A Horneyan Interpretation Of Neurotic Personality Of Black People In The Bluest Eye

As one of Toni Morrison's masterpieces in contemporary America,The Bluest Eye depicts the miserable life of the Breedloves.Pecola lives in an indifferent and ruthless family.Meanwhile,she is humiliated within black community and white-dominated society.She ascribes all the misfortune to her black identity.Therefore she crazily yearns for a pair of blue eyes,which finally drives her into madness.And Pecola's parents also suffer a lot in harsh environments.Obviously,influenced by white people's ideology,three family members experience psychological traumas.The Breedloves serves as an epitome of African American people,so their psychological traumas mirror black people's spiritual world resulting from oppression of white culture.By employing psychologist Karen Horney's neurosis theory,this thesis analyzes causes of the Breedloves' neurotic personality and revelation of neurotic personality,revealing the important influence of hostile and discriminatory environments exerted on the formation of black people's neurotic personality.Through analyzing the three main characters,the author argues that they all suffer from anxiety,that is,the feeling of isolation and helplessness in a hostile world that is characterized by dominance of white culture,indifference of black community and ruthlessness of family.In order to relieve anxiety,they form interpersonal defensive strategies and intrapsychic defensive strategies.As for interpersonal defensive strategies,Pecola,Cholly and Pauline respectively resort to a neurotic trend,namely,compliant type,aggressive type and detached type.As for intrapsychic defensive strategies,the three main characters estrange of selves.Pecola and Pauline are indulged in idealized self,and Cholly applies the way of externalization of self-hatred.Interpersonal defensive strategies and intrapsychic defensive strategies lead to a certain rigidity in reaction and a discrepancy between potentialities and accomplishments.Such analysis shows that Morrison reveals how the Breedloves suffer both within and without neurotic personality and loss of selves.The thesis,through revelation of such severe distorted psyche and abnormal behaviors of the Breedloves,tries to confirm crucial role of sociocultural environments in the shaping of black people's healthy personality.So equal,democratic and harmonious environments should be established to help black people shape wholesome personality.Hence,a Horneyan interpretation of the main characters' neurotic personality in The Bluest Eye exerts practical as well as theoretical significance of neurotic analysis.