Du Bosian Double Consciousness in Morrison’sThe Bluest Eyeand Ellison’sInvisible Man
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Faculty of Arts in English
Abstract
Double consciousness,defined by Du Bois as the African American's sense of always looking at
himself through the eyes ofWhite Americans, is examinedin the present thesis, in the light of
two African-American novels; Ralph Ellison'sInvisible Manand Toni Morrison'sThe Bluest
Eye.The locus of the researchis that double consciousness is indeed a source of frustration for a
large number of the fictional characters, but that it doesn't always result infrustration and
alienation. This is due tothe fact thatsome of the protagonists are not only capable of
minimizing the anxieties that double consciousness sometimes produces, but of avoiding them
altogether.Toni Morrison’sThe BluestEyecalls attentionto the media and American standards
of beauty as factors that create a sense of twoness among African-Americans who see themselves
as a mark of ugliness and abnormality. In Ralph Ellison’sInvisible Man, the protagonist’s quest
to make American way, andhis growing identification with his community, reveal double
consciousness as a desire to transcend a state of liminality and achieve union in community.