The Gothic Monster Girl in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Margaret Atwood’s “Lusus Naturae”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.28914/Atlantis-2025-47.1.4Keywords:
Gothic, monster, adolescent, identity, dysfunctional family, communityAbstract
Both Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Margaret Atwood’s “Lusus Naturae” are anti-Bildungsroman narratives that focus on young women’s rite of passage to womanhood. Morrison’s Pecola and Atwood’s vampire girl are depicted as monsters who are imprisoned within a negative self-image that transforms their world into a nightmare. These girls undergo social and familial victimization, being rejected and ostracized, while their monsterization/dehumanization is emphasized. Morrison and Atwood tackle identity issues such as the female body, femininity, sexuality and (sexual) agency. They expose how the feminine is often seen as the abject within a patriarchal system. They unmask and disclose female victimization and their respective young woman’s identity issues and familial and social problems.
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