_爵士乐_的黑人女性主义解读_王宪宇.docx

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1、摘要 摘要 托妮 莫里森是美国文学界最杰出的黑人女作家之一，她于 1993 年获得了诺贝尔文 学奖。在托妮 莫里森的作品中作者以其独特的视角，丰富的想象力对人物，语言及故 事情节进行了栩栩如生的描写，真实的再现了美国社会中黑人苦难生活，将不同黑人的 内心世界展现给读者。 小说爵士乐发表于 1992 年，作者再次将故事置于哈莱姆时期的社会背景中，这一 时期对美国白人意味着经济的繁荣、文化的不断创新，享乐之风 U 盛。然而在这一时期对 于美国黑人的生活境况来说，却并没有多大的改善。莫里森在这部小说中以优美的文笔 再现了美国历史上黑人由南到北、由农村到城市的迁移，以及发生在城市中的黑人男女之 间的爱

2、情与凶杀，从而向读者展示了黑人的基本生存状态及内心世界。由于种族和性别的 原因，黑人女性主义有其自身的特点，黑人女性所遭受的来自男权社会的压迫与白人女 性所受的是截然不同的 .黑人女性主义认为黑人女性受到了性别，阶级以及种族的多方面 的压迫。作为一名强调自己黑人身份和女性身份的非洲裔美国黑人女作家，她在作品中 一 直关注美国黑人 女性的生活。托妮 莫里森通过对这些遭受压迫的黑人妇女形象的刻 画阐述了她的黑人女性主义观点，她认为白人女性是不会帮助黑人妇女去争取她们应得 的权利与待遇。依靠一个或几个黑人女性的斗争也是不可能成功的，黑人女性唯有通过 沟通与相互帮助紧紧地团结起来与整个社会作斗争，才能

3、真正走上幸福之路。 本文从黑人女性主义角度对爵士乐进行深入地剖析。揭示作者的黑人女性主义 观点，找出美国社会黑人女性被压迫的真正原因，及这些压迫给黑人女性带来的苦难。 通过对小说分析找出黑人女性摆脱困境途径，获得幸福的生活方法。 全文共分四 部分： 第一部分：主要介绍作者托妮 莫里森的生平，小说爵士乐主要情节及其创作 的背景。作者在其他作品中所体现的黑人女性主义观点。以及文献综述和本文的创新点。 第二部分：本文的理论部分。这一部分主要介绍女性主义，女性主义文学批评，黑 人女性主义的发展。揭示黑人妇女在美国社会中所受的压迫。 第三部分：黑人女性主义在爵士乐中的具体体现。以及黑人女性主义的特点。

4、从黑人女性主义角度分析小说爵士乐中黑人女性人物的性格特点和她们所遭受的压 迫。揭示作者在爵士乐中的黑人女性主义观点。通过分析小说中黑人女性 人物之间 关系，找出黑人女性摆脱困境，获得幸福生活的途径。 第四部分：对全文的总结。 关键词：黑人女性主义；男性中心主义；爱情；压迫 Abstract Abstract Toni Morrison is one of the most prominent American black women writers. In 1993, she won the Nobel Prize for literature. In these works, Morriso

5、n makes a vivid description of characters, languages and stories with her unique perspective and rich imagination, which also realistically reproduced miserable life of black people and show the inner world of different blacks to her readers. Jazz, which was published in 1992, the author placed the

6、story in the background of Harlem period, which means economic prosperity, cultural innovation and the wider spread of pleasure-seeking to white Americans. But in this period, the living condition of African Americans had little improvement. Moixison using graceful words reproduced the blacks5 migra

7、tion from South to North, from rural areas to the cities, and the love and murder which occurred between men and women in urban blacks, so as to reveal their real living conditions and inner world. Due to the race and gender, black feminism has its own characteristics. Black women have suffered the

8、oppression which are from the male society are totally different from the oppressions of white women. Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together. As an African-American black writer who is always emphasizing her black identity and female identity,

9、 she has been paying attention to American black womens lives in her works. Through describing these oppressed black in her novels, Toni Morrison expounded her viewpoint of black feminism. She thinks that white women won5t help black women to fight for their deserved rights and treatments. Depending

10、 on one or a few black womens struggle can not be successful. Only when black women unite closely through communication and help each other to struggle with the whole society, then they will get happiness. This article deeply analyses Jazz from the perspective black feminism in order to reveal the a

