On the Narrative Skills in The Bluest Eye

1、論最藍(lán)的眼睛的敘事技巧on the narrative skills in the bluest eyeabstract: toni morrison is one of the most prominent african-american women writers in the world. she received the nobel prize for literature in 1993 for her excellent achievements in writing, and becomes the first african- american woman to win th

2、is award. as a gifted writer, morrison employs a lot of writing techniques, the excellent mastery of the writing crafts and heart- beat spoken language to create the sense of intimacy. in the novel, the bluest eye, several prominent artistic features should be paid attention to. they are the arrange

3、ment of the chapters, the unique prelude, the multiple narratives and so on. all of them make the novel more attractive and interesting to read. meanwhile these writing techniques help to express the novels theme successfully, which can make readers imagine and think freely and deeply.key words: ton

4、i morrison; the bluest eye; narrative skills摘要：托尼莫里森是二十世紀(jì)最為杰出的非裔美國女作家之一，因其卓越的創(chuàng)作才華于1993年獲諾貝爾文學(xué)獎，是第一位獲此殊榮的美國黑人女性。作為一名才華橫溢的作家，莫里森運用獨特的寫作技巧和駕馭語言的高超技術(shù)，以震撼人心的語言使其作品具有親密感。在最藍(lán)的眼睛這部小說中，獨特的章節(jié)安排，奇妙的開篇，多角度的敘事手法以及寫作技巧的運用都很好地服務(wù)于小說的主題表達(dá)，同時增強了小說的閱讀快感，令讀者深思與遐想。關(guān)鍵字：托尼莫里森；最藍(lán)的眼睛；敘事技巧contents i. introduction.1a. general

5、 introduction to toni morrison.1b. introduction to the bluest eye.2. narrative structure of the novel.4a. the distinctive prelude of the novel.4b. the unique arrangement of the chapters.5c. multiple narrative voices in the novel.7. conclusion.11works cited.12i. introduction with the development of c

6、ontemporary literature, the study of “minority discourse”, especially of african american literature has drawn more and more attention in the world. now african american literature has become one of the indispensable components of american literature and culture. the whole world should be thankful t

7、o african-american novelists who have made such great contributions to the world literature, and at the same time no one will forget african-american writers endeavor to promote african american literature in the literary arena, nor ignore the unimaginably hard struggle that african american literat

8、ure has waged for its development.a. general introduction to toni morrisontoni morrison is one of the most outstanding and influential contemporary african american women writers. for her collective achievements, she was awarded the nobel prize for literature in 1993, and has been launched into the

9、spotlight as a talented african american women writer and social critic. her works root deeply in the peculiar history, tradition, legends and the lives of african americans. she offers a penetrating look at the trauma of african americans and scrutinizes the damaging impact of the dominant culture.

10、 she pushes the african american novels to a newer and higher standard both in the thematic contents and in the narrative skills.when she was in collage, she toured deep south, where for the first time she witnessed what life was like for black people in the south, “this was a crucial experience in

11、tonis life, bringing into focus certain ancestral information, particularly the iniquitous loss of family land to whites, the pain and the glory of which would, fifteen years later, drive her to writing” (danille 140). toni morrison is considered one of the best fiction writers in the world, “not th

12、e best woman writer, not the best black writer or the best american writer-the best fiction writer in the world”(ron 8). in life and art, toni morrison has extended and enlarged the tradition of strength, persistence and accomplishments of black women in america. her strong ties to her black culture

13、 and oral tradition create a rich foundation for her novels. black lore, black music, black language and all the myths and rituals of black culture were the most prominent elements of her early life. according to toni morrison, her writing has a strong connection to ancestors and her life seems to b

14、e dominated by information about black women. they were culture bears. at that time, storytelling is a shared activity in her family. her parents would spend hours telling them terrifying ghost stories, and the children were encouraged to participate in it. in terms of music, her mothers family were

15、 all musicians. her grandfather was a violinist, her mother played in silent-movie theaters and sang everything from opera and jazz. her grandmother wrote her dreams in a book, and then decoded the symbols with the help of another book. throughout her childhood, without knowing it, she absorbed the

16、folktales, myths and songs that had been an important part of southern black culture for centuries.in life, her immediate models are her grandmother who in the early part of this century, left her home in the south with seven children and thirty dollars because she is afraid of whit sexual violence

17、against her maturing daughters; and the second, her mother who took humiliating jobs in order to send morrison money regularly while she was at college and graduate school; and the third model is her father. her father came from georgia, and the strong violence with which he grew up in that state ha

18、d a lasting impact on his vision of white america. the most valuable legacy he left her daughter was a strong sense of her own value on her own terms.with the memories in her mind and her personal experience, morrison, as a writer, is fully aware of her responsibility she should undertake. she knows

