A Study Of The Trauma Narrative Art In The Bluest Eye

In1993, Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is the firstAfrican-American writer to win this laurel, and she is also the second American woman towin the Nobel Prize for Literature after Pearl S. Buck. The achievements of her novels markanother peak in the history of20th century Afro-American literature after Wright and Ellison.Her works profoundly reveal the miserable traumatic history of the black suffering from theracial discrimination and oppression, and call on the construction of national culture and thepursuit of self-personality by the blacks. When her first novel, The Bluest Eye came out, itimmediately drew the attention of the American literary world. Today, The Bluest Eye hasbecome a literary classic of American women’s literature, and has also become anindispensable part of research on Morrison. As an African-American woman writer, ToniMorrison shares blood with her fellow blacks. Her works touches upon race and oppression,and pays close attention to the cruelty of racial discrimination and gender discrimination tothe blacks. As a talented writer, Morrison makes use of the unique writing skills and theability of using powerful languages in order to make her works covered with a profound senseof trauma. This dissertation tries to study The Bluest Eye from the perspective of the traumanarrative art and explores how Tony Morrison employs the artful trauma narrative structure,trauma narrative voice and the unique trauma discourse to utter the great trauma which theblacks suffer in the cruel white society.This dissertation is divided into five chapters. The first chapter introduces Morrison’s lifeand her writing career as well as the trauma theory. The second chapter mainly analyzes thespecial narrative structure of this novel and mainly introduces the unique combination andcoherence of the four seasons and the elaborately planned layout of the prologue. The fourseasons do not appear according to the natural order, however, the season autumn appears atthe beginning. Vagueness and disorder let readers be exposed to the deep trauma which theblacks experience in the white world. Besides, the author’s elaborately planned layout of theprologue makes the readers clearly see that the blacks sink in the abyss of agony, suffering great trauma without the ability to improve their miserable situation. The third chapteranalyzes the narrative voice, such as multi-perspective voice—intersected narrations betweenthe first person and the omniscient third person, the narration of Claudia as a child and anadult respectively and the narration of the music. Through multi-perspective narration,Morrison makes the readers deeply feel the pervasive trauma plots and the authenticity of thenovel as well as the heartbreaking sense of trauma in this novel. The fourth chapter mainlyanalyzes the novel’s trauma discourse, specifically focusing on the discourse of the folkloreand fairy tales as well as the recurring forms of discourse like overlexicalization, typography,and repetition. By analyzing these different forms of discourse, Morrison leads readers to betotally exposed to the great trauma which the white culture brings to the blacks, and theblacks internalize the white value and the white beauty standard in a natural and spontaneousway. Consequently, the blacks are unable to find the self-position and the sense of belongingand only lose in the white society. The fifth chapter is the concluding part, summarizing thisdissertation.