The Reconstruction Of Individual, Family And Community

Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, is generally regarded as the greatest of black women writers. Her writings are mainly about the black people, especially the black women. Her fifth novel, Beloved, is regarded by many critics as her best work. Since its publication in 1987, Beloved has aroused a great deal of controversial. Despite the controversial, it has been considered to be a milestone in American literary history.Beginning with the Reconstruction era in 1873, Beloved tells of a story about the white oppression of the black people, both physically and mentally. Though slavery as an institution has ended, the discourse of slavery ideologies persists and prevails in post-slavery era, which leads to the distortion of the individual, family and the community. In Beloved, Morrison pays attention to the reconstruction of the black people selves and their family and community.By the reconstruction of selves I mean that the individual consciously, actively and creatively improves and advances the social status, capability, life style, knowledge level, personality mould, and also individual's struggling for them. By reconstruction of a family I mean that the black women's consciously, actively and creatively hold the family together and live with man harmoniously, while by the reconstruction of the community, I mean that the black women solidify together to challenge the racial discrimination and social prejudice.In terms of reconstruction Morrison firms her position of black women writer rooted in national culture. She gives the solution from three aspects—culture, sex, and race which respectively mean walking out of the past, sisterhood and self-independence and culture recognition and protection in Beloved. In my thesis, the main body consists of four chapters. Chapter One examines women writers'writing about the deconstruction of the individual, the family and the community under slavery. Under slavery, black slaves are treated as animals rather than human beings. Slavery claims ownership of all slaves, irrespective of age and gender, including the female slaves'children. The female slaves are separated from their husbands and children and sometimes insulted by their owners. The perverse forces of the institution of slavery are illuminated in Sethe's act of infanticide and the community members'isolation of Sethe.Chapter Two is about the black characters who try to face and walk out of the traumatic past in order to reshape a beautiful future for the individual, family and community from the cultural aspect. Beloved's appearance in flesh makes Sethe, her daughter, Denver, Paul D and the community members revisit the past, and walk out of the past.Chapter Three is concerned with the importance of the sister-like and mother-like love known as sisterhood in the arising of the black women's self-cherishment and dependence seeking consciousness during the reconstruction of the individual, family and community. This chapter is mainly about mother-like love among Sethe, Nan and Baby Suggs, and sister-like love between Amy and Sethe, and sisterhood between the house 124 and community.Chapter Four is about the importance of black culture, and black solidarity in the process of reconstruction. The black culture such as sermons, music, call-and-response and naming helps Sethe, her family, and the community to find their identity, which makes Sethe, her family members and the community become strong enough to face any difficulties during their reconstruction and after the reconstruction.Toni Morrison, as a black woman writer, highlights black female issues—their experiences, emotions, feeling, thoughts, their desire and their desperate struggle—all through their life. By analyzing her writings about black people, especially black women, the author aims at exploring the reconstruction theme in Morrison's novels from a new perspective, that is, the reconstruction of not only individual, but also of family and community.