Master Narrative Hierarchy

The theme of oppression by the so­called “Master Narrative”, a respect hierarchy based

upon physical qualities that is imposed by people in power, is extremely apparent in Toni

Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. If one were to move up and down in said hierarchy, they would have

to do so by altering their self, done by removing a set of qualities Morrison refers to as “the

Funk” from their personal presentations. Thus, Toni Morrison uses the removal of the Funk to

show the extent one must go to in order to alter themselves to be mobile in the very fixed Master

Narrative hierarchy. The Funk is everything that a person born into an African American family,

at the bottom of the race pyramid, wishes to get away from. In order to remove said Funk,

These areas of improvement are those

which would help someone appear more polite, cultured, and to some extent, educated. The

phrase “how to behave” creates a sense of a lesson and a set of rules to be followed, as if many

children and many people are going through this process. Additionally, it implies that whatever

is not patient, well­mannered, etc, is not behaved, or is in a lower class. Such “improvements”

are meant to create a culture discrepancy with others of their race that are thought to be lower,

like Claudia and Frieda, who have dirty, old, and torn­up clothes and virtually no filter. These

manipulations of behavior are meant to emulate the whiter and richer, those who are higher up in

virtually every side of the Master Narrative, and certain people are willing to change their entire

behavior, the most controllable part of how other people perceive them, to fit that frame. Then,

there is the physical appearance side, consisting of limiting “the laugh that is a little too loud; the

enunciation a little too round; the gesture a little too generous. They hold their behind in for fear

of a sway too free; when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips

By doing so, she again goes back to the theme of moving up the Master Narrative

hierarchy, as being black is at the bottom of the race hierarchy. Therefore, the people described

in the quote yet again are trying to advance in the hierarchy, doing so in this case by repressing

physically characteristics and sculpting their physically appearances in a lifelong battle to appear

more white. The first three items, laugh, talk, and gesture, are motions that everyone goes

through and uses to communicate every day. By changing these fundamental parts of a person’s

identity and essentially how they branch out to the world, Morrison shows that attempting to

move about in a social pyramid system is a matter of manufacturing one’s entire life, not just

faking a few items. It is a life­long battle, starting from childhood, like the worrying about the

hair, which is touched on later in the form of Geraldine cutting her son’s hair extremely close

and with an obvious part. The Funk is also compared to a literal substance, as “wherever it

erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips,