Dissolution Of Dichotomy In Beloved

Toni Morrison, the first black woman writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, is one of America’s most outstanding, influential novelists. Beloved is her fifth novel and is considered as her masterpiece. Since its publication, many scholars have made great efforts to study it from various perspectives. Based on close textual reading, this thesis intends to interpret the dissolution of three pairs of dichotomy in this famous novel.Besides Introduction and Conclusion, this thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter One examines the dissolution of gender opposition within the black community. As both black men and women suffer a lot under slavery and racism, they should understand and support each other to have a better future life. Chapter Two analyzes the dissolution of dichotomy from the angle of race. In Beloved, Morrison subverts the stereotypes of whites as cruel oppressors and blacks as innocent victims, and to some extent the blacks and whites are reconciliated in the end. Chapter Three focuses on the fusion of African and western cultural elements in this novel. Only through the fusion of their native culture and western culture, can the African Americans survive and maintain their identities in the new world, especially in this new age of multiculturalism. In Beloved, Morrison’s depiction of the ex-slaves suggests her unremitting artistic pursuit of breaking the traditional pattern of dichotomy. What’s more, she constructs a harmonious coexistence transcending such oppositions. In brief, Morrison truly recreates the wounds dominated by oppositions in Beloved and draws more people’s concern with the fate of African Americans. As Morrison concerns most with the ordinary black people and their future as Afro-Americans, through the analysis of the dissolution of three pairs of oppositions, this thesis highlights Morrison’s critical thinking that the harmony of multi-element is the ultimate way to have a bright future.