11、uthor viewpoint on black feminism and find out the real reasons of oppression of black women, which brings blacks suffering. After analyzing the novel, find it out the approach of getting out of the oppression and eventually live a happy life. The article is divided into four parts: The first part m

12、ainly introduces the author Toni Morrison biography, the main plot and background of the novel Jazz. By analyzing the two typical black women, this thesis will reveal Toni Morrisons black feminism viewpoint based on her other works. And it introduces the literature and innovation of this paper. The

13、second part is a theoretical part. This part mainly introduces feminism, feminism literary criticism, the development of black feminism and the oppression of black women in American society. - ii- Abstract The third part mainly is black feminism in Jazz. In this part the thesis will mainly discuss t

14、he characteristics of black feminism, and emphasize Morrisons viewpoint of black feminism in Jazz. From the perspective of black feminism, this thesis will analyze the traits of black women in Jazz and their oppression. At last, this thesis will point out the approach of getting rid of their dilemma

15、 and live a happy life. The fourth part summarizes the whole paper. Key words : Black feminist; Androcentrism; love; oppression -in. Contents Contents 觀 . | Abstract . . . II 1 Introduction . 1 1.1 Toni Morrison and Her Jazz . 1 1,2The Overview of Toni Morrison on Black Feminism in Her Other Works .

16、 4 1.3 Literature Review: . 7 2 Black Feminism . 9 2.1 Feminism and Feminist Literary Criticism . 9 2.2 The Development of Black Feminism . 10 2.3The Oppression of Black Women by Men in American Society . 14 2.3.1 . The Suffering of Black Women in American Society . 17 3. The Black Feminism in Jazz

17、. 21 3.1 The Feature of Black Feminism . 21 3.2 Toni Morrisons Viewpoint of Black Feminism in Jazz . 22 3.3The Oppression of the 巳 lack Female Characters in Jazz . 23 3.3.1 Alice the Powerless Traditional Black Woman . 23 3.3.2Dorcas the Radical Black Woman . 24 3.3.3Violet the Tolerant and Self-awa

18、reness Black Woman . 27 3.4 Black Womens Way of Gaining Happiness . 29 3.4.1 Close Sisters - the Communication and Care between Violet and Alice . 29 3.4.2As a Happy Family - the Help among Violet, Joe and Felice. 32 4. Conclusion . 36 Notes . 38 Bibliography . 41 Papers Published in the Period of M

19、.A. Education . 43 Acknowledgements . 44 -IV- 1 Introduction 1 Introduction 1.1 Toni Morrison and Her Jazz Toni Morrison, the first black woman who received a Nobel Prize in Literature, was bom Chloe Anthony Wolford on February 18,1931 in Lorain, Ohio, U.S.A. She was the second of four children of G

20、eorge Wofford, a shipyard welder and Ramah Willis Wofford. Her parents moved to Ohio from the South to escape racism and to find better opportunities in the North. Her father was a hardworking and dignified man. While the children were growing up, he worked three jobs at the same time for almost 17

21、years. He took a great deal of pride in the quality of his work, so that each time he welded a perfect seam he， d also weld his name onto the side of the ship. He also made sure to be well-dressed, even during the Depression. Her mother was a church-going woman and she sang in the choir. At home, Ch

22、loe heard many songs and tales of Southern black folklore. The Woffords were proud of their heritage* Lorain was a small industrial town populated with immigrant Europeans, Mexicans and Southern blacks who lived next to each other. Chloe attended an integrated school. In her first grade, she was the

23、 only black student in her class and the only one who could read. She was friends with many of her white schoolmates and did not encounter discrimination until she started dating. She hoped one day to become a dancer like her favorite ballerina, Maria Tallchief, and she also loved to read. Her early

24、 favorites were the Russian writers Tolstoy and Dostoyevski, French author Gustave Flaubert and English novelist Jane Austen. She was an excellent student and she graduated with honors from Lorain High School in 1949. In 1949, she began to study in Howard University where her major was English, and

25、minor was classical literature. After graduating with B.A. in 1953 from Howard, she received a Masters of Literature at Cornell University in 1955, where she completed a thesis on William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. From 1965 to 1984, she started her academic career at Texas Southern University, Ho

