Psychological Agonies in Toni Morrison’s Novels ‘The Bluest Eye’ and ‘Beloved’: A Comparative Study

Toni Morrison is the most celebrated writer of African American literature. She strongly attacked upon the western ideology of racism, sexism and classicism and initiates the idea of feminism, equality and brotherhood. She gave the platform to the muted voice of Africans by her writing. The Bluest Eye is her debut novel while Beloved is her most celebrated and Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The stories of the novels narrate about the Africans who were brought as a slave to America. They were judged by the eyes of Eurocentric cultured people and graded as secondary by them. The African descents failed to established their identity as African in America. The white beauty standards confront the identity of Africans and making them uncomfortable with black skin. This resulted in psychological agony. The stereotype black and white become barriers in their development. Their poverty and unemployment are major cause of their frustration and psychological ailments. In her novels generally it can be traces that sexism paralyzed and infected the mind and sensibility of black women. In The Bluest Eye (1970) Pecola Breedlove and in Beloved (1987) Sethe are the victim who are mentally oppressed. Although both are suffered with racism, sexism and classicism but their conditions are different. Pecola was raped by her own father while Sethe is raped by a white man who is her master in Sweet home. Morrison brutally depicted their situation which make the reader cry. This paper conducts a comparative study of psychological agonies in the Bluest Eye and Beloved, focusing on the roots of trauma, the manifestation of psychological suffering and the narrative strategies Morrison employs to represent mental distress. Through a psychoanalytical and trauma theory lens, the analysis will consider how these novels depicts the mental collapse, endurance or healing of characters shaped by a legacy of racialized violence.