On the Non-accidental Factors of Sethe's Infanticide: the Interpretation of Beloved from the Perspective of Binary Opposition

Toni Morrison is the first African American woman writer to receive Nobel Prize in Literature.Published in 1987,Beloved is her masterpiece,which is regarded as the milestone of the history of black literature.This paper interprets Beloved from the perspective of binary opposition.By analyzing four pairs of binary oppositions in the novel,that is,human and ghost,rebellion and repression,the black's wedding and the white's wedding and Sethe's lack of motherhood and her love to her children,it concludes it is slaveholding society and Sethe's pursuit of freedom and equality that result in her infanticide,the infanticide is by no accident..