Quest for self triump
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.