26、ward， Yale University， and since 1989, she held a chair-professor at Princeton University as the first black woman writer to hold this position there and she was also the first black woman writer to hold a named chair at an Ivy League University. She has also worked as an editor for Random House, a

27、critic, and has given numerous public lectures, specializing in African-American literature. In 1967 she was transferred to New York and became a senior editor at Random House. While editing books by prominent black Americans like Muhammad Ali, Andrew Young and Angela Davis, she was busy sending her

28、 own novel to various publishers. The Bluest Eye was eventually published in 1970 to much critical acclaim, although it was not commercially successful. From 1971-1972 Morrison was the associate professor of English at the State University of New York at Purchase while she continued working at Rando

29、m House. In addition, she soon started writing her second 东北林、丨 k 人学硕丄学位论文 novel where she focused on a friendship between two adult black women. Sula was published in 1973. It became an alternate selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club. Excerpts were published in the Redbook magazine and it was nom

30、inated for the 1975 National Book Award in fiction. From 1976-1977, she was a visiting lecturer at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She was also writing her third novel. This time she focused on strong black male characters. Her insight into male world came from watching her sons. Song of

31、Solomon was published in 1977. It won the National Book Critic Circle Award and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Morrison was also appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Council on the Arts. In 1981 she published her fourth novel, Tar Baby, where for the fir

32、st time she describes interaction between black and white characters. Her picture appeared on the cover of the March 30, 1981 issue of the Newsweek magazine. In 1983, Morrison left her position at Random House, having worked there for almost twenty years. In 1984 she was named the Albert Schweitzer

33、Professor of the Humanities at the State University of New York in Albany. While living in Albany, she started writing her first play, Dreaming Emmett. It was based on the true story of Emmett Till, a black teenager killed by racist whites in 1955 after being accused of whistling at a white woman. T

34、he play premiered January 4, 1986 at the Marketplace Theater in Albany. Morrison next novel, Beloved, was influenced by a published story about a slave, Margaret Gamer, who in 1851 escaped with her children to Ohio from her master in Kentucky. When she was about to be re-captured, she tried to kill

35、her children rather than return them to life of slavery. Only one of her children died and Margaret was imprisoned for her deed. She refused to show remorse, saying she was unwilling to have her children suifer as she had done.” Beloved was published in 1987 and was a bestseller. In 1988 it won the

36、Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In 1987, Toni Morrison was named the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of Humanities at Princeton University. She became the first black woman writer to hold a named chair at an Ivy League University. While accepting, Morrison said, 6tI take teaching as seriously

37、as I do my writing.55 She taught creative writing and also took part in the African-American studies, American studies and womens studies programs. She also started her next novel, Jazz, about life in the 1920?s. The book was published in 1992. In 1993, Toni Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Lite

38、rature. She was the eighth woman and the first black woman to do so. From her writings， Morrison can find a kind of satisfaction. As she says cleaning-up the past has become a necessity and a possibility by using this way, she could combine the world and fictions together Toni Morrisons special writ

39、ing broadens the road of African American literature， and her contributions to the world are great. Jazz is a novel of Toni Morrison， and is also a milestone that marks her work rising to a new level. In this novel, the major characters9 hard work and conflicts the historical vicissitude of I Introd

40、uction American blacks since Civil War, all of this is displayed by a life and death love story. When the writer wrote this novel, she used the skills of jazz music, which expresses the unique creative style of Toni Morrison. So in this novel, the narrative techniques are full of changes; the time a

41、nd space are converted and the plots are interlaced. In order to evade the poverty and violence, Joe of the black and his wife violet came to the metropolis from the South to make a living. Twenty years later? the love and dream of the couple have been lost in the city. What worse, depressed Joe fel

42、l in love with a black girl called Dorcas who was only eighteen years old. The same unfortunate childhood experiences of Dorcas and Joe made them comforting and satisfied. When discovering Dorcas intercourse with another boy, Joe can not accepted the reality which leads to a murder- Joe shot Dorcas

43、to death in a party. At Dorcas5 fimeral, crazy Violet appeared on the burial rites wanting to troiince the girl who was already lain in the coffin. But things go contrary to her wishes, she was driven away by others who cared for Dorcas, Joe became depressed all the day. To save her husband heart, Violet tried t