The Burden of Gender: A Study of Femininity in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

In Toni Morrison’s novel entitled The Bluest Eye, femininity is shown to be the main issue restricting characters’ lives. The main bulk of research conducted on this book focuses on the psychological aspects of racism, and how it results in ruin and torment for those who populate this book. The fact that Morrison herself is quite outspoken on racial issues also contributed to this fact. This article aims to show, through a complete analysis of the novel, how female characters suffer more than their male counterparts precisely because of their sex and the troubles it heaps upon them. As soon as they reach puberty, they are prone to sexual molestation and the restrictive Eurocentric standards of beauty. In Morrison’s novel, traditional gender roles are subverted, as is seen in the depiction of women who work to support their families. The men she depicts rarely work, and when they do, it veers in the direction of molestation. It might be inferred from the work that with the threat of matriarchy looming in the horizon, men turn excessively aggressive, harming their opposites as a way of securing their own sovereignty. After elaborating on the notions drawn above, the article moves on to discuss femininity. Femininity, because of its threatening capabilities in overthrowing patriarchy, is seen as poisonous and thus it often draws male scorn as a way of undermining its power. In this novel, female characters morph into targets of male insidiousness as soon as they may be properly defined as women. This article tries to show that women in The Bluest Eye are hemmed in by their gender. As long as they fulfill the role society demands of them, that of a beautiful housewife, they may survive in the world. But asregards most of the women in this work, when they are bereft of beauty, they fall prey to the danger of men, who hurt these women because it offers them a sense of power, a momentary relief from the horrible reality of racism.

کلیدواژه ها:

Beauty standards ، Femininity ، Gender roles ، Molestation