A Sociological Study Of Black Family Relationship In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison (1931---) is the first African-American woman writer who has beenawarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Morrison has a unique and genuine understanding ofthe real characters of the African-Americans, which makes her one of the most importantcontemporary novelists in the world. So far, Morrison has published eight great novels–TheBluest Eye(1970), Sula(1973), Song of Solomon(1977), Tar Baby(1981), Beloved(1987),Jazz(1992), Paradise(1998), and Love(2003). Almost all of her works have received thereaders’ applause. The African-American experience is always Morrison’s concentrated issue.She always focuses her thoughts on the black women and the black girls, who aremarginalized previously in literature. This thesis discusses her first important works, TheBluest Eye, which is just about the black girls, Pecola and Claudia. Pecola was born in adisfunctional family and received distorted maternal love and destructive paternal love, finallyshe goes into insanity. While Claudia was born in a normal family and received the rightmaternal and paternal love, so she could grow up healthily in the racism society.The Bluest Eye is Morrison’s first novel. Since the publication, many researchers take itas the study object and have discussed it in depth. Many academic papers have appeared inthe world. Although some of them focused on the family aspect, there are few monographsand articles that probe into the problem–how the family relationships influence theindividual members’ behaviours. At present, my literature study results show that there arefew such monographs or articles that discuss or study the novel from the viewpoint of boththe group dynamics theory and sociology of the family theory. According to Kurt Lewin’sgroup dynamics, all the members in one group interact one another. Kurt Lewin believes thatevery member has the dynamic of interacting one another. In sociology of the family theory,the family is the primary group which is based on marriage and blood relations; the family isthe first environment in which the individuals accept the socialization. Owing to the abovefacts, this thesis makes an attempt to analyse the problem–how the black family relationshipsinfluence the individual members including their abnormal behaviours from the perspectivesof the group dynamics and sociology of the family theories. This thesis finds out the abnormalbehaviors of the black individual members are mainly caused by the negative influence of the black family relationships.Through the detailed study, this thesis draws a conclusion: Toni Morrison probes deeplyinto the family as a social unit and minutely presents the different influences and their resultsof the different family relationships with her acute observation, which makes us see that thereare indivisible relations between the individual members and the group and that the goodfamily relationships promote children’s healthy growing and developing while the distortedfamily relationships prevent children from growing and developing healthily; only with thelove and support of the family group can the black individual members be nourished by theirown culture in order to realize their “real” selves. Therefore, on the one hand, only byaccepting the black history, inheriting and grasping an active recognition of their own culturalbelief can the black parents develop the wholesome personality, build the healthy familyrelationship and good family environment, and find out the active living tactic to get out ofthe harsh surroundings. On the other hand, the black children can grow up healthily only inthe good family environment through learning their parents’ active living tactic—–how tolive in the white-dominated racial society. The black parents’ giving up their own culture willnot only bring confusion to themselves but also lead to their children’s tragedy.Through the concrete and deep analysis, the thesis argues that the family’s happiness isdetermined by the family relationship and the family’s happiness is the main factor for theharmony of the community and the harmony of the society. This thesis, on the basis of thegroup dynamics theory and sociology of the family theory, aims to offer a new perspective ofblack family relationship for domestic research on Morrison’s works.