TONI MORRISON'S PROJECTION OF BLACK WOMANHOOD THROUGH PECOLA AND SETHE IN THE BLUEST EYE AND BELOVED

ABSTRACTBefore the civil war in America, the black African people were treated as chattels and were subjected to all kind of injustice and discrimination. Slavery and discrimination, for instance, have brought severe miseries to Afro-Americans such as being treated as animals, losing their human rights, and subjecting to violence. But the real victims were the black African women, as these women had no position in society and were living the most pathetic and humiliating life. These women were ill treated first by their own male members in their own homes and secondly they were subjugated to all kinds of humiliation by the white people. They had no honor or any sense of right as they were kept in complete ignorance and darkness for a long time. Since times of slavery, black womanhood has been destroyed, distorted, dismantled and abused with racial, sexual and inhuman practices by black men and white men and women. In the process, they have lost their genuine self, and have developed a complexity in themselves. This has ultimately been responsible for the destruction of their self-confidence and the feeling of being human. The paper deals chiefly with Toni portrayal of Pecola and Sethe, which chiefly celebrate the black womanhood. The central theme of the paper deals with the black women characters who are raised from their poor, down trodden and most humiliating position to a new sense of awareness of freedom, liberty and equality in their society. They are filled with new desires, aspirations and ambitions and thereby are made conscious of social honor and dignity.Keywords: womanhood, struggle, victimization, discrimination, awarenessToni Morrison is among the pioneer of the contemporary black writers who have redefined African- American writing in many ways. Black women in America being black, female and poor have been victimized by racism, sexism, and classism, not only from the white world, but also from their own men. These women have faced the problems of race, class and gender, which have pushed them towards a margin. They are separated from the society. They have to endure all the violence and racist behaviors of both white men and women. In addition to these, a colored women not only struggle against racist society, but also she has to suffer at the hands of black men. Being aware of these facts, Toni Morrison aim to portray the experiences of black women in her novels. Morrison expresses her knowledge about black life creating fictional characters. Morrison's strengthening of definitions and focusing of perception is reflected in the novels' narrative structures (Birch, 151).The black woman is the main concern when Morrison plans her characters. She tries her best to depict different women experience in her novels and each female character has some specific features which are interesting to discuss. Adolescent girls often appear as characters in stories. Unlike common young people, those girls have no choice but to accept some trauma instead of possessing the happiness of their youth. The author wants to make some issues clear by making her characters special in some way. One of the features of adolescent girls is that they get hurt and enter the adult world early. Her first novel The Bluest Eye examines the consequences of black womanhood in an oppressive white world. The reader witnesses the psychological disintegration of Pecola Breedlove, an adolescent girl whose blackness is shame to a society in which blue eyes are valued above all others.The Bluest Eye is the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl in Ohio. It deals with the great range of black feminine voice into the artificial mould of stereotype. It allows us to get a deep look into the black woman's dilemma, oppressions and trials symbolized by the tragic life of Pecola, who is driven insane by the pressure of having absolute physical beauty, the beauty of a white woman, by having fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes. …