A Translation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Abstract

“A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment (Morrison,1970,1994:162) This extract has been taken from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye which is a novel considered to be a critique of the influence of standards of white beauty on black people (Delgado and Stefanic, 2000). This novel is not an easy text at all, as it deals with a sensitive issue relating to racism, which according to the US Civil Rights Commission, is discrimination towards an individual or group based on skin colour that can be either individual or institutional (http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/race08.htm). In this regard, many difficulties can be faced in comprehending the text. Morrison’s novel deals with issues arising out of “the imposition of white ideals of beauty on black women” (Ryan, 1999). Thus the ideology of white beauty remains an important issue that affected the spirit of the novel. In Bangladesh, although colour racism is unfamiliar, the concept of making beauty synonymous with fairness is, to some extend, relevant. In other words, having white skin seems to be something desirable in Bangladesh. Even now dark skinned girls are neglected in society in the sense that in obtaining a good job, they are less preferred; their parents worry about their marriage prospect, and they are even at times humiliated by narrow-minded people. Therefore, preference for whiteness is not uncommon in our country. Such colour prejudice is at the cone of Morrison’s novel.