Cultural Trauma and the Problem of Identity in Toni Morrison’s Novel “The Bluest Eyes”
Anahtar Kelimeler:
cultural trauma, identity, discrimination, African-American, marginality.Özet
The article analyzes the problems of the novel “The Bluest Eyes” by the 1993 Nobel laureate T. Morrison within the framework of the latest critical theories – the theory of cultural trauma and the concept of identity. The author of the article focuses on the concept of trauma as a subject of research, ways of expressing and overcoming it through the creation of narratives. A review of the literature allows us to determine the degree of development of the theory of cultural trauma and the problem of identity in modern literary criticism. The object of the analysis is the image of the main character and the identity crisis she is experiencing. When considering a literary text, special attention is paid to the ways and forms of presenting traumatic experiences and their devastating effects on human identity. The analysis undertaken in this article is carried out in the context of the development of African-American literature in the 1960s and 1970s, i.e. at the peak of the African-American civil rights movement. The content of the article contributes to the problematization of issues included in the field of cultural trauma theory and the actualization of the problem of identity of a marginal, once discriminated social group. This circumstance determines the relevance of the article, the analysis of the narrative about the trauma of which is applicable not only for literary analysis, but also for the study of individual and collective trauma in sociology, psychology, as well as in the field of interdisciplinary research.
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20. Morrison T. Playing in the Dark // In: Rivkin J., Ryan M. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Third Edition. – John Wiley&Sons, 2017. – R. 1163–1173.
21. Kristeva J. Women’s Time // Signs. – 1981. – Vol. 7, №1. – R. 13–35.
