奴隶叙事

奴隶叙事（精选3篇）

奴隶叙事 篇1

1 Introduction

1.1 Literary Background to Toni Morrison's Writing

The appeal of Contemporary American Novelist Toni Morrison's work crosses racial,cultural and class boundaries.Her novels are studied for their insight into both black culture(deeply rooted in black folklore,music and story-telling)and feminist theories and are enthusiastically read by black and white readers alike.Her race and gender play a very important part in her writing.Morrison regards herself as a"black woman novelist"(Caldwell in Taylor-Guthrie,1993:243)and identifies her own work with"a black style,an ineffable quality that is curiously black"(McKay,1988:57).As a black author Morrison writes not only from a colored perspective,but also from the viewpoint of a woman and an American.These three terms—black,woman,and American—suggest three literary contexts for all of Morrison's novels.By the 1970s a synthesis developed between the Women's Rights Movement and the Black Rights Movement yielding pioneering black female writers such as Maya Angelou,and Alice Walker.Black women from this point began to write about their experiences with a strong sense of black female history.Morrison further developed these complex racial and gender topics.Besides her widely acclaimed fifth novel Beloved,which was published in 1987,she has written five other novels:The Bluest Eye(1970),Sula(1974),Song of Solomon(1977),Tar Baby(1981),Jazz(1992)which appeared simultaneously with her first critical publication,Playing in the Dark(1992)and Paradise(1997).Beloved is a representative work of Toni Morrison When it was first published in September 1987.It created a sensation in the American literary world.Indeed,it was commonly regarded within the sphere of literary criticism as"a milestone in the chronicling of the black experience in American literary history"(Laura,1996:7)

1.2 A general summary of Beloved

Beloved is a historical novel rooted in history.As senior editor at Random House,Morrison contributed to a project in the early1970s,The Black Book,which she called"a genuine black history book—one that simply recollected black life as lived"(Morrison1974b:89).The book not only unveils the reality of black life from slavery to freedom,but also exhibits the black cultural tradition The book tells many stories of African Americans life that has been either whitewashed or forgotten in either literature or history.Morrison was inspired to write Beloved because of the story of Margare Garner,a fugitive slave who killed one of her children and tried to kill the other three to"end their sufferings,rather than have them taken back to slavery,and murdered by piecemeal"(Cosby,197410).Beloved is a fictionalised reconstruction of the story of Margare Garner.Setting in Cincinnati,Ohio in the year 1873,Beloved(1987tells of the slave,Sethe,who,unable to tolerate physical and emotional tortures any longer in desperation drags her pregnant body to escape from Sweet Home plantation,but continues to endure the hardship of her flight.Although she crossed the"River of Hell"rea freedom was to elude her.After only twenty-eight days,Schoolteacher comes to catch Sethe.In abject despair and determined she will never allow her children to submit to the same sexual abuse and indignity that she has had to suffer,She killed one of her children.Therefore,Sethe is"buried alive"in the metaphorical tomb for the guilty of the crime of killing her own offspring.The whites put her into prison;the abolitionists regard her as political pawn;even her black compatriots regard her as a blood-sucking beast due to the murder.For eighteen years she vehemently struggled with the emotional pain borne from her extreme action.During this time she failed to establish contact with her missing husband,unsure as to whether he was alive or dead.Furthermore,her two sons left her,and her mother-in-law,her one pillar of support,died.Her tragic situation is compounded when she is haunted by the incarnation of her murdered daughter which constantly reminds her of that period of history upon which it is unbearable to reflect—her personal history mirroring the history of the whole black world.

2 Reconfiguring the Female Traditional Slave Narra-tive

2.1 Examining the characteristics of the female traditional slave narrative

In the nineteenth century,most printed black literature consisted of slave narratives.These narratives,true stories of individual African Americans who had escaped the slave regime,were published by whites with purpose to persuade white readers to abolish slavery.The authors of traditional slave narratives were often compelled,consciously or subconsciously,to adhere to the conventions and values of white society in order to gain acceptance for their work.Many black women writers felt limited by a code of"decency"that prevented them from focusing upon the more sordid details of slavery because the writers were afraid to offend their good anti-slavery friends,mainly white Christian women.It was deemed necessary for the social realities of slavery to be curtailed in terms of gratuitous detail.Graphic description of the brutal reality was considered to work against the emancipation cause.Thus true inner voices of the slaves have hardly been reflected accurately in their literary tradition;this compromise shows how deeply white discourse had been inscribed upon their thought and aesthetic consciousness.

