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摘 要

托妮·莫里森的小说一直以来关注黑人女性的生存状态。“父亲”作为黑人女性自出生以来的第一情感依靠，是黑人女性能否获得幸福的一大关键因素。通过对黑人父亲比尔·柯西的归纳分析，本文将探索黑人父亲形象在黑人社区里的作用和对黑人女性的影响。

黑人社群中被想象出的父亲形象是特定环境下对伟岸的父亲形象的渴求，比尔·柯西在黑人社群中因此被片面塑造来满足这一渴求。而希德，克里斯廷和朱妮尔这三个黑人女孩眼中具有象征意义的父亲形象被具体化为比尔·柯西，因其满足他们对一个完美的父亲的想象。比尔·柯西被认为是整个黑人社群中伟大的父亲的代表，对三个黑人女孩而言更是可靠的情感依靠，但其实只是一个普通人，更是一个丑陋的“父亲”。比尔·柯西的真面目是通过L叙述和桑德勒的描述还原出来的。

想象与现实的极限差距在一定程度上导致了黑人女性较之黑人男性遭受更多。女性的声音常常被忽视被忽略，更糟糕的是，在父权社会，占主导地位的父亲遮蔽了黑人女性之间可能的联盟，使他们很难获得精神上的互相支持。友谊的破碎和相互信任的缺乏常常导致黑人女性的悲剧性结局。

关键词：托妮·莫里森，《爱》，父亲

Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

中文摘要 iii

Introduction 1

1.1 An Introduction to Toni Morrison and Love....................................................1

1.2 Research Background and Purpose..................................................................2

1.3 Thesis Structure..................................................................................................3

Chapter One: An Imagined Father in the Black Community 4

1.1 The Demand for a Great Father Figure in the Particular Social Context 4

1.2 The Construction of Bill Cosey as a Protective Father 6

Chapter Two: A Symbolic Father in the Eyes of Three Black Girls 10

2.1 Bill Cosey as Heed's Father/Husband 10

2.2 Christine's Desire to be the "Sweet Cosey Child" 12

2.3 Junior under the Spell of Cosey Portrait........................................................14

Chapter Three: A Real Father in the Eyes of the Observers 17

3.1 Narrator L's Remembrance of Bill Cosey 17

3.2 Sandler Gibbons' Recollection of Bill Cosey 19

Conclusion 22

Works Cited 24

Introduction

1.1 An Introduction to Toni Morrison and Love

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, February 18, 1931) is an American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. The award of the 1993 Nobel Prize to Toni Morrison confirmed her status as a canonical author in American literature. Her work has already earned a wide range of critical attention for its stylistic brilliance and psychological depth, as well as its exploration of Afro-American traditions.

Love (2003) is Toni Morrison’s eighth novel, which tells a story about Bill Cosey and Cosey girls. May, Christine, Heed, Junior, Vida - even L - all are women in the life of Bill Cosey. More than being the wealthy owner of the famous Cosey Hotel and Resort, Bill Cosey shapes their yearnings for a father, husband, lover, guardian, and friend, yearnings that dominate the lives of these women long after his death. Yet Cosey himself is at the mercy of a troubled past and a spellbinding woman, “a sporting woman”, named Celestial. The book explores what happens to women whose values are determined by the men Cosey, who controls their lives and minds.

There are many significant features in this book. One of the features is “its particular expression of the psychological phenomenon of identification.” (Mellard 699) Love confounds readers’ expectations of what a book by this author should be like and should do. “Only just two hundreds pages long, and with a plot centred on a feud between two old women in a decayed mid-Atlantic resort town, the work initially impresses as an authorial turning-away from previous profound concerns, or even as a self-indulgence born of established success.” (Roynon 32) Compact plots, vivid characters and an ambiguous ending are the distinct features of this novel, which reveals black father’s function and influence in black family and black community through the feud between two old women.

