Intra-Racial Conflict and Class Consciousness in Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Abstract

This research has tried to explore intra-racial conflict and class consciousness in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. To study the causes of social disintegration, this research work studies the roots of social, racial and intra- racial hatred and discrimination, defines racism in different forms. Racism is the mistreatment of a group of either white-colored or black-colored individual on the basis of differences in the color of the skin. Racism in the era of colonialism worked on the level of physical thereat but took a different shape in the nineteenth century. The Bluest Eye is trying to bring the impacts of these manifestations because of the conflicts within the blacks. The conflict among blacks begins due to the obsessive hankering after the white way of living and finally ends at the social and familial fragmentation among the blacks. Pecola, the protagonist of the novel, suffers a lot due to the racial disparity rampant in the USA which makes her develop a feeling of inferiority not only among the whites but also in her black community and amidst the upper class blacks, leading her to desire for blue eyes so that she could feel empowered and get social recognition, through the eyes. The study explores various conditions and causes behind intra-racial conflict experienced by Pecola and how it makes her realize her position and form her own identity above a helpless black girl.