Women's maternal role was an integral part of nineteenth-century woman's slave narratives,though this concept also became something of a stereotype.For example,the black"Mammy",that all-nurturing,all-accepting woman was the legendary figure of popular sentimental novels.This is an especially damaging stereotype of black women because it legitimises womanhood as the female function commonly associated with black women.In slave narratives,black womanhood has always been constructed to meet the expectation of a white"cult of womanhood",which is often linked to white women's cardinal virtues of Christian submissiveness,piety,purity and domesticity.They always attempt to prove and to persuade white readers that slavery was immoral because blacks were in fact human and that they shared the same moral worthiness of sex and motherhood.Thus their writings are always imbued with a moral and instructive purpose.We can find this distortion in many slave narratives.For example,Mary Prince's The History of Mary Prince(1831)presents the narrator's constant resistance to a master's sexual advances.Like one other sentimental novels of the day,Jacobs'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl(1861)apologies many times for its character's sexual experience outside marriage—even though slaves were prevented from marrying.Both narratives show their reverence for religious sexual purity.In fact,black slave women were rarely able to fulfill the stereotype of the black materna icon,being prevented by system of slavery from living out their life as a mother.Sojourner Truth's famous"Ain't I a woman"speech(1852)convinced that:"I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold into slavery and when I cried out a mother's grief none but Jesus heard me."(Boyce,1994:65)

2.2 Reconstructing the black womanhood

Although traditional slave narratives addressed the history o black people to a certain extent,in general they dealt only with the exterior details of their lives,and therefore from a humanitarian perspective failed to disclose the inhumanity suffered throughout black history.Beloved attempts to fill these gaps in slave narratives to reconstruct black history.Because of the author's own experience and identity,Morrison is familiar with slaves'lives"as those lives are presented in memoir."(Morrison,1987b:106)Morrison has reflected the nineteenth-century slave narratives and what was left out o slave narratives:

Over and over,the writers pull the narrative up short with a phrase such as,"but let us drop a veil over these proceedings too terrible to relate."In shaping the experience to make it palatable to those who were in a position to alleviate it,they were silent abou many things,and they"forget"many things...(Morrison,1987b109-110)

The"proceedings too terrible to relate"often refer to the sexual manipulation of slave women by white men and the merciless break of mother-child bond.For Morrison,these narratives recounts the material bestiality of slavery,however,there was no mention of slaves'interior life;moreover,these narratives are incomplete with their didactic tone.Morrison sees the writer's responsibility as to"fill in the blanks that the traditional slave narrative left"(Morrison,1987b:10)

As a student of African American cultural traditions,Morrison returns to both the genre and the theme of the slave narratives.O course many social conditions had changed during the 150 years separating Beloved from the first widely known slave narrative by Olaudah Equian.Beloved has made a significantly progression from the nineteenth century women slave narratives.As a slave narrative Beloved is not concerned with the standards of womanhood that influenced earlier writers.Morrison exposes the horrors of slavery in explicit detail,elaborating upon the physical and psychologica abuses suffered by Paul D,Sixo,and Halle.However,she attaches great importance to emotional and psychological suffering of female slaves.The disintegration of family,the denial of the mother's righ to love her daughter and"being continually at risk of sex exploitation"are all elaborated in Beloved.Beloved also seems especially engaged with the havoc scars upon the body of each woman which reveal stories of the past that were ignored in both slave and master narratives.All these psycho-emotional details of slavery are deliberately described in Beloved from an African American perspective.

Morrison also revises the slave narrative's traditional presentation of motherhood by showing white society's standards of beauty and womanhood.As Carolyn Denard points out,"Morrison is more concerned with celebrating the unique feminine cultural values tha black women have developed in spite of and often because of their oppression."(Mckay,1988:172)Morrison breaks the stereotypes by depicting freely her black heroine's unique virtues.Sethe's beauty lies in her strength in pursing freedom and her strong ability to endure;her beauty also lies in her extraordinary capacity for love and sacrifice for her children in spite of slavery.To love a child to decide their fate on her own redefines black motherhood from the perspective of a slave mother.

Furthermore the strength of Morrison's narrative lies in her ability to synthesise personal histories with racial suffering to yield the quintessential black history.Furman pointed out that"Morrison's characters stand in for all those slaves and former slaves who were‘unceremoniously buried'without tribute or recognition."(Furman,1996:81)Beloved is exactly Morrison's effort to"insert this memory that was unbearable and unspeakable to the literature."(Carabi,1994:88)The past cannot be divided from the present.Indeed,it is made clear that for black people to move forward to the future they must first embrace the past;moreover,addressing the past is an intrinsic component in creating a sense of belonging in the present:black history is inextricably bound with black identity.

