| Abstract: | As the first African American female Nobel laureate for literature, Toni Morrison is one of the most outstanding black writers in contemporary American literature. Her first novel The Bluest Eye, vividly depicts the physical and mental trauma of black people from slavery and the internalization of the white values with the loss of their own identity. The New Criticism advocates the application of tension, irony and paradox in works to generate a resonant effect. This essay intends to explore the strategy of irony used in The Bluest Eye by adopting the New Critic approach. It digs out the various manifestations of irony and investigates its contributions to highlighting the theme and its contextual significance. |
