Toni Morrison’s fifth novel, Beloved (1987), advanced critical literary responses to female subjectivity, from the absence of subjectivity to the empowerment of black female characters through black feminist concepts of love: self-love, sisterhood, and motherhood. The inherent ‘love’ of African-American women emerged among black feminists as a means for revising white feminist discourses and promoting their self-esteem. In particular, the love ethic of bell hooks was spotlighted as one of the key sources for liberating not just individuals, but all African-American women. Before Beloved, critical interest remained in disputing social blockages for African-American women to retrieve their subjectivity. However, in the 1980s, Morrison publicly acknowledged attempts to use Beloved to reclaim the female subjectivity that African-American women were deprived of during slavery, as well as the sustained demands from black women writers and black feminists for the understanding of their distinguished culture. These critically transformative recognitions triggered not only the reexamination of female subjectivity in the early novels but also critical reorientation to black feminist theories. The increased critical awareness of the subjectivity of African-American women was achieved by the continuous appeals of black female writers and black feminists, and later scholarly synergy with literary critics who recognized the transformative power that love held for black women.