Toni Morrison and the Evolution of American Biracial Identity

Posted in Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Papers/Presentations on 2013-02-12 02:37Z by Steven

Toni Morrison and the Evolution of American Biracial Identity

Occidental College
Oxy Scholar: ECLS Student Scholarship
Submisions for 2009
2008-12-10
17 pages

Emily Isenberg

She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be their work partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls’ toilet, and their eyes genuflected under sliding lids ( Morrison 62).

This passage from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is describing the biracial girl named Maureen Peal. In just these few sentences the suggestion that Maureen is a mediator between both races in her school is clear, and this premise is supported by the sociologist F. James Davis, whose 1991 book, Who is Black: One Nation’s Definition explains that biracial people may act “objectively with the black and the white communities both while not being fully a part of either, and often being a liaison person between the two” (Davis 150). Davis’ observation supports what we see reflected in this particular passage, but throughout the novel we see that this premise does not continue to hold true. Maureen in reality cannot be the mediator between the two races because she is not actually accepted by either group. My analysis of Maureen Peal will portray her as the female version of Everett Stonequist’s concept of the “Marginal Man.” This term comes from Everett Stonequist’s 1937 book, The Marginal Man. Stonequist, an American sociologist best known for his work in race relations, explains that the figure of the “Marginal Man” embodies the sense of inner conflict between the two races: “Having participated in each he is now able to look at himself from two viewpoints…the marginal Negro from that of the white man as well as the black man” (Stonequist 145). Maureen’s biracial identity gives her the position of the “Marginal Man” who, according to Stonequist, cannot belong to either race and has a “dual personality” which is forced onto him by his society. This “dual personality” prevents the “Marginal Man” from developing cohesion between the two parts of himself. It is because Maureen Peal senses a lack of cohesion in her inner self that she rejects her black would-be friends, Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola, not because she thinks of herself as superior to them…

Read the entire paper here.

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