19、 why and what she writes; and to her, the african american writing has “an obligation to bear witness”, and “would take her people through the pain and denial of their racially haunted history to a healing zone”(ron 32). this is clearly reflected in her novels, especially in the bluest eye, a novel

20、in which she explores the damage that internalized racism do to the black community; to review toni morrisons life experience is to discover with what morrison is mostly concerned. so a better understanding of toni morrisons life will help us to understand her works better.b. introduction to the blu

21、est eyein the bluest eye, morrison not only roots deeply in the black americans unique history and legends in order to enhance african american culture, but also explores their experiences and modes of perception, especially the trauma that they suffered or suffer under slavery and in the mainstream

22、 discourse. she constantly challenges the political, social, racial and gender hierarchies in american society. by writing about the life of the african americans, “she challenges a dualistic western civilization which has mutilated and debased african americans physically and psychologically: right

23、 or wrong, black or white, the oppressors or the oppressed”(aoi 21).the bluest eye came about at a critical moment in the history of american civil rights, during the years of some of the most dynamic and turbulent transformations of afro-american life. one of those transformations was a new recogni

24、tion of african-american beauty. after centuries of eagerly desiring white dolls and decades of longing to look like caucasian hollywood stars. african-americans began to argue for a new standard of beauty: black is beautiful. in the novel morrison draws the readers attention to the damaging effects

25、 of the way the white culture prevents african americans from developing their own identities, and the damaging impact of white racist practice on the collective african american experience. she also points to the shaping and the shaming power of corrosive racist stereotypes in the construction of a

26、frican american identities as racially inferior.the story depicts the tragic life of a young black girl, pecola breedlove, who wants nothing more than to be loved by her family and her school friends. she surmises that the reason why she is despised and ridiculed is that she is black, and therefore,

27、 ugly. consequently, pecola has a very strong desire to have blue eyes and blonde hair; in short, to look like shirley temple, who is adored by all. she thinks that if she got a pair of blue eyes, she would live a life like the white girls around her. unable to endure the brutality towards her frail

28、 self-image, pecola goes quietly insane and withdraws into a fantasy world in which she is the most beautiful and beloved little girl because she has the bluest eyes of all. in this novel, morrison portrays two kinds of cultures: white culture (the dominant culture), and the african culture (the min

29、or culture) in american society. against this cultural background, black people are visible to whites only when they fit the white frame of society. or they will remain invisible to the white society. children, black, and female are devalued in american culture. pecola is the representative of the b

30、lack children, especially black girls. the bluest eye can be said to concentrate on the factors that leads to pecolas victimization in her own family and community. only by understanding these factors can we comprehend the negative consequence of the racial discrimination produced in the tragedy of

31、pecola, these factors will also enable us to understand the inversion caused by one attempting to impose its value system inappropriately on another culture. narrative structure of the novela. the distinctive prelude of the novel the bluest eye opens with two short untitled and unnumbered sections.

32、the first section is a version of the classic dick and jane story found in grade reading primers. “there is a pretty house, mother, father, dick, jane, a cat, a dog, and at the end, a friend for jane to play with” (morrison 1). the same story appears three times in succession, repeated verbatim each

33、 time. the first time the text appears with full punctuation and normal spacing. the second time the same story appears without any punctuation of capitalization, but with a space between each of the words, the third time the text has no capitalization, no punctuation, and no spaces between the word

34、s, without having read the whole story, each reader must have been confused that why the author breaks the beauty of the wonderful story. after reading the novel, most readers would suddenly realize what had happened. in fact, in this section, morrison gives the readers some blanks to fill or some s

35、paces to imagine. obviously, each repetition, through its form, speed up the pace at which it must be read. readers tend to go through the final repetition in a barely comprehended rush. in the context of the novel, we know that the three different printings signify three different life styles. the

36、first one clearly refers to the alien white world. the second is the lifestyle of the two black macteer children, claudia and frieda, shaped by poor but loving parents, and trying desperately to survive. the breedloves lives are like the third the distorted version of the life in dick-and jane text.

