Significance of the Research

1.1 Significance of the ResearchThis thesis analyzes Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, in which the black woman Sethe kills her daughter by sawing her head with a handsaw, and for this reason years later the little ghost comes back to revenge Sethe. In recent years, scholars have concentrated on analyzing Beloved’s literary features, themes and its contents. Every generation has its own understanding about the novel and its value. This thesis focuses on illustrating Sethe’s resentments against slavery. To a large extent, black women’s psychology, human nature and maternal love are distorted because of the long-term persecution of slavery, such as Sethe, who even kills her daughter. This thesis is digging out the different form and expression of maternal love in the novel Beloved by comparing it with normal maternal love. Under the oppression of cruel slavery and other factors aroused by it, black women have no choice but to do something seeming cruel. 1.2 Organization of the PaperThis thesis mainly analyzes the protagonist’s abnormal maternal love and its reasons. After an overall introduction, I will briefly present studies of this novel by scholars coming from home and abroad. The main part focuses on the motherhood of the black woman Sethe, especially stating the reasons of Sethe’s abnormal maternal love, including the cruelty of slavery, lacking of maternal love in her childhood and Schoolteacher’s oppression. At last, a conclusion will be given to terminate the thesis.1Chapter 2 Literature ReviewToni Morrison (1931- ) is one of the most famous contemporary black writers. Morrison pays great attention to black people and has written a series of novels concerning black people’s miserable fate...