The Pursuit Of Harmonious Personality

The thesis attempts to conduct an androgynous interpretation of Morrison's three novels,which are respectively Sula,Song of Solomon and Tar Baby.Its aim is to put forward and prove the idea.that Toni Morrison shows her androgynous concern in her fictional works.In the process of composition,the author selects characters from the above mentioned three novels to fit into three distinctive stages according to the transmuting sequence,namely,the incomplete one psycho-sex stage,the embryonic androgynous stage and the ideal androgynous stage.Through the discussion of these three distinctive stages,the androgynous connotation embedded in Morrison's three novels is fully probed into from different angles.Then the author further puts forward that only the harmonious androgynous personality is the ideal pursuit in Morrison's fictional world, and even in reality.This dissertation consists of six parts,including the introductory part,four chapters and the conclusive part.In the introductory part,a general survey of Toni Morrison and her works,and a brief review of the three novels concerning the present study are made. Besides,the purpose and significance of this thesis are stated in this part.The first chapter focuses on the discussion of some basic concepts related with gender theory,particularly the very knowledge of gender roles and androgyny.Via the discussion of this part,it provides a fairly good theoretical foundation for the following textual analysis.In the second chapter,Macon Dead from Song of Solomon and Jadine from Tar Baby are classified into the state of incomplete one psycho-sex to represent two extremes in terms of gender roles.Macon,who pertinaciously carries through the alleged gender propriety,makes himself a living specimen of masculine chauvinism, while Jadine completely shuns off her womanhood and feminine traits without any discernment.However,both of them sense their unsatisfactory life of one psycho-sex, which,from the reverse side,stresses the significance of the pursuit of ideal androgynous model.The third chapter argues that in her second novel Sula,Morrison makes androgynous characterization of her two protagonists Sula and Nel.Though they are androgynous,they don't exhibit balanced acquisition of masculinity and femininity,for which they both pay the deplorable price.And due to their unbalanced acquisition of masculinity and femininity,they still detain themselves in the embryonic state of androgyny,with a further step required to orient towards the ideal state of androgyny.The fourth chapter verifies Pilate from Song of Solomon as an apt exemplification of the ideal state of androgyny that Morrison shapes in her works.Besides,the significance of androgyny both in the literary world and in the social context is surveyed in this chapter.Finally,the Conclusion of this thesis makes a summary of the three distinctive stages mentioned above.Besides,the thesis statement is restated in this section:the harmonious androgynous personality is the ideal pursuit for Morrison's characters in her fictional world;and for Morrison,the either/or logic of male or female consciousness is not wholesome for individuals,and the both/and logic of androgyny seems to be an ideal solution "to help free the human personality from the restricting prison of sex-role stereotyping."...