1.2 Research Background and Purpose

As a female Afro-American writer, Toni Morrison focuses on the social status of Afro-American females. The characters in her main novels are mainly Afro-American women, who suffer from the social biases and gender inequity. Love, which was published in 2003, is a hot research field for academic research on Toni Morrison. “Love extends Morrison’s career-long exploration of African American negotiation of gender role expectations formulated within family structures made normative by white-class hegemony. The father-headed nuclear family occupies a privileged position as representative of the national norm and outcome of American Dream.” (Carden 132) It focus on the interpretation of black female identity and the analysis of ethic values. Accordingly, the black female characters in this novel: Heed, Junior, Christine and L are often the main research objects for researchers, with the hope of exploring the primary reasons for black female’s tragedy in black communities directly.

By contrast, the real protagonist of this novel: Bill Cosey does not attract enough research attention However, Bill Cosey in this novel, is not only an idealized father for Heed, Christine and Junior, but also a protector for the whole black community. The exploration of father image is of great importance to “dispute the notion that the father-dominant model of home and family is a panacea for the problem afflicting many African American communities”. (Carden 131) Actually, Cosey is the real culprit who leads to the tragedy of female family members. As James M. Mellard argues: “the truth that the plot’s social superstructure reveals is how the functioning of paternal authority rears its obscene head in one figure of the father in the family history and serves most importantly as an obstacle to the relationship of just two characters: Heed and Christine Cosey.” (Mellard 234) This kind of damage to friendship between Heed and Christine is amplified and materialized by Nachtradglichkeit, a special narrative method. “As a result of an early traumatic separation from the love that had been the ground of their childhood development, Heed and Christine lose connection with their past and its rich field of potentials and are consequently disoriented with regard to their present and future.” (Wyatt 193)

While there are surely other essays about this novel, exploring the ethic effects of a dominant father figure on the relationship between the female characters, this thesis will focus on Bill Cosey, the idealized father image in the story. Cosey functions not just as a loving father for the three young girls in the novel, but also as an abstract protector to the whole black community. It reveals black females’ yearnings for spiritual support and protection given by their male counterparts. In return, it further demonstrates that the collapse of the father image in black communities is an important reason to the misery of black females.

1.3 Thesis Structure

This essay is divided into five parts, which includes an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. At the very beginning of the essay, general introduction of the author Toni Morrison and recent research achievements will be put forward, together with this essay’s research purpose. In the first chapter, the thesis will look into the imagined father image which is created by the black communities. To meet the demand for a great father figure in the particular social context, Bill Cosey has been shaped to be a powerful and protective father. In the second chapter, there will be the analysis of three black girls’ desire for a loving father, and the reason why they all want to be the “Sweet Cosey Child”. In the third chapter, the real features of Bill Cosey is exposed, and as a result, the great father image has collapsed. The conclusion part highlights the primal reasons for the idealization of Bill Cosey among the black Americans. To a large extent, reliance on the great father figure is reflective of the communal needs for spiritual support in the patriarchal black society in which the roles of powerful black females are largely ignored.

Chapter One: An Imagined Father in the Black Community

Love is the exploration of black people’s self-liberation. Black communities are at the bottom of society, where they suffer from oppression and racism given. After countless failed attempts of seeking help from the white people, black people realize the fact that the only way to change their situation lies in their own community. Therefore, a great figure which is among them is created to meet their demand. Like a father to a family, a great father figure to the particular social context is also of great importance. When it comes to the specific black community Up Beach, the great father figure is bestowed on Bill Cosey, who is the owner of Cosey resort and Hotel. Cosey, the richest black man in this community, is created as a protective father, who gives protection to everyone in this community.

