|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
The Quest for Self: Triumph
and Failure in the Works of Toni Morrison
Critic: Dorothy H. Lee
Source: "The Quest for
Self: Triumph and Failure in the Works of Toni
Morrison," in Black Women
Writers (1959-1980): A Critical Evaluation, edited
by Mari Evans, Anchor
Press/Doubleday, 1984, pp. ...
Criticism about: The Bluest
Eye
Author Covered: Toni
Morrison
Table of Contents: Essay |
Source Citation
[In the following excerpt, Lee
interprets Morrisons The Bluest Eye as a failed quest
for self. ... They reveal a
consistency in Morrisons vision of the human
condition, particularly
in her preoccupation with the
effect of the community on the individuals
achievement and
retention of an integrated,
acceptable self. In treating this subject, she draws
recurrently on
myth and legend for story
pattern and characters, returning repeatedly to the
theory of quest
as a motivating and organizing
device. ... Moreover, the theme of quest is
always
underscored by ironic insights
and intensely evocative imagery. ...
The Bluest Eye, Morrisons first
novel, presents a failed quest culminating in madness.
The young Pecola Breedlove
searches painfully for self-esteem as a means of
imposing
order on the chaos of her world.
Because a sense of self-worth and the correlative
stability that would accompany
it are unavailable to her in the familial or wider
environment, she retreats to a
subjective world of fantasy. ...
Her parents problems forecast
defeat for Pecolas quest before her birth, and the
coming of children only gives
them a target for their frustrations. ... " Neither
parent
possesses a sense of self-esteem
which might be communicated to the child. ...
Pecolas search for an
acceptable face, that is to say self, as she shrinks
beneath this
"mantle," "shroud," "mask," of
ugliness is the center of this novel. Her failure to
find it
other than in fantasy is
Morrisons indictment of the society which deprives
her of any
sense of self-worth. ... In order
for Pecola to
feel acceptable, she must ensure
her self by possessing not only blue eyes but the
bluest
eyes created. ... " Folding inward is the
direction
her quest takes. ...
The waning
days of the season detail
Pecolas encounter with Soaphead Church, who is a
study of
alienation, loss of identity and
self-respect, and, once more, the futile search for
order.
He, like other characters in
this and the other novels, compensates for a lack of
self-worth with a pathological
hatred of disorder and decay. ...
The quest surely has ended. ... We see Pecola, fragmented,
engaged in a dialogue with self, i.
Approximate Word count = 2073
Approximate Pages = 8.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|