An Analysis of the Unconventional Motherhood in   The Bluest Eye  對“最藍的眼睛”非同尋常的母愛進行分析

 

Introduction介紹

1.1 A brief introduction of Toni Morrison簡單介紹了托妮·莫里森

   As one of the most outstanding and important African American women writers, Toni Morrison is the first black woman writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.作為一個最優秀和最重要的美國黑人女作家，在1993年托妮·莫里森是第一個獲得了諾貝爾文學獎的黑人女作家。

Toni Morrison was born in Lorain Ohio on February 1931. 托妮·莫里森于1931年2月出生在美國俄亥俄州洛雷恩。In order to escape from the fetter of racism in the south and find better opportunities in the north, her parents moved to Ohio. Her father was a master of black folklore and ghost stories, and her mother was a singer in the choir. Both of them were proud of their own culture and image. Morrison heard many black folklore and songs throughout her childhood, which had a deep influence on her, making her believe that the black should have the same social status and achieve the same treatments as well as the white. After graduating from Howard University in 1953, she went to south and received her Master Degree of Arts from Cronell University in 1955. In 1957, she returned to Haward University to teach English. After giving birth to her second son, she moved to New York and began to her writing career. As a senior editor at Random House, she mainly writes novels about the black, especially black woman’s life. 在作為蘭登書屋的資深編輯，她主要是寫關于黑人的小說的，特別是黑人婦女的生活。http://ukthesis.org/shx/

From 1970 to 2003, Toni Morrison had published 8 novels. The Bluest Eye is her first novel, which was published in 1970. Although this novel was not achieved praise, but it made her enter into the field of black literature and fight for racial equality. Sula was published in 1974, which was nominated for the National Book Award and was a milestone in Toni Morrison’s fictional works. In 1977, her third novel Song of Solomon made her win the National Book Critics Cricle Award. Beloved is her most famous novel published in 1987 and she won the Pulitzer Prize. Morrison “has proven that African-American women writers no longer command only a black audience but can hold white readers’ interest and earn their respect while lessening their ignorance of the black race”(Robinson, 2001: 9).

1.2 A brief introduction of The Bluest Eye簡單介紹了“最藍的眼睛”

   The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison’s first novel, which was published in 1970. 托妮·莫里森的“最藍的眼睛”，這是在1970年出版的第一部小說。Besides, it is considered as one of the most important novels of Morrison. In this novel, the author emphatically portrays a little black girl, Pecole Breedlove and her miserable girlhood. Influenced by cultural and racial oppression, her father, Cholly always gets drunk and fights with her mother. Her mother, Pauline devotes herself to her white master’s family and gives the Fisher girl all her love and care. Because of Pauline’s indifference and silence, Pecola considers herself an ugly girl. After raped by her father, blamed and denied by her mother, Pecola’s inner world is destroyed completely. In her eyes, only with white skin and blue eyes can she have qualification for achieving her mother’s love and care and become a beautiful girl. Rejected by her family and black community, she becomes mad and considers that she has already had a pair of blue eyes. Meanwhile, Morrison depicts another black mother, Grealdine, like Pauline, she hates her blackness and worships everything connecting with the white. Because of lack of maternal love and care, her son, Junior becomes a sadist. In addition, by describing Mrs. MacTeer’s self-affirmation and her daughters’ self-identification, Morrison tells the black that loving their own culture and image black people can achieve same status and rights as well as the white have in American society.#p#分頁標題#e#

The Bluest Eye shows many themes, for instance, dominant culture, unconventional motherhood, racial discrimination and so on. In fact, these themes are the reasons of the black people’s miserable fate in American society. “最藍的眼睛”的主題，是例如，主流文化，非傳統的母親，種族歧視等。事實上，這些主題都是導致美國社會中黑人的悲慘命運的原因。Under the oppression of white culture and racism, the black gradually give up their own culture, even hate black people. However, they are still not admitted by the white. Ruby Dee commented that “Toni Morrison has not really written a story, but a series of painfully accurate impression”; “she gives us a sense of some of some of the social elements of some of the people, black and white that contribute the erosion of innocence and beauty. To read the book, however, is to ache for remedy” (1970: 320).

1.3 A brief introduction of motherhood in Morrison’s novels簡要介紹莫里森的小說中的母親

   In general, “motherhood is preserving the life of the child, fostering the child’s growth, and shaping a child acceptable to his or her society” (Ruddick, 1995: 17). In other words, motherhood is a very important factor in the growth of younger generation. It should not only satisfy children’s material need that makes them grow vigorously, but also care for children’s spiritual need that helps them to overcome difficulties. Therefore, African Americans’ normal motherhood should be protecting the life of the child, resisting the cultural oppression under the white dominant world. 

   For Morrison, African American motherhood is a very important aspect for their black children. In general, their behaviors and psychology decide their children’s life and characters. So motherhood is a central theme running through Morrison’s novels, such as: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. She emphatically depicts under the serious influence of dominant culture, slavery, racism and psychological forces, African American mothers deviate from their traditional and normal motherhood, thus having a bad effect on their children’s physiology and psychology. They are faced with different circumstances. Some of them would rather take extreme action for protecting their children from the fetter of slavery, yet some of them keep away from their native culture and indifferent to their children. However, all of them have a tragic lot. Besides, the younger generation is influenced by this tragedy. As Mary Helen Washington considered that “motherhood complicated and threatened by racism, is a special kind of motherhood” (Burrows, 2004: 129), which is the unconventional motherhood. Meanwhile, in Morrison’s novels, she also believes that developing normal motherhood is a necessary part on the road of the black’s self- identification and a source of power for their children.#p#分頁標題#e#

   From 20th century to now, many critics have been paid much attention to Morrison’s novels. Generally speaking, there are many books and studies touch on black motherhood from physical, psychological, family, social, cultural and racial aspects. My thesis is intended to analyze the motherhood distorted by white dominant culture and racism in the black community. The significance is mainly to illustrate that black people can free themselves from the fetter of white dominant culture and racism by identifying their own culture and image, and to make readers pay more attention to black female’s living environment.