the bluest eye

1. Racial Discrimination In The Bluest Eye
The racial discrimination in post- colonial literature became the main issue of most of the
novelists. African American writers have not only represented themselves but also their race and
culture. They try to establish their Afro- American identity through their magnificent writing.
Among them Toni Morrison, the Afro-American novelist raise this issue in her novels on behalf
of racial victims. In America racism is a reality. In the post-modern context, the voices against
racial discrimination gets more focus and prominence. Toni Morrison has become the mouth-
piece of the colored people. Her writings are tales of the colored people’s oppression in a white
dominant patriarchal society.
Toni Morrison has realized very early in her life that racism has become the greatest enemy of
the “colored” people. She has tried in her writings to justify that „getting back the black
identity‟ is the only way to check the racial discrimination. She knows a problem specific to
groups targeted by racism that Afro- Americans begin to believe about themselves and imagine
that Euro-Americans are superior in beauty, morality, and intelligence. Toni Morrison is very
well known for her Afro-American identity and Sherried to discover the complex life of the
black slaves, other men and women who are living in a highly backward and neglected
conditions in America.
Morrison tries to show the hard life conditions of black people in social life by this novel and
how they are treated by white people. She also highlights the great differences between white
and black people and how blacks are considered as second-class citizens. The women of the
black community served as a tightly woven safety net, had to contend with the racial prejudice
and educational system ignored the contributions of nonwhites. An example of the view about
blacks’ social life is “Black e mo Black e mo Ya daddy sleeps necked. Stch ta ta scth ta ta, Stach
ta ta ta ta”. Pecola is beaten up, goes mad, everybody hates her, her baby dies, her life gets
ruined. She is excluded from the society. Her mother mad at Pecola. She reveals the role of
education in both oppressing the victim and more to the point-teaching the victim how to oppress
her own black self by internalizing the values that dictate standards of beauty, Jesus crucifix and
Maureen’s influence.
But Nothing changes for Cholly. He goes on to his life. His traumatic experience for a little girl.
He cannot live up to expectations of masculinity. Three instances that push him further from
achieving a sense of whiteness, his aunt’s death, sexual pleasure and loss of reconciliation.
Cholly’s struggle with his own internalized racism stems from the whole of his past experience,
his experience as a poor, black youth, victimized by white and black oppression. His identity and
masculine power, “mirror” image of his father.
The American lifestyle with images from Hollywood and influences from the white culture is not
presented as the ideal place for the Breedlove family to live out their hopes and aspirations but a
closer examination of their struggle with whiteness and internalized racism gives an answer to
the ultimate question of why the characters fail in the end.

2. Even though slavery is abolished legally through the tough efforts of eminent leaders but still the
Afro-Americans are not considered equal to the whites. The Black people are trying to identify
themselves with the white and their cultural ways. Toni Morrison insists on Black cultural
heritage and solicits the Afro-Americans to be proud of their Black identity. Toni Morrison
through her writing make blacks to understand that black identity is not inferior to white in any
way. she makes her point that physical appearance and culture may be different but that doesn’t
mean servitude of the entire race.