Transmission Of Black Culture

Toni Morrison is one of the greatest writers in the contemporary Americanliterature. She was awarded the1993Noble Prize for Literature, which makes her thefirst female Afro-American writer so honored. The Bluest Eye, one of her earliestworks published in1970, has significant influence in presenting the struggle of blackswho have long been silenced in the white society. Meanwhile, it’s also a representativenovel in which Morrison constantly challenges the social, political, racediscrimination in American society.The Bluest Eye is still the best seller of the21stcentury and shows the author’sextraordinary talent, charm and her unique writing features as a great black womanwriter. Through the various narrative voices and discourses, and its unique narrativestrategies, Morrison studies a distinctive theme--a practical way black should adoptedto survive in the dominant white culture society, receive and transmit black’s ownculture, eliminate the internalization of white cultural value. In order to reveal thetheme, Morrison applies various narrative techniques such as different narrativevoices and narrative discourses, unique plot arrangement and characterization.This thesis is a detailed study of Morrison’s distinctive feminist narrativetechniques in The Bluest Eye, and how she adopted these techniques to realize herauthority in this white and male dominated society, and to express her idea of blackpeople’s self-identity and their cultural transmission. The paper includes three parts.The first part is the Introduction, the second part is the main part of the paper whichincludes four chapters, the third part is Conclusion. Introduction introduces the lifeand achievement of Toni Morrison, and various literary criticisms about the novel andthe basic theory of feminist narratology. Chapter one generally explains the feministnarratology from three aspects: the development of feminist narratology, the featuresof feminist narratology and feminist narrative discourse. The second chapter analyzesthe narrative voices and the narrative discourses, through the usage of the double narrative voices and the various narrative discourses, the author makes the narrationobjective and justified as well as brings the readers and writer closer. The thirdchapter analyzes how the author realizes her authority through the narrative mode ofspecial spot arrangement and characterization. The last chapter further probes one ofthe main theme of the novel: Although living at the bottom of the society, beingdespised by the white people, blacks shouldn’t lost themselves in the society andsurrender to the white culture, they should stand up to protect their own culture,accept themselves as the blacks, and find their self-identification in the society.