An Eco-feministic Approach To The Black Women In Song Of Solomon

The Song of Solomon is the third novel of American black female writer Toni Morrison. Once it was published, the novel has gained great attention and won her lots of reputation. In this novel, Morrison by her distinctive perspective not only shows us the difficult living condition of African-American people, for trying to lead the African-American people to concern for black people’s history and traditional culture, but also discusses the relationship between African-American women’s fate and nature’s fate by looking into African-American people’s bitter life in order to advocating man paying more attention to human sustainable existence and development in the ecosystem as well as caring about women themselves. As a burgeoning theory, eco-feminism holds that women are closely linked with nature, and only when the discriminations against nature and woman were abandoned simultaneously that do we realize the harmonious coexistences between human and nature, man and woman, which happens to hold the same view with the central idea of the Song of Solomon. Therefore, combining eco-feminist theory and from the unique perspective of the black women images in Song of Solomon, the thesis will study the survival state of American-black women who are under the pressure of racism, sexism and patriarchy, which not only has an important significance to effectively solve the problems of race, gender and nature, but has benefit to building a harmonious ecosystem in which the relation between white people and colored people are equal, and between human and nature is healthy. The thesis consists of six parts:In introduction, the background of the subject is introduced briefly, as well as its literature review on Toni Morrison and Song of Solomon at home and abroad, theoretical significance, research approach this thesis applied and its innovation. In chapter one, the relevant basic theories, reviews, especially the eco-feminist theory and Morrison’s natural feminism are sorted and defined, and all the work in this part is aimed to provide theoretical support for the following text analysis. Chapter two interprets the tragic fates of American black women in the work of Song of Solomon by text analysis. Firstly, from the social and historical levels to explore the causes of the unfair treatment the American black women have suffered from; secondly, from the perspective of the loss of female subject identity to analyze the causes of the black women’s destiny tragedy; finally, from the ecological aspect to analyze how the black women correctly handle the relationship between woman and nature and heal themselves from trauma. Chapter three studies the embodiment of eco-feminism in Song of Solomon. It expresses the view that the fates of woman and nature are similar through three dimensions, including man’s destruction to nature, the man’s rule to woman, and the white’s oppression to the black. Chapter four mines the rising eco-feminist consciousness in the novel. The awakening of natural feminism comes true by respective efforts of black men and black women, and the self-consciousness of the black and the identification of black people’s traditional culture are strengthened. For example, black woman Pilate resists the brutal oppression of racism, sexism and patriarchy through the revolt of spirit and action, and black man Milkman implements the awakening of natural feminism by seeking the root which related to his ancestors. And this part also elaborates what it wants to achieve: the realization of equality between race and gender through redefining the social relationship between the black and the white, man and woman, and the establishment of harmonious ecological correlation between human and nature as well. The last part makes a conclusion for this thesis: bisexual harmony is the ultimate way of women’s liberation; and when saving the woman, correctly handling the relationships between human and nature,man and woman is the ultimate way to solve the problem of ecology and race.