1.1 The Demand for a Great Father Figure in the Particular Social Context

The time background of this novel is the latter half of 20th century, when social oppression and resistance coexisted. On January 1, 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln, which was the true start of the black liberation movement. Part of farsighted black people began to stand up to fight for their equal rights. Accordingly, Civil Rights Movements emerged at a historic moment to express their appeals. In many situations, they aimed at achieving change through nonviolent forms of resistance. The movements peaked in 1960’s. In 1963, the leader of Civil Rights movements: Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous speech “I Have a Dream” in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The March, and especially King's speech, helped put civil rights at the top of the agenda of reformers in the United States and facilitated passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

However, the movements had not received wide support from black people at that time. Some of them could not understand this kind of practice, and even thought that movements disturbed their lives. Certain black people blamed that “civil rights destroyed her family and its business” and blamed “Martin Luther King every day for her troubles”. (Morrison 13) Some black people were complaining that Civil Rights Movements rather than racism and social oppression caused their dilemma and suffering. It was even predicted that “the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Nationalist Movement would fail to bring about full equality and social justice for all Americans, what Martin Luther King, Jr., envisioned as the ‘beloved community’.” (Channette 415) In the meanwhile, social oppression still existed. It was the time when the third Ku Klux Klan emerged in the form of small local unconnected groups. They opposed to the Civil Rights Movements, often using threats of violence. “Though most members of the KKK saw themselves as holding to American values and Christian morality, virtually every Christian denomination officially denounced the Ku Klux Klan.” (Collins 31) The Ku Klux Klan insisted that white people was superior to black ones, who did not deserve equal rights and social justice.

But some black people in the particular social context were aware of inequality and oppression at that time and hoped for a change of their fate. Several decades ago, black people pined their hope on white people, and they largely thought that white people would realize that “all men are equal”. Additionally, they believed that laws would give them equal rights and happy lives, because “The Emancipation Proclamation” was a great start. However, time did not change anything. Black people still suffered from inequality and racialism. Representative of her fellow African American, Toni Morrison asks the question: “do you know that every law in this country is made to keep us back?” It suggests that black people had a clear understanding of their social situation. They still suffered from social oppression and their dependence on white people to change this was extremely unrealistic. “ Everybody knew who went to prison and who didn’t. A black killer was a killer; a white killer was unhappy.” (Morrison 62) It is obvious that black people did not have equal rights and they were not protected by the laws. Living in an age of discrimination, white people never treated black people as their equals. For the blacks, the true freedom can only be realized when all the opposition and obstacle are destroyed. “‘African Americans’ sociopolitical problems can only be exacerbated by their own attempts to institute patriarchal forms of social organization.” (Read 539)

Black people need a great leader to lead and organize them to fight for their equal rights and social status, as family members tend to depend on their father to create a happy life. Just like a great father to a family, leader is important to unit their power and strength to revolt and succeed. In the black community “Up Beach”, Bill Cosey is considered as the right person. “Proud of his finesse, his money, the example he set that goaded them into thinking that with patience and savvy, they could do it too.” (Morrison 56) For the whole black community, Cosey is the example of success and status. Black people in the particular social context are suffering a lot from outer world. Racism deprives their equal rights, and social oppression destroys their chance for happiness. The whole black community is just like a poor family. Black people have no choice but to search for a great figure’ protection, as family members will ask their father, the family pillar for protection.

The demand for a great father figure in the particular social context is possibly reasonable. In “Up Beach”, Bill Cosey is a great father figure for the whole community. He provides jobs for them, so that black people are able to escape from their former jobs. Based on a relatively higher income, they can lead a better life. It is Cosey who leads them to happiness and success. In Up Beach, Cosey is constructed as a protective father.

1.2 The Construction of Bill Cosey as a Protective Father

Historically and geographically, America should have been the home of Afro-Americans. Like their white neighbors, they desired to be the owner of this country. However, the prevalence of racism broke this hope. Black people in America were regarded as vagrants and passers-by rather than real owners. They often felt homeless when social oppression and racism were rampant in the latter of 20th century. The same is true for black people in Up Beach, a town which is an epitome of black people’s social situation at that time.

