Enfrentar las estructuras de opresión: sumisión, resiliencia y resistencia en Los ojos más azules y El color púrpura.

Abstract

This paper focuses on and compares several aspects of the novels The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. This analysis is preceded by a brief historical background of the times when the action of the novels take place, necessary to understand the history of racial discrimination and the prejudices that sustain this discrimination to our days. The discursion shows the main female characters reacting towards the different forms of oppression and to the systematic suppression of the necessary conditions for the normal development of their self- esteem as human beings. The self-esteem of some of them is so low that they cannot recover; others rise and are able to recover their lost self-esteem. We conclude that the lives of the characters in The Bluest Eye were influenced by racial, social and patriarchal prejudices, prevented from material advancement, and in some cases, how their expectations for a better life were crushed in the end leading them into catastrophic events. In The Color Purple, characters are able to overcome the effects of oppression with the help of the solidarity of women and their personalities can survive almost intact. Thus they show resilience in the face of adversity.