Works Cited

DuCille, Ann. The Coupling Convention: Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women’s Fiction. Oxford University Press, 1993.

• This book compares the patterns of white and African American writers. It draws an historical account of the black literary tradition, focusing mostly on black female writers, in order to examine their use of tropes, such as the marriage plot, popularized by white authors, and how they rejected and reworked such tropes to the end of reclaiming their sexuality. It further sketches out cultural attitudes towards non-traditional relationships throughout history.

Malmgren, Carl D. “Texts, Primers, and Voices in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 173, Gale, 2003. Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/apps/doc/QKPMSE517876176/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=04d83dce. Accessed 29 Apr. 2019. Originally published in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 41, no. 3, Spring 2000, pp. 251-262.

• This article looks at how Morrison uses a variety of diverse voices and perspectives in The Bluest Eye. From a much more technical perspective than many of the other sources, it analyzes the text to determine Morrison’s intent in using her many different techniques.

Moses, Cat. “The Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” African American Review, vol. 33, no. 4, 1999, pp. 623–637. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2901343.

• This article looks at the ways in which The Bluest Eye acts as a piece of music. In the course of doing so, it analyzes the characters of the three prostitutes, coming to find that they represent reclaimance of female sexuality as opposed to victimhood, as many others  argue.

Pal, Payel and Neelakantan, Gurumurthy. “Morrison’s Prostitutes in The Bluest Eye.” Notes on Contemporary Literature. Volume 44. Pages 4-7. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261527825_Morrison’s_Prostitutes_in_The_Bluest_Eye

• This article analyzes the role of the characters of China, Poland and Miss Marie in The Bluest Eye, looking at the facets of life these women give us insight into that no other characters are able to show us. It argues that in many ways they better adhered to society’s standards than many of the other characters.

Rickard, Wendy, and Merl Storr. “Editorial: Sex Work Reassessed.” Feminist Review, no. 67, 2001, pp. 1–4. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1395526.

• This article explores efforts to shift negative attitudes towards sex workers by giving insight into the hugely diverse life experiences sex workers go through. It provides anecdotal evidence of how sex workers are regarded and gives a modern account of social attitudes, likely most directly applicable to the time right after Morrison would have been writing The Bluest Eye.

Saleem, Taqwaa Falaq, “The Village Mother in Selected Works of Toni Morrison” (2010). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 180. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/180

• This article examines the “surrogate mother” characters in Morrison’s novels. In looking at China, Poland and Miss Marie in The Bluest Eye, the author concludes that they are the most prominent motherly figures in Pecola’s life, and looks at the implications of this evaluation.

Scott, Lynn. “Beauty, Virtue and Disciplinary Power: A Foucauldian Reading of Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 173, Gale, 2003. Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/apps/doc/SNXFMQ391694420/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=65607942. Accessed 5 May 2019. Originally published in Midwestern Miscellany, vol. 24, 1996, pp. 9-23.

• This article looks at the historical and cultural context surrounding The Bluest Eye to better examine the power structures at play. Although it does not contain an analysis of Morrison’s prostitutes, its historical discourse and analytical method are both very informative.

Putnam, Amanda. “Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, and A Mercy.” Black Women, Gender Families, vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 25–43. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.2.0025.

Black Women, Gender & Families analyzes, Black Women’s Studies paradigms. It centers the study of Black women and gender within the critical discourses of history. It also has an article specifically about Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Grogan, Christine. “Morrison Responds to the Psychological Community in The Bluest Eye.”  Father-Daughter Incest in Twentieth-Century American Literature: The Complex Trauma  of the Wound and the Voiceless. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2016. 75-94. EBSCOhost,  search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2016383186&site=ehost-liVe.

This work traces the development of father–daughter incest narratives in the Bluest Eye and Ellison’s Invisible Man. This work explores what Toni Morrison has called the “most delicate,” “most vulnerable” member of society: a female child; and, what happens when the trauma is not just a one event but numerous experiences. Some traumatic experiences, namely father–daughter incest, are culturally reduced to the untellable, and yet accounts of paternal incest are readily available in literature.

