A Study on the Mainstream’s Gaze in the Works from Margin

Abstract

The imagery of ‘eyeing’,’ gazing’ and ‘re-visioning’ recurrently occur in the works of the writers who belong to the marginalized (in terms of race, sex, and class) communities. They examine their images in American literature and society as well and feel to re-construct identy that has so far been constructed in the ‘gaze’ of the mainstream. Their essential selves have been castrated and essentialized within some stereotypes by the racist and phallocentric culture. So, after a long period of subjugation, they look back afresh with a view to gain sovereignty over their own sense of identity. This paper seeks to study those marginalized writers’ view over the gazing proceess of the dominant groups. To persue the study I have concentrated upon some works by the writers who belong to the marginalized communities in America. These are the novels, The Native Son (1940) by Richard Wright and The Bluest Eye (1970) by Tony Morrison, and some poems of Adrienne Rich. In their writings, each writer has explored the functioning of the mechanism of ‘gaze’ leading to the internalization of the hegemonic ideology and inferiority. Thus, they dismantle the dominant ‘gaze’ and reconstruct identity in a fictional world which result in en-visioning  a new world to come.

Keywords: Gaze, Revision and Reconstruction of Identity, Mainstream, Marginalized in terms of Race and Sex, Ideology.