Predicament Of The Black People’s Quest For Self-identity

As one of the most well-known African American woman writers in the20thcentury, Toni Morrison won Nobel Prize for literature in1993because of herexcellent achievements in writings. The Bluest Eye is Morrison’s first novel. It hasattracted many critics and scholars since its publication. In this novel Morrisondepicts the distorted family life of the Breedloves. The traumas which are brought bythe sociocultural environment and the inharmonious interpersonal relationship resultin the Breedloves’ self-hatred and self-lost. Eventually, these factors lead to thetragic ending of the Breedlove family.In Horney’s neurosis theory, the psychology has close relationship with thecultural and social value. Personal conflicts aren’t arising internally but are theproducts of social value. Besides the sociocultural environment in which a persongrows, the interpersonal relationship especially family relationships are also thedeterminants. Horney’s neurosis theory has great meanings to analyze thepsychological confrontations of the black people who are living in a societydominated by white culture. In the black community, the traditional African cultureand the white culture coexist. The conflicts between these two cultures lead to theconfusion and predicament of the black people’s belief and standard of value, andeventually bring psychological confrontation to them. From the aspects ofsociocultural environment and inharmonious interpersonal relationship especiallypathological family relationship, this thesis tries to analyze the predicaments that theBreedloves suffer on their way to pursue self-identity in a society dominated by thewhite culture.In terms of structure, this dissertation consists of five parts. In addition to the―Introduction‖and―Conclusion‖, the main body includes Chapters One, Two andThree. Chapter One mainly talks about the hostile environment in which the blackpeople live, which is the leading factor to black people’s basic anxiety. All the standards in their lives succumb to the white people’s standard. The whole society isdominated by the white culture, which distorts their belief and standard of value.Living in such an environment, black people feel no sense of safety because ofcultural confrontations. Once they have no sense of safety, they will have basicanxieties. Chapter Two mainly talks about the maladjustment of interpersonalrelationships within the black community, among which the pathological familyrelationship of the Breedloves is the key point. The standard of beauty in whiteculture which believes black is ugly makes the black people hate their owncompatriots. The indifference within the black community as well as their blindstandard of beauty causes black people’s self-hatred and even abnormal familyrelationship. Chapter Three talks about how the Breedloves in The Bluest Eye behavein order to meet their neurotic needs according to the three personality types ofHorney’s theory. By analyzing their neurotic personalities, this thesis unfolds thedecisive factors of their tragic fate.This thesis analyzes the deeper factors beneath the distorted psychologies andabnormal behaviors, and stresses the important role that social-cultural factors andharmonious interpersonal relationship play in shaping of healthy personality.Meanwhile, this paper provides a new angle to interpret this novel.