3 Conclusions

Toni Morrison's contribution to literature has been significant.In this thesis we have seen that Toni Morrison writes from amulti-faceted perspective:simultaneously black,feminist andAmerican.In Beloved Toni Morrison uses this complex contextuali-sation to reinterpret a long tradition of African American writing;thus her novel maps a new direction for the African American liter-ary tradition and is both more instructive and powerful than that ofher 1960s predecessors,who themselves had extended the limita-tions of the nineteenth century slave narrative.Morrison sets out togive voice to—the"disremembered and unaccounted for"—theblack people whose stories are censored or silenced,by shoulderingthe responsibilities of history and literature;she not only bases herwriting in the past and present but also looks to the future;more-over,She challenges the feminist movement,which she feels over-looked the real voice of black women.In her own words she wantedto break"huge silences in literature,things that had never been ar-ticulated,printed or imagined and they were the silences aboutblack girls,black women."(Mori,1999:72)This success was mani-fested in the award of the Nobel Prize for literature.The SwedishAcademy praised her as one"who in novels characterised by vision-ary force and poetic import,gives life to an essential aspect of Amer-ican reality".(Morrison,1994:2)This not only represented a per-sonal accomplishment for Morrison,but an acknowledgement of therichness of African American literature and a recognition of the effi-cacy of the black woman's voice.Beloved is the epitome of this suc-cess.

商汤:拜奴隶为相 篇2

伊尹到了商国以后, 成汤以贵宾的礼待他, 伊尹同他畅谈天下大事、治国之道, 不卑不亢, 落落大方, 分析得透彻又精辟, 商国大臣们无不佩服。成汤更是欣喜万分, 相见恨晚, 立即任命为右相。

伊尹拜相后成汤的势力渐强, 引起了夏桀的注意。一次他把应召入朝的成汤囚禁在夏台。伊尹为营救成汤, 派人给夏桀献上厚礼, 同时私下重贿他的宠臣赵梁。夏桀看到商国进奉的珍宝、美女, 喜不自胜, 加之赵梁在一边美言, 夏桀就把成汤给放回去了。

此后成汤在伊尹的辅佐下, 内政上, 宽以待民, 轻刑薄赋, 发展农耕, 笼络人心, 积聚财力;外交上, 同邻国修好, 对夏桀的暴行进行揭露, 展开政治围攻, 一方面对于夏朝加送贡赋, 伪装恭顺, 麻痹夏王;一方面多次派伊尹到夏朝了解情况, 掌握了“上下相疾, 民心积怨”的社会状况, 同时在军事上相继对夏的属国进行征讨兼并, 完成对夏的孤立和包围。由于成汤屡播王威, 夏民如同“大旱之望云霓”一样企望成汤的到来。

公元前1600年左右, 成汤看时机成熟了, 便联合各诸侯兴师伐夏, 终于推翻了夏桀的统治, 使400多年的夏朝毁于一旦。各诸侯推举成汤为天子, 建立了商朝。史称商汤。

在成汤死后, 伊尹先后辅佐了其三个子孙———外丙、中壬和太甲天子, 其中在太甲继位3年后, 由于他不接受商汤立下的法令, 伊尹便把他流放到桐邑, 自己摄政。太甲在桐宫反省悔过3年后, 决心弃恶从善, 伊尹便派人迎回太甲, 将政权交还给他。太甲从此勤政修德, 天下大治。

北美奴隶制的确立 篇3

对于这种转变的过程及其动因, 必须从奴隶制本身的性质来寻找答案。作为一种权力体制, 寻求最大程度对人身的控制体现了奴隶制的内在要求。在所有缺乏自由的人中, 奴隶的隶属性最强, 而在所有能掌控别人的人中, 奴隶主的权利最大, 大到可以对奴隶为所欲为的程度, 奴隶对奴隶主的依附体现在政治、经济、人身甚至精神上。因此约翰·洛克认为:“奴隶制是一种可恶而悲惨的人类状态。”

不过, 在17世纪60年代之前, 奴隶制仍停留在社会习俗层次, 还没有构成经济的主导性支撑因素, 无论在南方的切萨皮克地区还是在北部的新英格兰地区, 对奴隶控制的问题尚不严重, 奴隶的人数也十分有限。在这种情况下, 主奴之间的“个人关系”还占据着主要地位, 这种“个人关系”既没有法律保证也没有社会约定俗成的道德规范的约束。个体主人和个体黑人之间存在很多情感的因素, 作为一种社会性的权威主义性格结构尚未确立, 也正是出于这种个人控制的特点, 奴隶能够寄希望于不确定的未来, 而使主奴关系相对温和。

