토니 모리슨의 『술라』에 나타난 흑인 모성의 양가성

Abstract

This paper is to clarify the ambivalence of black motherhood in terms of the mother-son relationship between Eva and Plum in Toni Morrison's Sula. In Sula, the maternal roles of black mothers are radically different compared to that of white mothers. Black mothers struggle to survive under the slavery, poverty, and absence of father and husband. Under the poor circumstance, the central duty of black mothers are to protect physically and preserve their children from danger and death. They practise their motherhood to keep safe, to secure food, and to protect their children. Also they protect children from the hurts of the racist and sexist culture, and teach their children how to protect themselves so they can resist the patriarchal culture. This study analyzes the maternal practice of Eva in two different scenes of the Eva and Plum. In the first scene, Eva save baby Plum from life-threatening constipation by shoving the last bit of food she had up his ass, and in the second scene, Eva kills Plum because she can't stand for his drug addiction. Many critics debate on the positive and negative maternal acts of the ambiguous perspective on Eva's murder of Plum. Some critics interpret Eva's murder of Plum as the preservative love for children's survival under the slavery experience, but the others condemn Eva's murder of Plum as the mimicry of the paternal violence. In this paper, I suggest that Eva kills her son to protect him against the self-degradation derived from the racist and patriarchal society. I claim that Eva's murder of his son is to save his life with preserving love of motherhood, which is the same as the first scene in which Eva cuts her leg to get the money for sparing Plum's life from the extreme starvation and disease.