Abstract: Toni Morrison is a worldwide famous African-American female writer. She won the Nobel Prize in literature with her peak work Beloved, which helped her to achieve the literary status as the first winner of black female writers in the world. This novel accuses slavery of its severe harm to African-Americans physically and mentally. The black women, in particular, suffer a lot under the stress of slavery, racism and sexism. Not only are their bodies and emotion violated, but even their subjective consciousness is deprived. From a black feminist approach, this novel intends to discuss how the subjective consciousness of three main woman characters in Beloved recovers from loss under the triple stress, and reveals the real writing intention of Toni Morrison. She calls on the black women to reconstruct their subjective consciousness by confronting the past and condensing the ethnic spirit. Only in this way can they walk out of the shadow of slavery and achieve their real self-liberation. 

Key words: black feminist approach; black females; triple stress; subjective consciousness

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Introduction of Toni Morrison and Beloved-1

1.2 Previous Studies on Beloved-4

1.3 Black Feminism-7

2. Loss of Subjective Consciousness of Black Females under Triple Stress-8

2.1 Brutal Slavery-9

2.2 Racial Oppression-10

2.3 Sexual Discrimination-12

3. Recovery of Subjective Consciousness of Black Females in Beloved-13

3.1 The Awakening of Subjective Consciousness-13

3.2 The Deepening of Subjective Consciousness-15

3.3 The Expanding of Subjective Consciousness-16

4. Implication of Construction of Subjective Consciousness in Beloved-17

4.1 Confrontation to the Past- The Key to the Construction of Subjective-17

Consciousness-17

4.2 Ethnic Spirit–The Root of the Construction of Subjective Consciousness-18

5. Conclusion-20

References-21