PIPES, CANDICE. “Failed Mothers and the Black Girl-Child Victim of Incestuous Rape in The Bluest Eye and Push.” Toni Morrison on Mothers and Motherhood, edited by Lee Baxter and Martha Satz, Demeter Press, Bradford, ON, 2017, pp. 183–200. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1rfzz5n.14.

This work explores a lot of Toni Morrison’s novel and examines the ways in which Morrison’s work deviates from western culture’s ideological norms of mothers, motherhood, and mothering. Pecola’s mother plays a big part in Pecola’s life and how she became who she was at the end of the book so this work which shows how Morrison challenges the concept that mothering, and motherhood will help when writing my essay. This work looks at Morrison’s work through an array of interdisciplinary approaches.

Zender, Karl F. “Faulkner and the Politics of Incest.” American Literature, vol. 70, no. 4, 1998, 739–765. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2902390.

This work examines Faulkner’s depiction of incest, finding it to be religious and oedipal. It is said that both Morrison and Ellison were influenced by Faulkner, this could therefore be used to analyze Morrison and Ellison.

1) Burcar, Lilijana. “Imploding the Racialized and Patriarchal Beauty Myth through the Critical Lens of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” Vestnik Za Tuje Jezike 9.1 (2017): 139-158. Web.

https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/Vestnik/article/view/7635/7266

Burcar argues that The Bluest Eye exposes the devices manipulated to contrive the Western beauty myth, which whether racialized or gendered, targets African Americans through objectification and disempowerment while sustaining whiteness. She analyzes various examples in the novel where the characters experience this culturally on a regular basis, allowing for the naturalization and perpetuation of these ideologies within American society.

2) Koch, E. “Hollywood’s Terror Industry: Idealized Beauty and The Bluest Eye.” Sanglap 1.1 (2014): 147-57. Web.

http://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/37/27

Koch analyzes the role of Hollywood as a social institution and as an agent of cultural normalization which defines beauty standards. Koch also emphasizes how these standards function in the novel in order to not only expose their harmful effects towards the black community, but to reveal their illusory sense of attainability.

3) Yancy, George. What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. London: Routledge, 2004. Web.

In chapter 5 of his novel, Yancy analyzes the construction of whiteness through a genealogical framework, as well as emphasizes how whiteness is constructed to oppose blackness while claiming “universality.” He then reveals how this ideology drives Pecola’s descent into self-hatred and acceptance of her perceived “ugliness.”

4) Pal, Payel and Neelakantan, Gurumurthy. “Morrison’s Prostitutes in The Bluest Eye.” Notes on Contemporary Literature. Volume 44. Pages 4-7. www.researchgate.net/publication/261527825_Morrison’s_Prostitutes_in_The_Bluest_Eye

These authors argue that China, Poland, and Marie resist capitalist culture through prostitution while also transforming their impoverishment into a form of empowerment which grants them freedom. They also argue that Morrison critiques the black community’s skewed sense of justice in capitalist America by condemning the prostitutes while respecting pedophilic white men.  

5) Jha, Meeta. The global beauty industry: Colorism, racism, and the national body. Routledge, 2015.

In her novel, Jha examines the role beauty plays in creating structural and individual privilege, as well as contributing to discrimination and inequality. She takes an intersectional approach by taking gender, nation, race, color, ethnicity, sexuality, and class hierarchies into consideration when focusing on women’s everyday experiences and practices of beauty.

Annotated Bibliography

1. “Traumatic Awakenings (Freud, Lacan, and the Ethics of Memory).” Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, by Cathy Caruth, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, pp. 91–112.

Caruth explores Lacan’s interruption of Freud’s theory on trauma suggesting that there is a correlation in surviving a traumatic event and building one’s identity and reality around the event. This chapter is useful in analyzing how survivors or victims shape their lives around traumatic events.

2. Balaev, Michelle. “Trends in Literary Trauma Theory.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 41, no. 2, 2008, pp. 149–166. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/44029500.

Balaev addresses the concept of trauma as one traditionally associated with memory, experience and language but also adds geographical place to the mix. The formation of identity post traumatic event is linked to the geographical place because of its specific social values. Citing Caruth, Balaev also argues the contagious nature of trauma (intergenerational trauma) on individuals and groups of people.

