An Interpretation Of Love From The Perspective Of Female Gothic

Toni Morrison(1931-) is the first African American female writer to win the Nobel prize for literature and the first African American female writer to be awarded the Nobel prize. She is a very bright pearl in the world literature, leading to the black women’s literature becoming an indispensable part of the United States and the world literature where her works are representative. Morrison’s thought is profound, with her works highlighting her racial identity and gender characteristics. In use of race and gender and beyond them and in the ideal of gender harmony and cultural fusion, Morrison’s works contributed to the black culture transferring from the edge to the mainstream. As Toni Morrison’s ninth novel, Love is a peak masterpiece of her writing career. Set in a black seashore resort during the 1940 s and the 1950 s, the novel depicts life and love of people living there. The novel tells the rise and fall of a black business family, love and hate between people and the injuries women suffer. Love which differs from her early novels and traditional feminist works, jumps out of the persecution of women by the white mainstream culture and explore the inner issues of black people, and through external images such as space and environment and the internal association within plots and characters, it vividly embodies the heroines’ anxiety and fear of their gender and identity. This feature is actually the core and focus Female Gothic theory lays emphasis on.Female Gothic theory originated from the 19 th century; formally proposed and defined by theorists Ellen Morse in the 1970 s, the theory gained further development and deepening in the seventies and eighties of the 20 th century; by the late 20 th century, "Female Gothic" was given a more modernist features. Female Gothic shifts its focus to the "fear" of psychological and physiological reading experience, thus weakening the traditional Gothic supernatural. Female Gothic blames heroines’ anxiety and fear of their gender and identity for their "fear", arguing that gender-oriented interpersonal relationship, the female space, the shackles of patriarchy family relationships and the institution of marriage bring anxiety to women. And by means of rendering inner closed environment, depicting strange suspense plot and characterizing multidimensional figures, the theory shows heroines’ anxiety and fear of their gender and identity. "Female Gothic is a literary form to give the female rights of speech, and Female Gothic works are available to writers and feminist critics, because the works provide a broad space for their psychological analysis on the social roots of modern females’ psychological trauma and depressive personality.In love, Morrison uses the enclosed background-- a dilapidated hotel to reflect females’ inner anxiety and fear; through female gothic plots including bizarre marriage experience and circuitous friendship development,it aims to reveal marriage, family and interpersonal relationships within patriarchal society; with the hero being hypocritical and the heroines suffering bitter experiences, it is aimed at exploring female Gothic characters’ inner repression, fear, anxiety and struggle. Meanwhile, mysterious and closed space, the horror and weird inner world and circuitous suspense time-space have undoubtedly injected typical female gothic factors into this masterpiece. This paper intends to analyze Female Gothic literary theory and its characteristics from the perspective of character, environment, space and the plot and so on, and further interpret this typical female gothic work love.