An Interpretation of Unhealed Trauma of Pecola in The Bluest Eye from the Perspective of Trauma Theory

Abstract

Toni Morrison is one of the most representative writers in the third “black wave” in the United States, and the only black female writer in American history who has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Bluest Eye is her debut, published in 1970. It not only shows the trauma suffered by black race, but also reflects the future of black race. Pecola, the protagonist of The Bluest Eye, grew up in trauma, and she eventually failed to heal the trauma. The novel is a true representation of the life situation of black people. This thesis attempts to analyze the trauma suffered by Pecola from the perspective of trauma theory and the reasons for the failure of the final trauma recovery. Black and white discrimination, the absence of paternal and maternal love, and the collapse of beliefs are three causes of Pecola’s trauma. These three traumas made her lose herself. In the process of repairing the trauma, she also suffered three failures: the failure to establish a new relationship with the outside world, the failure to narrate the traumatic experience, and the failure to reinvent herself through faith. At the end of the novel, these unhealed traumas of Pecola tell us that black women can only repair the trauma and find their true selves if they face the trauma squarely, maintain the black cultural tradition, and accept the white culture critically.