摘    要

《秀拉》是美国黑人女作家托妮•莫里森早期的一部重要作品，秀拉和奈尔是小说中最主要的两位黑人女性形象。她们两人的性格都呈现出既叛逆不羁又保守传统的双重特征。秀拉一方面勇敢，独立，有着强烈的自我意识，行为大胆开放，蔑视男权，不愿被家庭与婚姻所束缚，是反抗传统的黑人女性代表，另一方面又认同传统的社会价值观，渴望找到一个灵魂的伴侣。而奈尔一方面软弱，顺从，依赖婚姻和家庭，甘愿成为男人的附属品，行为保守，是黑人妇女文化传统的恪守者，另一方面又向往自由的生活方式和自我的解放。正是她们性格中所具有的这种矛盾和互补性，使两人在追求自我的过程中相互支持，相互补充，最终达到了高度的统一。本文将对秀拉和奈尔的双重性格进行分析，并尝试解读这两位黑人女性形象的矛盾与统一。

关键词：黑人女性形象，双重性格，矛盾，统一

Abstract

Sula is an important novel of African American writer Toni Morrison’s early writings. Sula and Nel, two main black female images, are characterized with dual personality which both rebellious and conservative. On the one hand, Sula is a courageous and independent representative of black females with strong self-awareness, who despises the paternal authority and refuses the restriction of marriage and family; on the other hand, she also recognizes the traditional values and longs for a soul mate. Similarly, Nel is on the one hand a submissive and weak abider of black women’s tradition, who relies on marriage and family and lives as an appendage of men; on the other hand, she also desires for free lifestyle and self-liberation. Just because of the contradiction and complementariness of their characters, Sula and Nel support and complete each other in the course of self-pursuit and finally reach their spiritual unity. This thesis will analyze the dual personality of Sula and Nel, and try to interpret their contradiction and unity.

Key words: black female images, dual personality, contradiction, unity
 
1  Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Toni Morrison and her Sula
American black female writer Toni Morrison was born in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio and educated at Howard University and Cornell University. She began writing in the early 1960s and published her first novel, The Bluest Eye in 1970. Since then she has written quite a few works of importance such as Sula(1973), Song of Solomon(1977), Tar Baby(1981), Beloved(1987), Jazz(1992), Paradise(1998), Love(2003)and her newly produced work A Mercy(2008). Besides, she has also written several dramas, literary collections, fairy tales and one short story Recitatif(1983). Toni Morrison is an awarding-winning writer who has won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977, the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She was also the first winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature as a black woman in American history. Morrison tends to set her focus on the wretched misery of black people, especially black women, and reactions both inside and outside. She is good at interweaving characters’ psychological world with the real one they live in. As the result of its unique perspectives, ingenious-arranged plots and beautiful language, Morrison’s works have successfully remained attractive to readers for long time. She is the foremost author of contemporary black women’s renaissance.