Loss of Self-Identity in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Abstract

The life of African American women seems pathetic as they are not only affected by the damaging forces like racism, sexism and classicism but also from the society which humiliate them. The societal norms and values that they treasured for centuries now seems corrupted by the entering of Whites into their society. Now they themselves learn to keep White standards which remove the values that they already uphold for their own race. They forget their past glory and become submissive before the White Standards. Women are kept as a separate caste by virtue of their sex, thus they are doubly oppressed both for being a woman and black. Black women try to survive all these evils but the existing patriarchal society continuously force them to suffer. The characters in the novel The Bluest Eye find it so difficult to form a sense of self identity. The pressure to meet society’s white standard is on the female characters of the novel. The inequality and gender bias also crushed the liberty of female characters in the novel. This paper gives the insight into how the female characters in the novel lost their self- identity by the damaging forces that existed during that period of time.