37、 meanwhile, the third one suggests that language itself is a problem, that it also parallels pecolas descent into madness; that the story cant have a happy ending. all these are used to serve the expression of the novels theme. morrisons manipulation of the primer is meant to suggest the inappropria

38、teness of the white voices attempt to authorize of authenticate the black text or to dictate the contours of african-american art.the dick and jane text implies one of the primary and most insidious ways that the dominant culture exercises its hegemony through the educational system. it reveals the

39、role of education in both oppressing victim and more to the point-teaching the victim how to oppress her own black self by internalizing the values that dictate standards of beauty. morrisons innovative use of the dick and jane primer as an epigraph for the bluest eye establishes a postcolonial rela

40、tionship between the primary and prefatory texts that deepens meaning and elicits change.in the second section of the prelude, the opening four words of claudias narratives are important, remarked upon by readers and morrison herself. the words create a sense of intimacy between the reader and the s

41、tory. the reader is being invited to learn about pecolas tragedy, and the opening four words indicate that the story is both little-known and important enough to share. the voice used here is that of the adult claudia, and she lets the reader know from the beginning that in the course of the novel p

42、ecola will be impregnated by her own father. the story of pecolas tragedy is known by the reader from the beginning. claudias opening remarks structure the novel so that the reader knows beforehand some basic plot elements and concentrate on the questions claudia raises. since “why” is far too diffi

43、cult to handle, the novel will attempt to ask “how”, examining pecolas life and the impact of social constructions and the role that these forces had in her tragedy. by suggesting that the soil itself might have been barren, and connecting that soil to pecolas tragedy, claudia is suggesting that ind

44、ividual agency was not a factor in the failure of the marigolds to grow. the land itself made growth impossible, just as social and situational forces made pecolas growth impossible.hedin once commented: morrison arranges the novel so that each of its sections provides a bitter gloss on key phrases

45、from the novels preface, a condensed version of the dick and jane reader. these phrases describe the american cultural ideal of the healthy, supportive, well-to-do family. the seven central elements of janes world-house, family, mother, father, cat, dog, and friend becomes, in turn, plot elements, b

46、ut only after they are inverted to fit the realities of pecolas world. morrison employs the primer not only as prefatory material to the text properly but also to introduce the chapters of the bluest eye that are recounted by the novels omniscient narrative voice.b. the unique arrangement of the cha

47、ptersas we know, the nature images are constant throughout the novel and help to organize its structure. but the bluest eye doesnt begin its chapters from the spring just as the natural law does. it begins its development from the autumn, which implies the story will not develop as the natural proce

48、ss of growth from sowing to harvest. autumn is a season for the pleasure of the harvest. but for pecola it is a sad season, for she gets into madness. in this novel, the arrangement of the chapters as four seasons starting from the autumn also implies pecolas story is doomed to be a tragic one. mean

49、while, this kind of organization suggests that the events described in the bluest eye will occur inevitably just like the circulation of the four seasons in a year. each section explores in depth the theme from different perspectives. the structure of the novel if circular, for each chapter of the b

50、ook is not only coherent; it is also linked to each other.instead of conventional chapters and sections in the novel, the bluest eye is divided into four chapters as four seasons fall, winter, spring, and summer. this type of organization suggests that the events described in the bluest eye have occ

51、urred before, and will occur again. this kind of cycle suggests that there is notion that there is no escape from the cycle of life that breedloves and macteer live in. this makes most readers unexpected and surprised greatly. but by reading through the whole novel, we can get the conclusion that th

52、is kind of arrangement is an invitation given by morrison to readers. its aim is to make readers think and imagine and stimulate the readers to read her novel rapidly and carefully. from the beginning to the end of the novel, the novel is full of hints and gaps for readers to consider and fill. the

53、seasons in the novel can be looked on as the irony of pecolas tragedy. for example, in spring lovers always show their adoration between each other and fertility rites are cyclically reenact, as nature comes back to life. yet it is in this reason that pecolas father rapes his won daughter. her rape

54、in the spring is preached by a “false spring” in the winter. the reason the natural process of growth will not wait for the marigolds to be planted, and will not alter their pattern because someone is crying. there is a suggestion that nature itself of perhaps even life is hostile to certain black c

55、hildren.in the bluest eye, morrison employs natural seasons to provide the novel with a sense of unity and wholeness. but nature here is represented as being at best indifferent to human beings. the implication of the novels structure is that lives of the african-american are restrained within the f

56、ramework of the values of the dominant culture and subjected to the white values. morrison racks her mind to use this unexpected arrangement of chapters to show that everything will happen just as the natural circulations. this can impress the readers very much and make the readers put much more emp

57、hasis on the expression of the theme. there is no doubt that the white standard of beauty cannot be changed just because of someones request.nature is a recurring theme in the story and plays an important role in dealing with why pecola is rejected. claudia, the novels narrator, and her sister fried

58、a, in their pre-adolescent mindsets cannot completely understand why things happen as they do to pecola. however what they do know is stated at the beginning of the novel: that “there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941” (morrison 9), the seeds of hope they themselves planted had shriveled and died, just like pecola and her baby. this simplistic alignment of pecolas life with occurrences in nature as a means of understanding is reiterated by morrison throughout the novel. she established nature as an important factor in lifes experi