摘 要

托尼·莫里森是美国文学史上最具影响力和最重要的作家之一。1993年莫里森因其“丰富的想象力和富有诗意的表达方式”荣获诺贝尔文学奖。作为美国历史上第一个获此殊荣的黑人女作家，她的作品主要从黑人自身角度出发展现并反思种族主义。《最蓝的眼睛》是莫里森的处女作，讲述了一个12岁的黑人女孩的悲惨遭遇。本文主要分析莫里森在这篇小说中采用的特别的叙事技巧——多重叙事视角，复杂的篇章结构以及多样的叙事话语。

关键词：《最蓝的眼睛》；叙事技巧；种族歧视

Contents

1. Introduction-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------1
2. Demonstration--------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

2.1 Multiple narrative points of view---------------------------------------------------------2

2.1.1 Claudia as the first-person narrator-----------------------------------------------------2

2.1.2 The third-person omniscient narrator---------------------------------------------------4

2.1.3 Pauline, Cholly and Pecola as in-story narrators--------------------------------------5

2.2 Complicated narrative structure-----------------------------------------------------------6

2.2.1 The repeated primer of “Dick-and-Jane”----------------------------------------------6

2.2.2 The unnatural sequence of season arrangement--------------------------------------7

2.3 Variable narrative languages---------------------------------------------------------------8

2.3.1 Standard English---------------------------------------------------------------------------8

2.3.2 Black English -----------------------------------------------------------------------------9

2.3.3 Female language--------------------------------------------------------------------------9

2.3.4 Child language---------------------------------------------------------------------------10

3. Conclusion------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11

Works Cited-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------12

Bibliography-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13

On the Narrative Strategies in The Bluest Eye

1. Introduction

Toni Morrison is one of the most prominent and influential woman writers in the history of American literature. She is the first African-American woman writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.

Toni Morrison was born in a black family in Ohio. Her working-class parents had inherited black people’s values and culture in spite of their poverty. Morrison has been influenced by the family and devoted herself to wakening the black society by her works. She has created ten novels in total and most of her works are rooted in the culture and tradition of African-Americans. Based on the social reality, she reflects the life of black people and explores the future of the black community.

The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison’s first novel, which has received both criticism and praise since its publication in 1970. This novel is set in a small town in Ohio. It tells a tragic story of an 12-year-old girl, Pecola, who longs for a pair of blue eyes of the white people. She believes that blue eyes can bring her love and respect from her family and community. After being raped by her father, she gradually goes mad and her dream is dashed. In this novel, Morrison doesn’t directly describe the oppression of white culture but focuses on the life of black people. She encourages them to seek for self-identity and protect their own culture to resist the white culture hegemony. In an interview, Morrison once claimed, “I suppose The Bluest Eye is about one’s dependency on the world for identification, self-value, feeling of worth’’ (Shange 48).

This novel was published in 1970. Up to now, many critics at home and abroad have made detailed study from different aspects, such as the theme, the characters and the narrative strategies. As to the theme, most critics pay attention to the feminism and ethnicity. Many believe that the imposition of white values and African American’s acceptance of them lead to “the inversion of the natural order and the distortion of love, freedom and growth for African Americans”(Christian 52). Some other scholars make detailed analysis of the characters and reasons for their tragic fate. For example, Zhou Yehan makes a minute analysis of Pecola and her tragedy in “Analysis of Pecola’s Tragic Fate in The Bluest Eye”. From the aspect of narrative strategies, in “On the Narrative and Discourse Strategy of the Bluest Eye”, Wan Mei explained the multi-voiced strategy and the multi-textual narrative strategy.