论文总字数：51112字

摘 要

Introduction 1

Chapter One Unreliable Childhood Memories 4

1.1 The Unreliability of Children’s Way of Cognition and Expression 4

1.2 The Unreliability of Memory and Childhood Trauma 7

Chapter Two Supplement of The Adult's and Omniscient Perspectives 10

2.1 Contrast with the Adult's Perspective 10

2.2 Truth from the Ominiscient Perspective 12

Chapter Three Voices in the Polyphony Structure 15

3.1 Adults’ Voice Concealed in Children’s Perspective 15

3.2 “Polyphony” in the Narration 17

Conclusion 20

Works Cited 22

Abstract

Toni Morrison (1931- ), a famous American female writer, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature, adopts the children’s perspective in her novel The Bluest Eye and her only short story “Recitatif” and formed a unique narrative style.

This paper attempts to explore the use of children’s perspective in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif”. Usually, adults writers tend to use the adult’s perspective or the omniscient perspective to narrate the story while Morrison chooses to use the children’s perspective. Children, as part of the society, also have their own understanding toward the world, especially on some social problems. As children are vulnerable and honest, their feelings or sufferings are more real and touching. By analyzing children’s perspective in literary works, readers may get a new understanding toward some social issues in these works.

This thesis is divided in to three parts: the introduction, main body and conclusion. The main body consists of three chapters. The first chapter mainly deals with the meaning of unreliability in children’s perspective. Restricted by their age, children have different cognitive style and means of expression from adults. They tend to look at things superficially which leads to the unreliability of their narration. What is more, for those children who experienced certain childhood trauma at their early age, for example Pecola in The Bluest Eye and Twyla and Roberta in “Recitatif”, their memory may also be unreliable after they grow up. However, it is the unreliability that encourages the readers to think and make judgments. At the same time, the suffering of the children characters in their childhood can arouse reader’s sympathy. Both of the reading experiences can lead to a better understanding of the themes. In the second chapter, the main content will explore the supplement of the adult’s and omniscient perspectives. Adult’s perspective is often seen in The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif”. The change of thinking modes from children to adults shows the change of cognitive styles during the main characters’ growth and reflects the human nature. The omniscient perspective, which is also used in these two works, tells the truth of the events and makes the

narration more complete and objective. It also forms a contrast with another two perspectives and better reflect the theme. The third chapter discusses the “polyphony” in the two works. Although the children’s perspective is to use children’s voice for narration, it is actually written by the adult writer so it cannot be avoided with adult’s thinking. This makes the texts become profound and meaningful. Also, Toni Morrison uses a polyphony structure in which the main characters voice their ideas simultaneously without telling the readers whose words are true. While receiving a large amount of information, readers can see many incidents from different perspectives and make their own judgment.

The conclusion is the significance of children’s perspective in Morrison’s works. Its unreliability, the supplement of other perspective and the polyphony structure will offer readers a quite different feeling and make the theme of the stories more profound.

Key words: Toni Morrison; The Bluest Eye; “Recitatif”; Unreliable narration; Polyphony

摘要

托尼・莫里森(1931-)是美国著名黑人女作家，1993年获得诺贝尔文学奖。在她的处女作《最蓝的眼睛》以及唯一的短篇小说《宣叙》中，莫里森别出心裁地采用了儿童视角的描写，形成了别具一格的儿童叙述风格。 

本文从儿童视角叙事入手探究托尼・莫里森的《最蓝的眼睛》和《宣叙》作品中主题及其社会意义。通常，成人作家会在写作时采用成人视角或者全知视角，但是莫里森却选用了儿童视角。因为儿童在社会中处于弱势，天性纯真，不善撒谎，他们对社会问题的感受和遭遇就会更加的直观和真实。通过了解文学作品中的儿童视角叙事，读者可以从不同的侧面了解作品及其所反映的社会问题。因此，研究文学作品中的儿童视角有其重要意义。

论文主体部分分为三章。第一章主要论述儿童视角的不可靠性的意义。儿童因为其年龄限制，认知方式和表达方式都与成年人不同，看问题可能更加表面，因此造成叙事的不可靠性。此外，某些儿童，如《最蓝的眼睛》中的佩克拉和《宣叙》中的罗伯塔和特怀拉，因为童年心灵遭受过一定创伤，导致成年后的记忆具有不可靠性。但是，正是这种不可靠性，促使读者不断思考真相，同时，儿童主人公所遭受的童年创伤，更能引发读者的同情心，这两种阅读心理可以帮助读者更好的体会作品主题。论文的第二章聚焦成人视角和全知视角对儿童视角的补充作用。成人视角在《最蓝的眼睛》和《宣叙》中经常出现。由儿童到成年人的思想的变化，体现出认知方式的改变，以便更好地反映人性。全知视角同样出现在这两部作品中，它是通过第三视角叙事，讲述事件的真实情况，一方面使叙事更加完整和客观，一方面可以与另外两个视角形成对比，更好地体现主题。第三章则是近一步探究两部作品中的“复调”结构。儿童视角虽然是以儿童的口吻叙述，但是事实上仍是由成人作家所写，因此很难摆脱成人的批判性，这种矛盾使小说更加耐人寻味。同时小说以一种“多声部”的复调方式来呈现小说，通篇就是让每个人物直接诉说他们的所知、所感和所思所得，读者在接受大量信息的同时，可以从不同的角度看待故事中的小事件，结合个人思考做出判断，进而产生一种特别的阅读体验。

