Construction Of Female Subjectivity

Toni Morrison with eight novels and a literary critical work is the only black woman who ever won the Nobel Prize for literature up to now. This prize symbolizes not only the establishment of black literature but also the development of black female's literature. With the publication of her first novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison begins her literary career. The Bluest Eye helps Morrison confirm herself as a female writer. In this novel Morrison's concern for the black community and the fate of black women is revealed.Due to Morrison's outstanding narrative techniques, discussing her narrative strategies becomes the popular topic among scholars. As few studies on The Bluest Eye have been done from feminist narratological perspective, this thesis tries to adopt this theory to analyze Morrison's narrative strategies and explore how these strategies help Morrison achieve her narrative authority and her female ideology. Feminist narratology is formed in 1980s. As the founder of this theory, Susan Lanser is the first scholar to combine classical narratology and feminist criticism. This thesis adopts the theory to analyze the novel from three aspects:narrative voice, shift of focalizations and feminist ideology.Morrison constructs two kinds of voice in The Bluest Eye:authorial narrative voice and personal narrative voice. Through authorial voice Morrison tells readers the stories of main characters from which she reflects her female ideology. Morrison also gives personal voice to the female characters in the novel to make them heard in the public. Through these two kinds of voice she establishes her narrative authority successfully. After this, through the shift of focalizations the oppressions on black women and the reasons why Pecola is insane at last are displayed. As a black female writer, Morrison handles the issues of racism and the oppressions on women very carefully. She adopts different attitudes gained under different focalizations to reflect the issues so as to reduce the readers'resistance to the novel. The last part is devoted to the construction of black female subjectivity. This chapter is consisted of two parts:the criticism of racism on black female and the construction of black female subjectivity. Through the two parts Morrison not only reveals the various problems in the black community but also uses them to fight against patriarchy and racism. It also further confirms her narrative authority and emphasizes the importance of constructing black female subjectivities. Through the above analysis the thesis achieves its writing objective:showing the readers Morrison gains feminist narrative authority successfully and reflects her female ideology in this novel. This thesis aims to provide a new method by which a more comprehensive understanding of the ideological significance of the feminist narrative strategies can be acquired. Analyzing the novel through the perspective of feminist narratology makes Morrison's writing intention much clearer. In addition, the thesis is helpful for further studies on The Bluest Eye.