Construction Of Female Authority A Feminist Narratological Reading Of The Bluest Eye

This thesis attempts to explore Toni Morrison’s distinct narrative strategy in the Bluest Eye and analyze the construction of black women’s subjectivity from the perspective of feminism narratology.Toni Morrison is the most outstanding Afro-American female writer in the20th century. Because of her great narrative techniques, many scholars attempt to discuss her unique strategies. The writer thinks that Morrison uses unique writing style is to subvert the traditional and narrative strategy, which primarily concentrates on men. According to this way, the black female can get the right of speech. This thesis tries to analyze this novel with the help of Feminist Narratology and explore how these strategies help Morrison achieve her authority from three aspects:narrative voice, narrative focalization and the construction of black female’s subjectivity. Morrison builds up two kinds of voice in the Bluest Eye, namely: authorial voice and personal voice. By using authorial voice, Morrison constructs Claudia to tell the story of the main characters in this novel. In addition, she also gives personal voice to female characters to make themselves heard by public. Then, the writer discusses the male narrative focalization and female narrative focalization in this novel. Though the shift of focalizations, the oppressions on black female are revealed. Morrison did a successful job to reduce the readers’resistance for this novel. At last, this thesis draws a conclusion and makes some suggestions for the further study. Generally speaking, Morrison has set an excellent example for the Afro-American writers in the literary circle with her special writing techniques and sharp insight into the black people.Through the analysis above, the thesis achieves its writing objectivity:showing the readers how Morrison gets feminist narrative authority successfully and reflects her female ideology in this novel. The thesis aims to provide a new way to make Morrison’s writing intention clear. It is helpful for further studies on the Bluest Eye.