因此，文学作品中的儿童视角的运用具有其独特的意义，其不可靠性，不可靠性引发的视角补充以及复调结构将会给读者带来与众不同的阅读感受，使小说主题更加深刻。

关键词：托尼▪莫里森; 《最蓝的眼睛》; 《宣叙》; 儿童视角; 不可靠叙述; 复调

Introduction

Toni Morrison (1931- ) is one of the most widely read and well-known contemporary writers in America. In 1993, she won the Nobel Prize for literature. This award helped her win worldwide recognition.

In Toni Morrison’s novels, children, as the observers or even victims of the racial and family problems, have a say in these social problems.When readers see the world in the book through children’s eyes, their feelings may be more real. They can understand the children’s suffering better under the social background at certain time and then think about the detrimental influence of racial or gender problems on children.

So far, the research on The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif” mainly focused on its theme or narrative strategy instead of children’s perspective.

About the theme of The Bluest Eye, Rachel Blumenthal argues in “ Morrison’s THE BLUEST EYE” (2007): “Certainly, she investigates the why— the reasons for racism, guilt, and self-hatred, but she also exposes the how— the modes by which these destructive elements are circulated and diffused throughout American society.”(118)

About the narrative structure of the novel, “Morrison organizes her work into three main narrative structures: The Dick and Jane primer (which occurs as preface and chapter headings), Claudia's memories (which account for the first chapter of each seasonal section), and the omniscient narration of Pecola's story (as well as surrounding characters, which occupies the remainder of the text).” ( Blumenthal 117)

As for Morrison’s only short story “Recitatif”, there were only a few reviews or comments among which most of the researchers focused on feminism and racism. They argue that this short story emphasizes the racial problems faced by female through obscuring the skin color and forming a feeling of mysteriousness. For instance, Shanna Greene Benjamin suggested that “By selectively identifying one woman as white and the other as black, Morrison paints race as a salient feature of the narrative.”(87)

The researches on children’s perspective in literature are limited. Most of analysis about children’s perspective mainly focus on children’s literature like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird. In A Bibliophile’s Miscellany: Child Narrators, Foster argues that:

By relying on a child’s viewpoint, authors are able to introduce a level of unreliability to the narrative: there is the possibility that readers will not be told the whole story, due to the narrator’s innocence and misunderstandings. Although children are generally expected to be less judgmental or interpretive, there is no doubt that theirs will be a biased perspective. (Rebecca Foster 3)

In conclusion, there are not enough effort paid to the children’s perspective in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif”. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze the children’s perspective in these two works. Children, as a special group of people in this society that have not been contaminated by the secular world, have their own understanding toward the social problems. Adult writers use the children’s perspective as a brand new angle to observe the world as well as the society and thus can acquire a more profound understanding toward life and human nature. Children’s naivety and purity make the world in their eyes more real and pure. However, restricted by their competences and lack of social experience, their narration may be unreliable. This forms a contrast in the story which stimulates readers to think and understand the theme well. Therefore, it is of great importance to explore the children’s voice in novels.

This paper mainly analyzes main characteristics and the importance of children’s narration in The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif”.

The first chapter focuses on why children’s narration is unreliable in The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif” through examples. The reasons can be divided into two parts——children’s limited cognitive and expression abilities and childhood trauma. Main characters like Pecola in The Bluest Eye and Roberta and Twyla in “Recitatif” are to be discussed in this chapter.

Chapter two discusses the supplement of adult’s and the omniscient perspective in the two works. It is difficult for readers to understand the story according to the children’s narration due to its unreliability, therefore, the complementary narrative point of views become indispensable. The adult’s and the omniscient perspective are not the main parts of narration, but they help readers understand the truth and form a contrast with the children’s versions of narration in order to highlight the theme. Also, the difference between the children’s narration and adults’ can reflect the change of thinking modes under the influence of the age and environment.

The third chapter explores the “polyphony” structure in the texts. It is divided into two specific parts. The first polyphony exists in the children’s voices. Although Toni Morrison tried to use the children’s voice to tell the stories, it is inevitable that the adult’s critical thinking will appear in the children characters’ voices. The seeming contradiction also exerts a special reading effect that make the narration more complex and entertaining. Another polyphony is the typical example of Bakhtin’s “polyphony” theory that different characters voice their ideas simultaneously. It functioned like a symphony that makes people feel both confused and exciting. Every character has its own opinion and narration. It is hard to tell who is right and which is wrong without reading carefully and thinking comprehensively.

All in all, children’s perspective has its special significance in literary works. It has its unreliability due to the limitation of children’s cognition and thinking. With the supplement of adult’s and the omniscient perspectives, the stories become more comprehensive and profound. The critical thinking in the children’s naive voices and the mixture of different voices in the narration form the polyphony structure. These help make children’s perspective special and meaningful.

