An Analysis Of Cultural Trauma, And Narrative Strategy In The Bluest Eye

As a novelist, Toni Morrison is of special importance in contemporary American literary world. Her contribution to black masses is beyond suspicion. Her maiden work, The Bluest Eye, also has made far-reaching influences in black literary circles. The stories in the novel happened in America, in 1960s and 70s when racial discrimination flourished. It mainly deal with two black families'different fate under the rule of aesthetic standards—"only whites are beautiful". The Breedloves believe in this predominant aesthetic standards strictly, down into the well of self-hatred and self-denial. The daughter of this family, Pecola, was despised by her classmates and neighbors, and rejected even ill-treated by her families, just for her plain-looking. What is in sharp contrast with the Breedloves is the Macteers. Although the Macteers are in poor circumstances, they have strong will and hard heart. They carried on unshakeable struggle against cruel racism, and procured their dignity and happiness. Every part of this novel displayed the white mainstream culture's mental colonialism and cultural clampdown upon black African-Americans. More weaker are the black women and children, more ruthless are this clampdown. The whites not only reigned supreme in economic, but enslaved and tormented the African-Americans in mental by pulling their values—"only white is beauty, white is superior than others"—on the blacks. Under the social environment of racial discrimination and the suppress of mainstream aesthetic standards, blacks'life will full of clouds for they repress the others and be repressed by the others in turn, because this violence within black groups will worsen their living environment. If black families gave in to the whites'aesthetic standards, their spiritual barrier and life shelter will in a precarious situation. Only by setting up a firm family harbor, blacks will be able to resist and fight against the whites'mainstream culture, and create a favorable social environment for themselves. In this paper, the author mainly study the distortion of blacks'soul and the dissimilation of their aesthetic standards in a society permeated with cultural trauma for white's cultural hegemony,and Morrison's deconstruction of the mainstream culture in substantial and in spiritual. Besides, as for the writer's narrative Strategy, by presenting different results of some blacks'different attitudes toward white mainstream culture, the author of this paper analyzed blacks'resistance against white's cultural hegemony, and this is Morrison's unique narrative skill.