(DE)CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY IN THE BLUEST EYE BY TONI MORRISON

Abstract

The main feature of the protagonists of Toni Morrison’s novel The bluest eye is the need for acceptance and finding one’s place in the world in which identity is largely a social construct determined by normative practices. Position in which the subject of today is placed and modes by which it is constructed is illustrated through the relationship of the characters of the story that are equally diverse in class and race. In keeping with Judith Butler’s theories of class and racial identity, the paper addresses issues of racial discrimination and self-discrimination, family and social violence against ethnic groups and the role which normative practices play in constructing the subject’s identity and materialization of sex. The paper will also, through the theory of abjection by Julia Kristeva, try to study the ways in which the subject is included/excluded in the community, as well as the ways in which the subject’s identity is constituted through family relations.