Identity Crisis in the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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In any case, the general popularity of (notion of) identity suggests that most people, irrespective of their hopes or fears, are fascinated by identity and what it does to and for themselves and others. For example, most of us would agree that identity is responsible for how we feel about ourselves and that a lack of identity or an identity crisis jeopardizes our well-being or even our physical existence. Also, identity is thought to underlie much, if not all, of our behavior. (Simon 1)

Thus, the identity is created by the interactions, one have with others in the society. It can be determined through the relationship one have with the society. It will recognize who we are and what we constitute. It depends on how a person perceives and how he interacts with others in the society.

In his book Questions of Cultural Identity, Stuart Hall describes how identities are constructed:

… Identities are constructed through, not outside, difference. This entails the radically disturbing recognition that it is only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks …. Throughout their careers, identities function as points of identification and attachment only because of their capability to exclude, to leave out, to render ‘outside’ objected. Every identity has at its ‘margin’, an excess, something more. (Hall 4-5)

Identity is constructed by the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’. ‘Self’ denotes the positive aspect of the Identity and the ‘Other’ denotes the negative aspect. In order to determine the ‘Self’ the recognition of the ‘Other’ is required. That is, in order to recognize the positive images it is necessary to compare and analyze the negative images. By excluding the negative aspects one cannot construct the identity. Thus identity can be constructed through an interplay in which a person can define what he is and what he is not.

When a person could not construct a positive self-image of himself within a society, there rise the Identity crisis. When a person lost his positive image in a society, he lacks his identity and it leads to Identity crisis. African-Americans lost their identity because of their lack of positive images which was denied by the dominant society and their own community which suppress them.

In The Bluest Eye, Pecola is considered as the ‘Other’ and is marginalized by the African-American community. It is the stereotype created by the African-Americans that one who has ‘blue eyes’ is considered as beautiful and it is the symbol of White Beauty. Such stereotype has made Pecola to feel inferior of being black and ugly. It makes her to yearn for the ‘Bluest Eye’.

The novel challenges the White standards of beauty which are socially constructed. Morrison shows the mental and physical damages caused to the Black women. She attacks the socially constructed Western images of beauty and the psychological damages it creates to the Black women.

Works Cited

Primary Source:

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Vintage: London, 1999. Print.

Secondary Sources:

Hall, Stuart. Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage Publishing: London, 1996. Print.

Simon, Bernd. Identity in Modern Society: A Social Psychological Perspective. Blackwell: Malden, Massachusetts, 2004. Print.