The Emergence of Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Abstract

Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate in 1993 for literature, the most sophisticated novelist in the history of African American literature, has been recognized as a strident voice for the exploited black people as well as a master craftsman of the dominant artistic form. Adorned with several awards, she has confirmed her permanent place in the heart of her readers. Blues is the name that was given to musical form and musical genre. It was originated by African American musicians. Generally these blues were written or sung at the time of any death or sad situation. That’s why they denote a very slow and sad music with a strong rhythm. Toni Morrison’s first novel ‘The Bluest Eye’ often excites and overwhelms much to its readers by the narrative’s emotional content- nine year old Pecola’s incestuous rape, ensuring pregnancy and subsequent abandonment by her community and descent into madness- that we can’t forget the music in this lyrically narrative. The catharsis and the transmission of cultural knowledge and values that have always been central to the blues, form the thematic and rhetorical underpinnings of ‘The Bluest Eye’. Blues Aesthetic plays a dignified part in western literature as emotions and cultural values are counted the major levels of aesthetic cognition and the blues express the emotions and cultural values very effectively. In nutshell we can conclude that in ‘The Bluest Eye’ Claudia is the voice for the community’s blues and Pecola is the site of the inscription of the community’s blues.