The Tragedy Of Color--On The Theme And Artistic Features In The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison (1931- ) is the most prominent and successful African American woman writer of the 20th century. She received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993 for her excellent achievements in writing, and becomes the first African American woman to win this award. She is clearly aware that the dignity and identity of the black are based on thewrelatively integrated African American culture, which originates from its own history and melts into the modern American life. Most of her stories happen in the black community, where the daily life of the ordinary black people is mixed up with the myth of Africa. Deeply rooted in African history and mythology, her stories resonate with mixtures of their pleasure and pain, wonder and horror. Her creation paves the way for the reconstructuring of the life among modern African Americans.Morrison pays much attention to the writing crafts during the process of her creation. Her language is humorous and quick-witted, absorbing the essence of the tradition in the black oral literature. Her narration is full of changes, which helps to make her writings more powerful. It is clear that Morrison sees her work not only as speaking to a specific audience, but also as reaching beyond the bounds of that audience to the rest of the human kind. In fact, Morrison uses a specificcommunity as a metaphor for human community and the experience of the black in America for the human conditions.Morrison is praised as one "who, in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality". As a result of her literary and artistic competence, Toni Morrison stands in front of contemporary fiction masters. Her success as a writer transcends both her racial identity and gender. She is not only a leading African American woman writer, but also one of the most significant writers in American literature today.This thesis tries, through the close reading of the novel, to find the reasons that the protagonist of the novel, the poor black girl Pecola Breedlove has the desire to have a pair of blue eyes and becomes insane at last. The thesis consists of seven parts. Following Introduction come five chapters and Conclusion.In Chapter One background knowledge about the creation of this novel will be introduced. Racial discrimination and its negative impact on the black are always the recurring topic in African American literature. In this novel, as one of the most vulnerable members of the black community, the protagonist Pecola Breedlove suffers more from this impact. The tragic experience of Pecola indicates that the negative impacts that racism produces influence African American value system and bring severe harm to the psyche of the black. Pecola's tragedy is the epitome of the victims of the racial discrimination in American society. Chapter Two centers on the causes leading to Pecola's tragedy inher family. The exploration of her parents' personal painful experiences under the racism will help us to understand the factors in her family leading to Pecola's tragedy. The personality of her parents is distorted and twisted severely due to the racial discrimination in American society. She cannot get any emotional consolation from her indifferent mother Pauline and her cruel father Cholly. From her parents, what Pecola learns is the self-hatred.In Chapter Three, the factors leading to Pecola's tragedy in the black community will be analyzed. The knowledge of the social background information about the black community in America at that time will help us understand the living conditions in Pecola's community. Within the community Pecola confronts both the inner racial conflicts from the black and the racial prejudice from the white. Under the influence of the racism, the black culture begins to shake its foundation in the black community. All of these make Pecola feel confused about the life. She loses her self-identity in the pursuit of a pair of blue eyes.Chapter Four focuses on another two groups of characters in t...