A Postcolonial Approach To The Bluest Eye

As the first African American woman winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, ToniMorrison is the most noteworthy writer in contemporary African American literature. She hasexerted profound influence upon the American and even the whole literary world with hereight excellent novels, some collections of insightful essays, a play and some children’sbooks. She has been regarded as one of the greatest novelists in the contemporary world, andher works represents the outstanding achievement in Afro-American literary history. ToniMorrison has been concerned with the black marginalized in the mainstream culture. Shepays attention to the living conditions of the black under the oppression of the white culturehegemony. Morrison’s fiction has profound cultural connotations and metaphorical meanings,with a massive sense of history and modernity.Based on the postcolonial perspective this thesis is to analyze how the white conductcultural hegemony by some cultural institutions, dissemination of white notions andconstruction of a white myth in the whole society in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Theblacks’ acceptance of the mainstream culture leads to their dissimilation of aesthetic valueand their distortion of personality, so they are in the dilemma of Afro-Americans’ nationaland cultural identity. It also reveals the self-negation of the blacks by analyzing that that theyhate themselves and are ashamed of their origin. The in-depth study of the cultural hegemonyshows that the dominant white culture can bring bad effects to the blacks. The AfricanAmericans cannot accept the value system of the dominant white culture at the cost of cuttingform their black culture. Only rooted in the rich soil of their own culture can the AfricanAmericans find their true self and identity.This thesis consists of three parts. Part one is the analysis of the blacks’ submission towhite aesthetic value and distortion of their personality. It concludes that Afro-Americans feelperplexed and confused about their self-identity under the influence of the mainstreamculture. Part two is the further analysis of the blacks’ self-negation. It further points out thatthe white’s mainstream culture leads to the blacks’ shame about their origin and self-hatred.Part three focuses on how white people establish their hegemonic power by imposing their education, mass media and religion on black people.