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Allusions
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—African American English:
In part, The Bluest Eye is written in African American English (AAE). Morrison's narrator uses highly literary, academic language and flowery prose, all penned in Standard American English. Many of the characters in the novel speak in AAE, however. Take the following dialogue from Chapter 1, in which Mrs. MacTeer converses with her friends:
“Is that what give her them strokes?”
“Must have helped. But you know, none of them girls wasn’t too bright. Remember that grinning Hattie? She wasn’t never right. And their Auntie Julia is still trotting up and down Sixteenth Street talking to herself.”
Mrs. MacTeer and her friends speak to one another in AAE, displaying certain hallmarks of the dialect in this particular conversation excerpt. In AAE, double negatives are common. Morrison uses double negatives multiple times in the above excerpt: "none of them girls wasn't too bright," "she wasn't never right." These phrases seemingly negate themselves, if one interprets them through the lens of Standard American English. "She wasn't never right," or "she was not never right," implies that "she" was in fact right. In AAE, double negatives take on a different meaning from that of Standard English convention. "She wasn't never right" simply means that "she" was not right. Self-negation within the phrase is not relevant.
Related Themes:
