The Eye in the Bluest Eye: to Disempower, Resist, and Encounter with the Absolute Beauty

Abstract

The white gaze is one of the survival dilemmas that African Americans have consistently faced. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s first novel, focuses on the eye as its central motif to probe into the physical and mental harm that black people, especially children, suffer due to the oppressive social discipline of white culture. However, her exploration grows even more complex in her analysis of the sense of rebellion exhibited by some of her characters against the violent racialized gaze and the distortions left by the beauty standard of western culture upon the perceptions of individual spectators in her novel. This thesis endeavors to analyze the three layers of meaning concentrated in the symbol of the eye in The Bluest Eye by restoring Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze, as well as the concept of the white gaze, and thereby demonstrating Morrison’s profound care for all of her black fellows. The eye is to disempower, resist, and totalize the hegemonic standard of beauty. This paper intends to reflect upon the place of gaze in the interaction between the individual and the prevalent symbolic system used within a society.