Black people tried to change the situation, and the outbreak of Civil Rights Movement was the best evidence. Bill Cosey is one of these black people, who tries to change their fates. “He wanted a playground for folk who felt the way he did, who studied ways to contradict history.” (Morrison 149) Bill Cosey is a man who wants to change his situation, and believes that he will succeed. “Cosey is an obvious embodiment of American dream, and given the fact that he creates a ‘fabulous, successful resort’ described as a ‘paradise’ and as a ‘fairy tale’.” (Roynon 33) His success is just like the spiritual guidance, which gives black people hopes to fight against racism and social oppression, and strive for happiness. The role of Cosey to the black community is just like a father for a family, and “the father-headed nuclear family occupies a privileged position as representative of the national norm and outcome of American Dream.” (Carden 132)

For his employees, Bill Cosey is not only their boss, but also their redeemer. “Because of Bill Cosey, none of us had to keep doing that kind of work.” (Morrison 25) Bill Cosey frees these poor people from their former lives and gives them relatively decent jobs. The Cosey Resort and Hotel affects them all. Black people have more job opportunities and career choices. Additionally, the black community Up Beach is no longer closed, because outsiders are attracted to come here and bring years of titillation and agitated talk. To a certain degree, it seems that their living statuses are close to white people’s gradually. “White identity requires the submerged black figure” and, “its construction of black powerlessness.” (Laurel 68) White people try to make black people invisible in the social relations. In a long history, black people can only take these jobs that white ones are not willing to do. Black people’s powerlessness is evident through professional division. However, Cosey breaks the boundary, so that hierarchical relationships are ambiguous. Black people in Up Beach realize that they are independent individuals instead of white people’s appendants. “ It was a plantation. And Bill Cosey took us off of it.” (Morrison 26) It infers that Cosey is a saint for them to a large extent.

For the whole black community Up Beach, Bill Cosey is a leader and a symbol. “Trouble, unemployment, hurricanes following droughts, marshland turned into mud cakes so dry even the mosquitoes quit.” (Morrison 14) It suggests that the living condition for black people is hard. It seems that it is almost impossible for them to support themselves based on the severe natural and social environment. They have to seek help from other organizations. The first one coming to their mind is the government. However, the government is controlled by white people. The outcome of this kind of appeal is apparent that they mostly fail, and the help is too limited to support themselves. But Bill Cosey is different. “He helped more people here than forty years of government programs.” (Morrison 14) For black people here, Cosey is more powerful and generous than the government, which only concerns white people’s rights and interests. Compared to the government, Cosey gives them real helps, such as jobs, cheap houses and so on, while the government makes it still a slogan that they will and are able to help all people no matter what skin colors they have.

Black people value every change, which is always treated as the encouragement to continue their rebellion. “All felt a tick of entitlement, of longing turned to belonging in the vicinity of the fabulous, successful resort controlled by one of their own.” (Morrison 59) In black people’s mind, the Cosey Resort and Hotel belong to the whole black community and are the glory to Up Beach, because Coasey is one of them, and the representative of them. Cosey is no longer an independent individual, but the symbol of protector of the whole community, who is powerful, kind and generous. “On its surface, Cosey’s success reiterates classic African American models of uplift imbued with the ideal of male self-making which underwrites classic American themes of opportunity and equality.” (Carden 135) The role of Cosey for people in Up Beach is idealized to be a protective father. “This imaginary construction often bears little relationship to the father as he is in reality.” (Evans 62) The black community is united as a family, where Cosey is their symbolic father. Additionally, the family relationships are cherished by the whole black world. In America, black people are disadvantaged groups, who suffer a lot from oppression and racism. They can only seek spiritual support from black inner world. Specifically, “family cohesion has been a primary value among Afro-Americans throughout their history in the United States.” (Kuyk，etc., 39)

In the particular social context, the demand for a great father figure is reasonable. As disadvantaged groups, black people’s desire to change their social situation is very strong, but it is very difficult, and almost impossible to achieve through vulnerable individuals. They have no choice but to unit their strength together. In this union, a great father figure of the whole community is created to lead this struggle. The father-headed family is the main family structure for African Americans. The function and influence of father to the whole family is huge. Father is not only the main, or the only source of economic income, but also the spiritual support for family members. Therefore, in Up Beach, Cosey is constructed as a protective father to take the responsibility of protecting black people. Based on Cosey’s “dedication” and “contribution” to the Up Beach, it is reliable to depend on him to pursue happiness.

