TITLE:
Female’s Identity Dilemma: Two Marginalized Heroines in Wide Sargasso Sea and The Bluest Eye
AUTHORS:
Min Peng
KEYWORDS:
Antoinette, Pecola, Identity Dilemma, Trauma Theory
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.8 No.2,
February
28,
2020
ABSTRACT: Jean Rhys’ Wide
Sargasso Sea (1966) depicts Antoinette Cosway, a white creole
girl, who is subdued by both English and black people in a hostile context, and
hence undergoes identity crisis. The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is
contemporary with Wide Sargasso Sea. It is
Toni Morrison’s first novel, which reveals a little black girl Pecola’s sufferings in a white-dominated society and the tribulations black families experience.
The two heroines are both driven to lunatic by their torturous journey of
identity dilemma. Thus, conducting a comparative study on their shared tragic
fate is of great literary value. By comparing the resemblance between
Antoinette and Pecola, the aim of this paper is to explore their identity dilemma, rendered
by their shared racial, maternal, and sexual encounters, from the perspective
of trauma theory. In addition, this paper is of paramount importance to women
in rebuilding their self-identity in colonized and white-dominated societies.