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Facing The Reality And Retrieving Cultural Root: A Freudian Study Of The Bluest Eye

Posted on:2011-08-17Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q ZhuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360305980004Subject:English Language and Literature
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Toni Morrison is the most prominent and successful African American woman writer of the 20th century. She receives the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993 for her excellent achievements in writing, and becomes the first African American woman to win this award. The reason why she could gain laurels of literature, in addition to her profound insight and poetic language, is that she is possessed with strong ethnic awareness. She is clearly aware that the dignity and identity of the black are based on African American culture root. Most of her stories happen in the black family and community, where the daily life of the ordinary black people is mixed up with the myth and folk of Africa. Culture root is always the focus.Based on Sigmund Freud's theory, this thesis attempts to provide a psychoanalytic reading of her first novel The Bluest Eye from 3 aspects: dynamics of dysfunctional family, ego's maldevelopment of internalization of White values and writer's wish fulfillment in daydream work to highlight Morrison's greatness of boldly exposing problems of Black society and providing solution to arouse ethnic awareness.This thesis consists of five parts, among which the first and the last parts are introduction and conclusion, the rest (chapter one to chapter three) is the body of this thesis. First chapter is about Freud's unconscious wound. This is to explain the hidden reason of Pauline's cold personality we dig into her girlhood, womanhood and family's lack of culture inheritance. We follow suit to explain the hidden reason of abnormal father Cholly from the three phases of infancy, boyhood and adulthood. The lack and loss of family love, Eros, is the common unconscious wound of Pauline and Cholly and this lead to the abnomal personalities themselves and, what's worse, bring about tragedy of their daughter Peacola. And this explains problems in black family. The second chapter is about the three systems of one's personality structure. In this novel, the ego's maldevelopment is the black's internalization of the dominating white discriminating values. This phenomenon explains problems in black society. We illustrate these problems from Pecola's self-contempt and denial and projection of self-hatred onto other Black members. The third chapter about Freud's idea of writer's fulfillment of daydream work. It provides the solution to the problems in Black family and society: Keeping culture root to survive. It is also Morrison's aim of writing this work, addressing the solution to arouse ethnic awareness. Keeping the culture root is mainly illustrated by a little girl Claudia's survival. This fulfills Morison's wish. In the process of wish fulfillment's past-present-future string, Morrison also make Black's voice heard by depicting Black's real life. In Freud's idea, the symbolism is the artistic technique to avoid reader's repulsion and arouse their sympathy. This is so identical to Writer's intention. In order to arouse ethnic awareness, Morrison strikes some symbols relating to black culture.In the context of globalization, many literary researchers and readers around the world are attracted by Morrison's novels because of the literary excellence of her work, their concerns over issues faced by the black race, and the most important of all, the universality of her themes. The problems existing in black family and society also exist in other races or nations, and the solution of keeping culture root to survive also provides the guideline for other races or nations. Therefore, this thesis is of literary, social and realistic significance.
Keywords/Search Tags:psychoanalysis, Tony Morrison, The Bluest Eye, dysfunctional family, ego's maldevelopment, daydream
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