Oppression In The Color Purple And The Bluest Eye

Oppression is a prevalent and reoccurring theme in black literature. African-American novelists in the early 20th century offered a predominantly white audience an insight into black culture and vocalized the injustice had by their hands. Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye both incorporate controversial female protagonists facing the challenge of mental oppression by both personal and societal belief, and physical abuse at the hands of their aggressors. Whilst each arguably feminist bildungsroman faces criticism for misrepresenting relationships and stereotyping behaviour in black society, it is widely accepted that both authors explore and bring attention to the oppression and abuse of women in a modern context.

Black beauty is denied in The Bluest Eye by a cultural belief that 'blue-eyed, yellow haired, pink-skinned'
In her novel, Walker explores how internalized racism and psychological oppression effects a characters journey. Throughout the novel, Celie is both implicitly and explicitly told that she 'sure is ugly.' It is probably that this led to her low esteem and feelings of worthlessness, and how through warped concepts of beauty Celie is isolated and oppressed to the extent in which she no longer feels like she 'know[s] how to fight.' This psychological oppression victimizes Celie and as a result she allows negative societal beliefs to shape the way she views herself to the extent where 'all [she] know[s] how to do is stay alive,' and she does not feel that she can or should fight back against her oppressors. For example, at the start of the book, Celie comments on 'how flat [the world] look[s]' from her perspective. The noun 'flat' here suggests to the reader the extent of Celie's psychological upset at this stage in her life, as it could represent her sense of powerlessness and vulnerability to the mental oppression she