『가장 푸른 눈』: 흑인성 상실의 문제

Abstract

Toni Morrison, in The Bluest Eye, articulates how white centered standards devastate African American identity. Especially, a little black girl, the most marginalized inferior in 1940’s America is sacrificed extremely by her family and black community as well as whites. She is judged to be ugly, ignorant, and inferior through white’s perspective. Pecola believes she is driven to despair in life because of her black appearance. Pecola follows the value of the white without any criticism and internalizes white centered ideology unconsciously. However, she only confronts with miserable reality, which encroaches her more seriously and finally drives her insane. It is impossible to exchange the characteristics of race and Pecola’s trial is just to deny their originality or authenticity as black. Additionally, it is the most serious problem that even African Americans themselves feel shame about their blackness. With their tentative identity, they alienate themselves from their community not only from white centered society. We realize how the termination of racial alienation depends on appearance of race in this novel. Morrison creates the problematic relationship between appearance and dominating power as the main material and focuses on the significance of those interaction. African Americans cannot help being destroyed when they lose their confidence and autonomy as black and also they have to compromise and harmonize each other in order to survive in segregated society.