Discourse, Desire, Madness in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970)

The current study investigates the relation between discourse, desire, madness, subjectivity in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye(1970). With this in view, it opted for critical discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistics as its theoretical and practical frameworks. Some of the key sections of the novel were selected and analyzed using the categories such transitivity, mood, modality, thematization and finite and lexical choices. The findings were tabulated and the most significant ones were interpreted. Next, the social practice of the novel was elaborated more and was connected with the findings of the textual analysis. Afterwards, the intertextuality, interdiscursivity and re-contextualization were discussed. The novel makes more sense when it is read against the socio-historical-cultural developments of the black community in American context. The research concludes that the cultural/racial models of reading the subjectivity in the novel run the risk of not providing a comprehensive image of the identity. Identity is a multifaceted phenomenon which is fed by several sources. The Bluest Eye does not offer any new project of identity. Rather it works within the historical horizons of its production.