morrison; Beloved; African American female; self-identity

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Self-Identity 3

2.1 Definition of self-identity from the perspective of psychology 3

2.2 Specific discussion on women’s identity 4

3 Elaborations on the Female Characters in Beloved 6

3.1 Women of the older generation 6

3.1.1 Baby Suggs 6

3.1.2 Sethe’s mother 7

3.2 Women of middle-aged generation: Sethe 8

3.3 Women of young generation 9

4 Awakening and Construction of Women’s Self-Identity 10

4.1 Connection with the black community 10

4.2 Family ties and social relations 11

4.3 Rememory brought by external stimulus 12

4.4 Impact of the white people 14

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 18

On the Awakening of Women’s Self-Identity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved

1 Introduction

As the population mobility accelerates, the analysis on the identity of minorities in America has increased a lot in recent years. As a reflection of human society, the literature constitutes a good way to analyze the identity problem and to express the opinions about the identity issues. African Americans are the unique ones among people who come to America, the new continent. They come to America not out of their own will but being sold there, maltreated there and finally get freedom there. Therefore, their identity problem is much more complicated. Among the African American writers, Toni Morrison plays a very important role in the contemporary American literature. She is good at creating the detailed and specific characters in her works. Different from the popular documentary writing at her time, she aims to talk about the psychological pains of the black people, which makes her works deeper in thoughts and has a broad meaning for the whole human being. (Wang, 2009) Her fifth novel Beloved is a good illustration for her adroit writing skills and the painful history of her people. The female characters in this book are most notable. In Morrison’s works, the female characters are usually more powerful and stronger than the male counterparts. Even if Morrison denies that she has a feminist tendency, the female characters in Beloved actually experience the self development which is advocated by the feminists. To some degree, they all experience the process of the awakening of women’s self-identity through several generations.

Toni Morrison is firstly introduced to China in the 1980s. After Toni Morrison wins the Nobel Prize, the research on her novels soars greatly. In those years, the research and studies on her works have increased a lot and some of her works are included into the college textbooks. As for Beloved, the foreign and domestic researches mainly focus on the description of the painful African American history, such as the racism, slavery, and trauma from the thematic perspective, the narrative techniques in her works, such as magical realism and the legends and myths originating from the African traditions and inheritance, (Yang, 2011) and the analysis of certain characters, especially the intriguing image of Beloved. During the research history of more than 30 years, some specific study methods have been employed to analyze the African American female writer, such as the traditional ideologically socio-realism (Jiang, 2002), comparative study (Xiu, 2012) and the feminist perspective in recent years. However, the specific illustration on the characters in Beloved has not been given enough attention. The former papers tend to discuss the female characters respectively instead of seeing them as the development process of the awakening of self-identity.

Based on a close textual reading and the character analysis, this paper aims to provide a virtually comprehensive illustration for the awakening of the self-identity of the female African Americans. It also tries to find out some details and points being neglected. The former analyses tend to ignore the significance of the white characters for the awakening of the Black people’s self-identity, such as Amy Denver, the white girl Sethe met during her fugitive process and the schoolteacher at Sweet Home. Besides, the concept of self-identity needs to be expounded further. This paper shall talk about the definition of self-identity from the perspective of psychology so that people shall have a clearer understanding for the relatively new concept. In conclusion, this paper is designed to provide some new thoughts in the current researches on Beloved.

2 Self-Identity

2.1 Definition of self-identity from the perspective of psychology

Self-identity is a concept first proposed by Erikson in 1963. However, since its first usage, it has been a confusing concept in various fields, such as social psychology, personality psychology, and cultural psychology. It can be defined in many ways and with various psychological theories. In terms of the western psychology, different scholars hold relatively similar views towards the ideas of ego, self, and self-identity currently. To crystallize the ideas of those scholars, self-identity concerns the question of who we are. In the definition by Merriam-Webster, it refers to the sameness of a thing with itself. According to the explanation of Erikson, self-identity mainly consists of three parts: ego-identity, personal identity and social identity.

The ego-identity is much similar to the idea proposed by Sigmund Freud as ego which comes into being during the childhood generally. According to Freud, the ego comes from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed and achieved in an acceptable manner in the society. The earliest concept of ego-identity is based on the idea of Freud’s ego (Guo, 2003). During the development of an individual, ego develops mainly in the childhood and adolescence. The formation of identity actually is the reflection of the ego’s maturity.

The personal identity emphasizes the personality, in other words, the individual choices in terms of values and faiths. Generally speaking, the personal identity is about the self-assessment. Firstly, the individual tends to judge his own personality attributes. For example, when an individual introduces himself, he will use the following adjectives to describe himself: introverted or extraverted. Secondly, the individual evaluates his abilities in work and life: whether he is smart or slow in mind. Moreover, he will describe himself according to his physical attributes and his hobbies. Finally, any person has his own morals and values pertaining to the society and the personal conducts in the society.

Obviously, the social identity is closely related to the social institutions and the environment around the individual. The individual must develop his identity under the influence of the group and society. Actually, the social identity to some extent determines both the ego-identity and the personal identity. People live in a world with many other people and the external world thus plays a vital role in defining the identity of each person. Social identity explains that people define themselves by the social categories such as nationality, religious group and family. It includes memberships of social groups and the perceptions and behaviors associated with those groups.

2.2 Specific discussion on women’s identity

As a reflection of the social values, women’s image always plays the role of the mirror of specific history and culture and the development of the society. Since the first feminist movement, the issue on women’s identity has been on the spotlight both in the real world and the literary works. Even though Toni Morrison refuses to regard herself as a feminist, her attention to the identity of the African American female still accounts for much in her works. It is an intriguing phenomenon that Morrison likes to create the weak male characters and the strong female characters. For example, in Beloved, the two sons of Sethe flees from 124 because of the scare and cowardice while the only daughter Denver stays and becomes the one who walks out of 124 to ask for help. This paper does not analyze her novel from the feminist view but endeavors to discuss the identity possibilities of the female in the family, the community and the whole society and the confronted difficulties due to the physiological factors and the historical factors.

The female identity is not inborn but be constructed by the individual and the society. The biological characteristics of a female cannot determine her identity totally. Admittedly, the identity of being a female is decided biologically to some extent. That constitutes the basis for constructing the women’s identity. Without the existence of the male, the concept of woman would not exist either. Nevertheless, apart from the physical difference between the male and the female, the other features of a female are put by the society and the traditional values about women. The characteristics of a woman are determined by both the internal factors and the external ones. Thus, in human society, the identity of the female is to some extent out of the female’s control. However, in Beloved, the features of female and male are some kind of overturned. Females play the role of leader, both in the family and the black community and males play the role of healer for the pains and sadness of women.