It is black people’s particular spiritual demand under the specific social situation that explains the desire for a great father figure and the construction of Bill Cosey as a protective father. Not only for black men, but for black women, a great father is able to protect them. They need this kind of protection to keep away from oppression and racism, and finally to gain equality.

Chapter Two: A Symbolic Father in the Eyes of Three Black Girls

Compared to their male counterparts, black women are more vulnerable and disadvantaged. They realize that it is almost impossible to improve their social status without the help of black men. They do not have equal rights and economic foundation. Accordingly, they turn to their father, the most powerful man in their family for economic and spiritual support. However, the social reality breaks their fantasy, and the truth is that their real father cannot meet their demands. Therefore, they pin their hope on the richest and most powerful man in their community to achieve their goal. As for Heed, Christine and Junior, Bill Cosey meets their demand for an ideal father to help them change their situation. Therefore, Cosey becomes a symbolic father of these three black girls.

2.1 Bill Cosey as Heed's Father/Husband

Heed is the second wife of Bill Cosey. It is unreasonable in people’s normal sense that Heed marries Bill Cosey when she is 11 years old and he is more than 70 years old. But it is reasonable when it is revealed that this marriage is the reconstruction of the father-daughter relationship for Heed. She calls Cosey “papa”. In other words, Heed finds an ideal father in this relationship rather than a husband.

Heed’s real father cannot meet her demand for father’s protection, and the even breaks her fantasy of a father’s love. Heed comes from a very poor black family, which is actually at the very bottom of black community. Her father sells her to Cosey when she is only 11 years old. It is because of money that her father easily hands his daughter to an old rich man. To some extent, it is no exaggeration to say that Heed is only an item, which can be transferred into money, rather than an independent individual. The father-daughter relationship is materialized and commercialized. “Right after the wedding, her own family had begun to swarm and bite for blood.” (Morrison 181) After her marriage with Cosey, Heed becomes the source of financial support for her parents. Ignoring human rights, this kind of buyer-seller relationship is the performance of depravity in black community. “At the heart of the deterioration of the Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family. It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the negro community.” (Rolland 122) Deteriorating black family sometimes determines black women’ sufferings and misery. Specifically, is is obvious that Heed is hurt rather than loved by her father. She is only the means of making money, and no more than that.

Heed’s break-up with Christine is another reason for her seeking an ideal father in this distorted marriage. Christine comes from a relatively rich black family, but she walks into Heed’s world positively. Christine is the first person who is willing to share ice cream with her, and does not care about her poverty. But their friendship is destroyed when she becomes the wife of Christine’s grandfather. She finds out that they cannot be friends anymore, and they even become enemies, because they fight against each other for Cosey’s love. Accordingly, she loses her spiritual support from this friendship. In other words, she has no choice but to fully depend on Cosey. “The marriage and its consequences further reveal the ways in which patriarchal hierarchies constructed around male ownership produce restricted identities rooted in dependence on an all-powerful father. While the consequences of this dependence were visible before marriage, Cosey’s choice of second wife extends and magnifies them.” (Carden 137)

However, Heed believes that Cosey’s love can make up for this deficiency. “Only Papa knew better, had picked her out of all he could have chosen.” (Morrison 100) It is the first time that a man knows and chooses her, no matter what kind of person she is. “Papa” gives her fatherly love, which she cannot enjoy from her real father. Therefore, when Bill Cosey appears, she confirms that he is her father. Bill Cosey meets her demand and always buys beautiful clothes and toys to please her. It seems that the dead father is stronger than the living one.

It is almost unimaginable that Heed marries Cosey when she is only 11 years old, but she still enjoys this distorted relationship. However, it cannot be denied that this marriage meets her fantasy of father-daughter relationship, and this marriage gives her protection economically and emotionally. As a black woman, one of the weakest people in the social structure, she is forced to find emotional comfort from the unacceptable relationship with an old man, who is old enough to be her grandfather. That her husband becomes her “papa” is not a coincidence but an inevitable result.

