Self and Identity in "The Color Purple" and "The Bluest Eye"

In African-American texts, blacks are seen as struggling with the patriarchal worlds they live in order to achieve a sense of Self and Identity. The texts I have chosen illustrate the hazards of Western religion, Rape, Patriarchal Dominance and Colonial notions of white supremacy; an intend to show how the protagonists of Alice Walker's The Color Purple as well as Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, cope with or crumble due to these issues in their struggle to find their identities. The search for self-identity and self-knowledge is not an easy task, even more so when you are a black woman and considered a mule and a piece of property. Providing an in depth analysis of these texts, this essay attempts to illustrate how both of these Afro-American writers depict and resolve their respective protagonists' struggles.
Religion is believed by many to serve as a means to achieving or finding self or identity. However, in the Euro-influenced Christian religion especially, directly after 'finding one's self', one is called to deny one's self in the name of a white 'God'. …