Differend in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye - Reading and analyzing silence under Lyotard's concept

Oct 15, 2026

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Explores Jean-François Lyotard’s notion of differend as a condition of unrepresentability and unanswerability, where individuals are forced into silence when confronting others. Through reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, analyzes how characters—especially black figures facing white society—are denied the ability to voice feelings and ideas. Shows differend emerging from social pressure and injustice, culminating in sustained muteness and inability to defend oneself.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time6 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Differend in Theory

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 8 No. 3; June 2017 Australian International Academic Centre, Australia | | | | | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | Flourishing Creativity & Literacy | | | Differend in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye Mehdi Amiri Department of English Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, E-Campus, Tehran, Iran [E-mail: mehdiamiri00@gmail.com](E-mail: mehdiamiri00@gmail.com) Doi:10 .7575/aiac.alls.v. 8n.3p.181 URL: [http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8n.3p.181](http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8n.3p.181) Received: 15/04/2017 Accepted: 28/06/2017 Abstract Through the process of passage of man's life, there are some conditions and situations wherein he remains silent and he cannot do anything in the response of others. A postmodern French thinker, Jean-François Lyotard articulates that manis forced to be silent in confronting to some situations and conditions. Lyotard states that man is incapable of representing and expressing his own inner emotions and thoughts in some conditions. This situation ofunrepresentability and unanswerability is named differend by Lyotard. Due to Lyotard's differend, through reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the reader can notice that there are some conditions in which some characters are unable to represent and state their own feelings and ideas. In this sense, some black people or characters of the novel are surrounded by the conditions that they cannot utter themselves when they face others, especially white people. Keywords: Differend, Silence, Unanswerability, Unrepresentability, Utterance 1. Introduction Looking at man's life, it can be seen that there are some conditions and situations wherein man is unable to represent and utter what is in his mind in order to answer another person or community. Lyotard, a postmodern thinker, takes this condition of man's disability of representing and expressing his inner feelings and thoughts into consideration, and he entitles it "differend" . Lyotard signifies that differend discusses the silencing of specific or special differences which cannot exist and live in an easy and natural way with a larger community. As a result of incapability of expressing themselves, they are forced to stay silent. Jean-François Lyotard represents the concept of differend throughout which an individual or a community is being forced into silence while that individual or community needs to talk and express himself or itself against another individual, community, and group. Jae Emerling states: Lyotard continues this line [metanarrative and minornarrative] of thought, adding an ethical imperative, in The Dferend. Here he uses the term“differend” to explain the silencing of particular differences that do not fit within larger conceptual or social totalities. It signifies that someone or something has been denied voice or visibility by the dominant ideological system which deems what is and is not unacceptable. Such radical differences are suppressed because they cannot be subsumed under overarching universal concepts without undermining them.“Differend” means at once dispute, differences, and otherness (alterity) (205) . Through the process of events in Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, Breedloves remain silent and cannot express their ideas and themselves. Reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the reader finds out some of characters especially Pecola-being raped by her father-unable to defend themselves or herself against the society and situation, therefore, she has been condemned to silence which culminates in differend. Mr. Breedlove (father) tries to express himself by drinking alcohol, fighting his wife, Pauline, and finally raping his daughter, Pecola. His wife, Pauline, cannot present herself by words, and she remains silent; therefore, she tries to show herself by working for a white family. The most remarkable person, being kept silent, is Pecola, being

FAQs

What does Lyotard mean by differend in this paper?

Differend is described as a situation of unrepresentability and unanswerability, where certain differences cannot be expressed within prevailing social or conceptual frameworks, forcing the marginalized side into silence.

How does the paper connect differend to Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye?

It argues that characters in the novel, particularly those harmed by society and by interpersonal violence, cannot adequately represent their own feelings and ideas, leading to condemnation into silence.

Which character experiences the most severe differend according to the text?

Pecola is highlighted as the most remarkably silenced person, having been raped by her father and wishing for blue eyes as an attempt to escape her harsh life situation.

Oct 15, 2026

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