The Bluest Eye From The Freudian Psychoanalytic Perspective

The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison's first novel about the tragic and miserable lives of the black Americans, contains her profound understandings of life from the perspectives of an African-American, a woman and a mother. The protagonists'distorted self-hatred and their tragic endings are successfully displayed in this masterpiece, on which many researches have been done with some scholars pointing out that the black Americans'tragic life should be blamed on their own distorted psychological state. However, until now, most of the researches are done from the perspectives of cultural hegemony, post colonialism, feminism and racism, but seldom from the psychoanalytic perspective, which in the author's mind, is a motivator for a deep and profound research of black Americans'psychology. The Freudian psychoanalysis is the theoretical base of the psychoanalytic criticism, which creates a powerful influence on the western ideological and cultural field in the 20th century. Its personality structure theory gives a perfect explanation of the roots for the conducts of human beings, thus a good chance is provided for human beings to have insights into their own behaviors. Therefore, by applying the personality structure as the theoretical support of the thesis, the author will focus on the protagonists'psychological evolutions, namely their internalization of the white aesthetical standard.The thesis aims to reveal the necessities of the black Americans'self-insistence, the black culture's preservation and the black community's unity based on the psychoanalyses of the three female protagonists. In the first part, the author is to make a systematic introduction of Freud's personality structure that paves a way for the further analyses. In the second and third parts, the author will have detailed and deep analyses of the three protagonists'psychological states. Lastly, through the contrasts among the three protagonists'psychological states, the author will bring out the theme that the black Americans, in order to resist the internalization of the white aesthetical standard and get rid of racism, should not only keep healthy, balanced and strong psychological state, but also be aware of the importance of a united black community and an equitable society.