17世纪中期以后, 英国的政府开始参加奴隶贸易, 将黑人劳动力源源不断地运往北美殖民地。到了1700年, 在南方的总人口当中, 黑人已经占了21.1%的比例, 随着黑人人口的不断增加以及南方种植园的不断扩大, 以白人为权利的控制权威主义性格开始形成。与此同时, 黑人人口的不断增长也促进了监工阶层的兴起, 而从事这种职业的人往往是白人, 并且大多数是从白人群体里招聘。在这样的情况下, 白人与黑人的阶级对立也就进一步得到凸显, 以白人为权利的群体自然不愿意看到黑人奴隶阶层的强大。

继而, 为了更好地管理黑人群体, 那么一系列的奴隶制法律相继出台。比如, 马里兰协议在1663年的时候规定:“所有黑人和其他奴隶, 将服役终身”, “所有黑人或其他奴隶的孩子, 将像其父母一样成为终身奴隶。”弗吉尼亚议会则先后规定:“在这个地区出生的所有孩子, 将只根据其母亲的地位, 决定其奴隶或自由的地位。”切萨皮克地区的奴隶制法律化过程从17世纪60年代开始, 到1705年已基本完成, 新英格兰地区则慢一拍, 法律化过程从17世纪80年代开始, 到18世纪初亦告一段落。根据这些法律的规定, 我们不难看出, 在当时奴隶只是作为一种动产或者不动产而存在的, 是根本不存在权利可言的。

大家都很清楚, 当时有关奴隶制度的法律相继出台, 其根本目的就是为了防止奴隶的崛起与反抗, 不仅要听命于主人, 而且还不能够危害白人的社会。如果说, 当时奴隶制度的引进主要是由于经济因素的影响, 那么有关奴隶制度的法律则更多的是为了解决白人与黑人之间的种族问题。“奴隶制的建立, 不只是提供劳工控制, 它也是一种调节种族关系和社会秩序的体系。”但是, 我们从当时制定的法律不难看出, 其制定的法律主要目的是为了训练白人该如何压抑黑人, 并不是为了维护黑人的权利。白人主人在法律的允许下, 被赋予了其个人无限制的权力, 尤其是在运用鞭子的权力至上更是得到了极大的发挥。所有白人被赋予惩罚逃奴、阻止奴隶聚集和行使巡逻的义务。主人不得随意释放奴隶, 其家长主义温和性的一面不得没有限度;而所有的白人都不能向奴隶出售酒类、教其识字或纵容逃跑。这种法律的制定貌似是鼓励白人要有一种社会责任感, 而实际上是为了共同维护白人的这种控制黑人的“共同事业”, 由此, 在这样的看似合乎“正义”的战斗激情中, 自然的所有白人也就站在了一起。

从另一个角度来讲, 此时期北美政府积极鼓励开荒, 在美国特别是南部地区出现了大量的庄园, 在这些庄园里农场主广泛种植茶叶、棉花等经济作物。这些作物在欧洲拥有广泛的市场, 获得极大的利润, 以致于更多的农场主对此类种植形态趋之若鹜, 但是摆在他们的面前的一个重要的问题就是廉价劳动力的匮乏, 于是“农奴”就变得很有必要, 但是什么样的人将要沦为“农奴”呢?上文曾提到17世纪中后期英国政府参与黑奴贸易, 为北美殖民地送来源源不断的劳动力;这些廉价的、远道而来的、缺乏人权的黑人“理所当然”地成了供白人农场主驱使的奴隶。

从政治经济学的角度来说, 在促使北美奴隶制的形成因素中南方的种植园经济快速发展是其中最重要的方面。所谓经济基础决定上层建筑, 北美政府为保证经济的大发展而对黑人奴隶采取严厉的制度制裁。这就可以解释:到了19世纪中期北美南北双方由于经济形态的差异产生无法解决的矛盾, 最终导致兵戎相见。随着美国南北战争的结束, 奴隶制在形式上消失了。但是美国的种族歧视却没有伴随战争的结束而结束, 相反它却以另一种形式顽强的存在着, 美国黑人为争取完全平等的斗争任重而道远。

综上所述, 笔者从历史、法律和经济等三个方面对北美奴隶制的产生和发展做了一些解释, 希望对有兴趣于此专题的同事些许帮助。

摘要：美国南北战争在很大程度上根源于南北双方不同的经济形态, 以及对待黑人奴隶的态度上的差异。那么“北美的奴隶制缘何出现并得以发展壮大”这个问题在历史上所述颇多, 但也是众说纷纭, 各有各的观点。

关键词：奴隶制,黑奴贸易,种植园经济

参考文献

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[2].赫伯特·摩累斯, 《为美国的自由而斗争》[M], 三联书店, 1957

[3].张友伦, 《美国民主制度的形成、发展和问题》[A], 《美国社会变革与美国工人运动》[C], 中国社会科学出版社, 1997