Chapter One Unreliable Childhood Memories

Wayne C. Booth explains that an unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been compromised (158-159). “Unreliable narrators are usually first-person narrators, but third-person narrators can also be unreliable.” (Frey 107) It is true in The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif”. The first-person narrator in The Bluest Eye and “Recitatif” is Claudia and Twyla and there are many third-person narrators in these two works as well. All the narrations are mixtures of truth, gloss and misunderstandings.

Children are often employed to be unreliable narrators in literary works. Their age limits their cognitive competence. Some children deliberately forget their childhood memories or make up ideal new memories to escape from the reality that they suffered a lot when they were young. Both factors contribute to the unreliability of their narration.

• 1. The Unreliability of Children’s Ways of Cognition and Expression

“Many novels are narrated by children, whose inexperience can impair their judgment and make them unreliable. In Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, Huck’s innocence leads him to make overly chartable judgments about the characters in the novel.” (Smith 4)

Children are always related with words like naïve, innocent, or pure. Those dark or evil things seldom exist in their inner world so they tend to look at the world with beautiful wishes. However, it is impossible to separate children from the ugly things happened around them. Therefore, children tend to use their own way to explain the things they cannot understand or accept. For example, at the beginning of The Bluest Eye, when Claudia and her sister found the seeds they planted did not sprout in autumn and after they witnessed Pecola’s tragedy, they “think of nothing but their own magic: if we planted the seeds, and said the right words over them, they would blossom, and everything would be all right.”(Morrison 3) It is easy for readers to realize that the tragedy of Pecola has nothing to do with the growth of the seeds or the words Claudia said over them. But the writer still wrote these words to make the readers believe that the narrator in this novel is this little girl who is naïve and pure instead of an adult writer who has experienced too many things and witnessed too many tragedies in reality.

Children, who are usually ignorant for lack of experience and knowledge, have difficulty understanding certain words or events like adults would. Therefore, their explanations about these words or events become unreliable. In The Bluest Eye, there is a conversation between Claudia and Frieda:

“But why are you crying?”

“I don’t want to be ruined!”

“What’s ruined?”

“You know. Like the Maginot Line. She’s ruined. Mama said so.”

An image of Frieda, big and fat, came to mind. Her thin legs swollen, her face surrounded by layers of roughed skin. I too began to feel tears.

“But Frieda, you can exercise and not eat.”

She shrugged.

“Besides, what about China and Poland? They’re ruined too, aren’t they? And they ain’t fat.”

“That’s because they drink Whiskey. Mama says whiskey ate them up. ”

“You could drink whiskey.” (Morrison 101)

Claudia and Frieda mistook “being ruined” with “fat”. They thought what Frieda’ mother said about Maginot Line was about her figure. However, the readers can immediately realize that what her mother meant was that Maginot was a prostitute who has lost her chastity. Also, they thought whiskey could avoid people from being fat thus prevent Frieda from being ruined. But the truth is that whiskey only drains people’s energy, not their fat. The writer gave no explanation after this conversation, making the narration seemed ridiculous and unreliable. But it is children’s ignorance that forms a sharp contrast with adults who tend to be indifferent about things that are not related with their interests.

According to a research in Stanford's Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, cognitive development relates to the children’s abilities of thinking and reasoning, and the way parents treat their children can also affect children’s cognitive development. Children are influenced by their parents every day. Their ways of thinking, their values, their ways of speaking all exert great influence on children. In The Bluest Eye, the boy Junior is a good example. His mother met all his physical needs but ignored his mental needs. Therefore, “It was not long before the child discovered the difference in his mother’s behavior to himself and the cat.”(Morrison 86) Then, the boy directed the hatred of his mother to the cat and finally killed the cat. The cat, in his eyes, was no longer a lovely pet, but the monster that deprived him of his mother’s love. But the truth was that the cat didn’t do anything. The same things also happened on “niggers”. His mother did not allow him to play with colored people. Actually, he longed to play with black boys when he was little but gradually he agreed with his mother that black people are not good enough to play with. With such wrong conception from his mother, it is hard for the reader to believe the words he said.

Children’s different ways of cognition determines their different ways of expression. Unlike adults who tend to hide their true feelings, children express their feelings more directly. However, restricted by their undeveloped language system, they lack the ability to express themselves well. When Claudia chose to destroy the doll, all the adults thought she was crazy, but the truth was that she hoped adults could ask her about her wish before giving her the present. Sometimes, what children said can be quite confusing, for example when Maureen asked Claudia and Frieda “There’s an Isaley’s, want some ice cream? I have money.” , most readers will have the same understanding with Claudia and Frieda that she would buy ice creams for them. But the truth is that she only bought ice creams for herself and Pecola. It is hard to tell why Maureen said so, maybe she wanted to make fun of the sisters, maybe she just didn’t mean anything. Children are complex animals who have their own thinking mode, but it is not easy for them to express themselves correctly.

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