AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

This thesis attempts to counter a generally acknowledged view in regard to the essence of hatred, observed as a lack of interracial appreciation within the Afro-American assemblage in Toni Morrisonâs first published novel, The Bluest Eye. In effort to explain my standpoint, I endeavor to bring lights from existential phenomenology and psychoanalytical philosophy respectively from Jean-Paul Sartre and Slavoj Žižek. To support my argument, I will examine diverse visions of cultural studies and literary reviews, and provide textual evidence of self-love to defy criticsâ remarks of self-hatred in the characters. According to Toni Morrison, the aesthetic principle in the white society is the prying eye, a âsecretâ which causes the Afro-American subjectsâ social inferiority and self-loathing. Despite different approaches to analyze this scenario in the black community, critics conclude that the Afro-American charactersâ self-debasement is a sign of their hatred toward the self and other blacks along with the internalization of white aesthetics. In this thesis, I argue that the charactersâ self-debasement/self-loathing is only a âmodeâ of nature to adapt to the norms of white society rather than an inherent hatred toward their own blackness as critics imply. I analyze all occurrences critics see as Afro-Americansâ self-hating gestures with theories concerning the look and desire in oneâs building of identity based on âself-love.â Thus I consider all charactersâ negative emotions (such as shame, anger, and repugnance) toward themselves and others are merely âtemporary presentation of the egoâ owing to their frustrated self-love; therefore, âself-debasementâ should not be considered as hatred of any sort. To support my ideas, I use Jean-Paul Sartreâs notions of âegoâs transcendence,â âhatredâs dubitable nature,â and âtwo patterns in the being-for-othersâ to examine charactersâ self-love responding the âoutside gazeâ in terms of the âmode of beingâ; to continually justify self-love, I apply Slavoj Žižekâs notions of âsymptom,â âideological fantasy,â and âunconscious desire as the Thingâ to focus on the protagonistâs self-identification with others based on her âsymptomaticâ gestures of self-love in the âmode of being.â