3. Brooks Bouson , J. “Quiet as It’s Kept: Shame and Trauma in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.’” Scenes of Shame: Psychoanalysis, Shame and Writing, by Joseph Adamson and Hilary Anne Clark, State University of New York Press, 1999, pp. 207–236.

As the title suggests, Bouson explores shame and self-loathing in The Bluest Eye that stems from societal expectations and norms of beauty in a white dominated nation. This “shame” is culturally learned and continually perpetuated throughout generations becoming a part of black identity in the United States. This article is useful in explaining the historical and cultural significance of the Breedloves believing they are ugly as well as the black community deeming them ugly. The article sheds light on racially traumatized groups of individuals and the silence that often accompanies this trauma.

4. Ramírez, M. L. (2013). “The Theme of the Shattered Self in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye And A Mercy”.Miscelánea, 48, 75-91. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/docview/1497043922?accountid=27495

Ramirez analyzes the character of Pecola in the Bluest Eye and argues that she forms her traumatized disassociated identity from a marginalized position that can be attributed to western patriarchal society. Ramirez also makes the connection between a marginalized group of people and the abuse that community inflicts to its own members forming a chain of abuse.

5. Vickroy, L. (1996). “The politics of abuse: The traumatized child in Toni Morrison and Marguerite Duras”.Mosaic, 29(2), 91. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1300043843?accountid=27495

Vickroy explores how colonization affected the mindset of people who were subjects of a white ruling class and how it continues to do so. She also analyzes how social powerlessness plays a role in the abuse of children by adults, in particular powerless men. This essay shows how the internalization of dominate beliefs and values create powerless individuals who in turn express their frustration and anger on the most vulnerable members.

1) Mahaffey, Paul Douglas. “The Adolescent Complexities of Race, Gender, and Class in Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Race, Gender & Class, vol. 11, no. 4, 2004, pp. 155–165. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43496824

Mahaffey examines Morrison’s text through close readings in which she handpicks moments where characters are negatively affected by race, gender and class. The in-depth analysis of the self-loathing and trauma of characters such as Pecola are extremely relevant to my argument, and can serve as a contrast to privileged characters such as Maureen Peal.

2) Mbalia, Doreatha Drummond. “The Bluest Eye: The Need for Racial Approbation.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 173, Gale, 2003. Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/apps/doc/WBEULT467593299/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=98cfcc16.

This article, similar to the previous one, relies mostly on close readings in dissecting the ways in which class plays a role in The Bluest Eye. More so, this article is less general in that it discusses more interesting narrative concepts such as the chapter titles. This article also contains a very useful section on Geraldine, who is one of the few “black elites” in the novel.

3) Wallowitz, Laraine. “Chapter 9: Resisting the White Gaze: Critical Literacy and Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.’” Counterpoints, vol. 326, 2008, pp. 151–164. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42980110

Laraine mostly focuses on the idea of the “white gaze” in the novel, and the ways in which it victimizes blacks, which successfully addresses the question I posed in relation to white supremacy. What’s also really interesting about this article is that it is a critical close-reading done by a white teacher and her class of largely African American students.

4) Gillan, Jennifer. “Focusing on the Wrong Front: Historical Displacement, the Maginot Line, and ‘The Bluest Eye.’” African American Review, vol. 36, no. 2, 2002, pp. 283–298. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1512261

Although I have already found a decent amount of articles that focus on characters such as Maureen Peal and Geraldine, this article ventures off into new territory with the Maginot Line. This article is less-close reading heavy and includes more theoretical and historical analysis, which is the kind of source I genuinely need for my research paper at this point. Examples include: The submerged history of lynching, prostitution, and black exclusion from the national family.

5) Werrlein, Debra T. “Not so Fast, Dick and Jane: Reimagining Childhood and Nation in the Bluest Eye.” MELUS, vol. 30, no. 4, 2005, pp. 53–72. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30029634

Werrlein goes into depth on the relationship between childhood and nationalism in American society, as well as the way it ties into the “Dick and Jane” epidemic.  This article relates to my question of black elites being both victimizers as well as victims of white supremacy, as it gives glimpses into the Dick and Jane idealism that characters of The Bluest Eye both scoff and praise.