高级英语 lesson 9 The Bluest Eye.ppt

Toni Morrison Morrison’s novels are most set in a black community in the thirties or forties. Her work is always symbolic of the shared human condition, transcending lines of gender, race, and class. The most enduring impression her novels leave is of “sympathy, of compassion with one’s fellow human beings.” Social background of the novel Many black people accepted and internalized white values and developed self-contempt and self-hatred for themselves or other black people, making some of their own people victims and scapegoats (替罪羊). To overthrow white cultural hegemony and liberate themselves from oppression and self-oppression, the black people raised the political slogan in the 1960’s: “Black is beautiful.” Social background of the novel American civil rights. Morrison began Pecolas story as a short piece in1962; it became a novel-in-progress by 1965. It was written, as one can see from the dates, during the years of some of the most dynamic and turbulent ?transformations of Afro-American life. One of those transformations was a new recognition of Black-American beauty. ? Social background of the novel Black-Americans began to argue for a new standard of beauty. This new standard was meant to be racially inclusive, allowing blacks to see black as beautiful, but the need to argue for this new standard reveals how firmly the white standard of beauty was entrenched Content of the novel The Bluest Eye is the story of a young African American girl and her family who are affected in every direction by the dominant American culture that says to them, Youre not beautiful; youre not relevant; youre invisible; you dont even count. Content of the novel That is what is painful in the novel -- the way in which our country has dealt with race, the way in which the power structure has hurt us, and the way in which it has made us hurt ourselves. Often enough we African Americans dont get the opportunity to say This is the source of my dysfunction, and it’s not all my fault.