Female’s Identity Dilemma: Two Marginalized Heroines in <i>Wide Sargasso Sea</i> and <i>The Bluest Eye</i>

Abstract

Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) depicts Antoinette Cosway, a white creole girl, who is subdued by both English and black people in a hostile context, and hence undergoes identity crisis. The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is contemporary with Wide Sargasso Sea. It is Toni Morrison's first novel, which reveals a little black girl Pecola's sufferings in a white-dominated society and the tribulations black families experience. The two heroines are both driven to lunatic by their torturous journey of identity dilemma. Thus, conducting a comparative study on their shared tragic fate is of great literary value. By comparing the resemblance between Antoinette and Pecola, the aim of this paper is to explore their identity dilemma, rendered by their shared racial, maternal, and sexual encounters, from the perspective of trauma theory. In addition, this paper is of paramount importance to women in rebuilding their self-identity in colonized and white-dominated societies.