The Quest for Self in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Abstract

Abstract

This paper will critically read the significance of gaze in constructing identity and subjectivity of African -American women .The novel, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison has tried to redefine beauty and the identity crisis of the black women out of the specular American Psychological system into a racial authenticity. The identity crisis makes a sense of self-loathing, inferiority in the mind. And this situation creates the quest for self. The most insulting situation for a person is, if s/he is neglected as s/he is invisible to the viewer. And that happens to the protagonist of the novel. The book shows how the white society created their own concept of beauty and makes that universalized for the people of all colors, societies and races. But a character like Claudia, one of the narrators in the novel, shows the path of a better future of the blacks. Morrison portrays her woman from zero image (Pecola) to independent individuality (Claudia) where the expectation of triumph works.