Tragedy Of Being Homeless At Home Analysis

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In his essay, “When Home Fails to Nurture the Self: Tragedy of Being Homeless at Home,” Leester Thomas uses The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison to argue that “rejection of self by African- Americans themselves and by others concomitantly ravage and ultimately destroy the psyche of African Americans” (51). Thomas organizes his arguments into four sections, the first section, Thomas titles “Outdoors: The Meaning of Such Wretchedness” (53) in which he explains how one comes to be outside: “To be outside is to be without a home-- without a birthplace; without cultural/racial identity; without family bonding; and finally, without self-esteem and, consequently, self-realization” (53). This section is followed by the evictions; beginning with “The first …show more content…
Morrison has Claudia explain her version of outdoors: “[The] Outdoors, we knew, was the real terror of life” (Thomas 53). In this section of the novel, we are given what Thomas describes as “an honest point of view” (53) which is why it’s so upsetting for the readers. Thomas writes that “Morrison makes an indictment against anyone or anything that denies one to have a place in society” (53). I concur with Thomas that in Morrison’s battle against society Pecola must be cast aside by everyone. This is done in order for Morrison to show “What happens to that psyche--to the self-- when home becomes as frightening, soulessly cruel abode and being is as traumatic as being outdoors” (Thomas 53). I believe that the outcome is cruel. In the beginning of the novel Claudia offers us a truth about the outcome of her story, in which “nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth” (Morrison 7). We are introduced to Thomas’s first eviction, “Eviction of self by mainstream society”, where Thomas describes how, “Everything in the greater society reminded her [Pecola] that she was on the outside- that she did not belong or rather that she did not exist” (53). Thomas is able to prove his argument through the use of examples from The Bluest
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