Afro-american’s Negative Ethical Choices Under Racial Oppression In Sula

From the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism and Post-Colonial Criticism,the thesis interprets Afro-American’s negative ethical choices in Toni Morrison’s novel Sula,analyzes the underlying cause for Afro-American’s negative ethical choices--racial oppression,and discusses the negative influences that racial oppression brings to Afro-American’s ethical choices.By the interpretation and analysis of Afro-American’s negative ethical choices and the negative influences that racial oppression brings to Afro-American’s ethical choices,the thesis conveys the writer Toni Morrison’s condemnation to racial oppression,concerns about Afro-American’s weakened ethical awareness and ethical enlightenment that readers should cherish their own lives,get along well with others,and be in harmony with nature.The thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is the introduction.First of all,the thesis introduces the major content and the writing background of the novel Sula.And then,it makes a literature review of relevant domestic and foreign research on Toni Morrison and Sula.Finally,the part of theoretical background makes an introduction of the theoretical foundation of this thesis,which are Ethical Literary Criticism and Post-Colonial Criticism.In the second chapter,according to the theories of literary ethical criticism that have mentioned in the first chapter,the thesis analyzes the negative ethical choices in the text from three aspects: individual and himself,individual and others,and human and nature.In the third chapter,the thesis interprets the underlying cause for Afro-American’s negative ethical choices--racial oppression that embodies in the novel Sula from the post-colonial criticism perspective,and classifies the specific manifestations of racial oppression in the text into expelling residential region,constructing negative “identity”,depriving political right and dominating spiritual world.The forth chapter discusses the negative influences of racial oppression on Afro-American’s ethical choice,which can be divided into two points.The one impact is the reducing of the selectivity of ethical choices and the another influence is the distorting of the value of ethical selectors.Finally,by summarizing the contents of the previous four chapters,the fifth chapter discusses Toni Morrison’s thought and ethical enlightenment that she wants to express in the novel Sula.