Othering and Internalisation of Stereotypes in Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye‪"‬

Racism and sexism are endemic to the stereotypical “othering” enterprise that brackets black female subjectivity in a forced homogeneity. Doubly stereotyped as the racial and sexual “other”, black women risk being forced to signify the negative counterpart in a binary system of cultural and political representation.

Usually white and male, the defining subject associates negatively inflected traits with the defined “other” — in this context a black female — while reserving positive attributes for its own definition and identification. In recasting black women’s subjectivity in fiction, Morrison admits the existence of racial and sexual stereotypes.

From her first published novel, "The Bluest Eye", Morrison challenges and deconstructs the double plight of black women in the U.S. by exposing, first, the processes involved in racial and gendered “othering” and, second, the consequent internalised effects that transmute into “self-othering.”