Eurocentrism and Racism in Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Conrad's An Outpost of Progress

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Eurocentrism and Racism in Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" and Joseph Conrad's "An Outpost of Progress."
Introduction
In her novel "The Bluest Eye," Toni Morrisons tells of a young African American girl and her family deeply affected by the dominant American culture. Morrison describes Pecola, an 11-year-old girl, as poor, black, and ugly. But amid racial oppression, Pecola perceives her blue eyes as a symbol of beauty and happiness associated with the white and middle-class world. On the other hand, Joseph Conrad, in her novel "An Outpost of Progress," talks about the colonial situation in Africa at the end of the 19th century and mainly challenges readers to examine the ethical questions surrounding colonialism. Eurocentrism and racism manifest intensely in these two readings.
Eurocentrism and Racism
In the grand scheme of things, we all live in a Eurocentric world with a deep history of racism. Toni Morrisons “The Bluest Eye” reiterates the issue of racism and eurocentrism through one essential character, Pecola. As a black character, Pecola has been taught to believe that whiteness is the epitome of beauty. Pecola has constantly been subjected to a Eurocentric world through books, magazines, toys, movies, and adverts. As a result, she has been trapped in a kind of twoness and divergence, which could make her not preserve her primary personality and wish to attain something ruling in her society, white skin. Pecola spends her time perceiving herself as ugly while Pauline is always working in a white family. As noted by Morrison, “the voluntary need to be a beautiful girl led to Pecola’s despair, frustration, disintegration and insanity” (Morrison 389). Morrison further explores the issue of racism and portrays through her reading that race is defined based on the color of the skin and based on several other aspects, including the texture of hair, place of origin, educational backgroun...