2.2 Christine's Desire to be the "Sweet Cosey Child"

Christine Cosey is the granddaughter of Bill Cosey, which means that she comes from a rich black family. Compared to Heed, her childhood is happy economically and emotionally. It is indicated from the novel that Christine’s desire to be the “Sweet Cosey Child” begins from her friend Heed’s marriage with her grandfather Cosey. The marriage is the start of her misery and misfortune. She changes from a lovely girl, who is willing to share things with others to a stubborn woman, who spends most of her life fighting for being the “Sweet Cosey Child’.

There are several reasons for this change. Her father’s early death is the first reason. Billy, her father died when she is very young, which means that father’s love given by Billy is very limited for her. Her real father even does not appear in her memory. Her father’s death is the primary reason for Christine to turn to Cosey for protection. Father is an ambiguous impression, but later she unconsciously specifies Cosey as her father, who is able to give her desired protection.

As the only man in this family after Billy’s death, Bill Cosey gives her a great deal of love. But it ends when Heed marries her grandfather. “So who had to go? Who had to leave her bedroom, her playhouse, the sea? The only innocent one in the place, that’s who.” (Morrison 191) It is Heed who occupies everything belonging to her. But Christine has to leave home because her grandfather asks her to do so. It seems that she loses everything in a minute. She is no longer the princess of the Cosey’s family, but a homeless girl expelled by her friend Heed. This fall from heaven to hell drives Christine to fight against Heed, who she thinks is the culprit of her misery. The drop makes her realize that Cosey’s love and protection is the guarantee of happiness and fortune.

Patriarchy is one of the main features of black communities. As the main economic, politic and emotional support, father is the absolute authority for the whole family. Based on the will of father, the father-headed family performs politic and economic activities. Paternal authority mostly determines that black women are always voiceless and powerless. Cosey’s family is the representative of this kind of family and Cosey has the absolute paternal authority. However, it is “the history of black segregation and disenfranchisement as the tragic deprivation of the black male's right to inhabit a trutting American masculinity”. (Rolland 122) That is to say, Cosey is actually unable to fully exert his masculinity and protect the whole family members in the racist world. But he utilizes paternal authority to cover this fact, and makes people around him feel that he is powerful enough to build a happy world for them. As the member of this family, Christine never suspects that it is Cosey who ends her happiness and brings her misery. “Paternal authority rears its obscene head in one figure of the father in the family history and serves most importantly as an obstacle to the relationship of just two characters: Heed and Christine.” (Mellard 234)

Christine blames Heed for her misfortune, instead of the real culprit Cosey. This misunderstanding leads to the break-up of friendship between them. They fight over Cosey’s love and their place in his fortress, performing essentially as his hierarchy demands. Jane Wyatt observes that “within the patriarchal order, Christine and Heed can see each other only as rivals-first for the man’s favor, then for the man’s state.” (Wyatt 199) They find that they cannot be friends anymore but enemies. Accordingly, other emotional support apart from father’s love becomes impossible for them. In this condition, Cosey’s love is the only and final spiritual support for Christine, and she has no other choice. “Bill Cosey disrupts their love relationship by insisting that they identify themselves as his wife and his granddaughter and occupy corresponding places in his hierarchy.” (Carden 138) Distorted identity and ectopic relation caused by Cosey push two girls to stand at the opposite sides.

Besides, Christine’s three unhappy experiences of running away from home accounts for part of her change. Running away from home is her method to attract Cosey’s attention and to win Cosey’s love back. However, the outcomes of this kind of practice are disappointing. Cosey and Heed lead a happier life without her existence. Unfortunately, she meets bad guys after she leaves home, which makes her lose faith on males. She comes back home disappointed and depressed. Here, these bad guys serve as a foil to create a perfect Cosey in Christine’s mind.

Being a “sweet Cosey girl” means love and protection, which Christine yearns for. But Heed becomes the obstacle of her dream. Christine never suspects that she should be the only Sweet Cosey Child, because she is the only person who has the blood relation with Cosey. Kin relation with Cosey becomes Christine’s powerful weapon to fight against Heed and later against Junior. She tries her best to win back her position in the family.

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