Morrison’s Blue-Eyed Golem: A Reenactment of the Third Man Argument

Manuel  Botero Camacho; Judit Climent Torras

doi:10.18172/jes.5901

Authors

Manuel Botero Camacho Universidad Complutense de Madrid https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6200-0629
Judit Climent Torras Universidad Complutense de Madrid https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3232-3061

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.5901

Keywords:

Toni Morrisson, Philosophy, The Bluest Eye, Third Man Argument, Golem, Borges

Abstract

This article deals with Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, as a possible interweaving of Aristotle’s Third Man Argument into both societal and psychological aspects of the contemporary world. Rooted in this philosophical background, it follows the decline of Pecola Breedlove’s mental stability throughout three segments that mimic the argument’s structure. The degradation of archetypes and the character’s conception of beauty articulate our thesis as it attempts to present the novel as a reenactment of the philosophical theory resorting to Borges’ poem “El golem” to strengthen the connection between Morrison’s take on Afro-American realities and Aristotle’s position regarding the degradation of the ideal.

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Author Biographies

Manuel Botero Camacho, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Associate professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid where he teaches at the Department of English Studies and is adjunct coordinator of the English Studies Program. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature (2005) and a PhD in English Philology (2016). Experienced in academic project coordination, cultural management and teaching, specialised in literature and its connections with culture and myth. He was academic coordinator at Instituto Caro y Cuervo and taught at Universidad del Rosario and Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá. He is the author of El abismo lógico(UR 2009) and has been published in Comparative Literature Studies, Atlantis, Anglo-Saxónica, Icono14 and Letral, among many others.

Judit Climent Torras, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

She is studying the last year of her bachelor’s degree, Comparative Literature, in Complutense University of Madrid. She has specialized in creative writing as well as English, French and Arabic literature. She spent the fourth year of her studies at St. John’s College, Cambridge on an exchange program where she developed further her competences in Contemporary English Literature, Lyric and History and Theory of Literary Criticism. Her research experiences count a participation in a project led by both her home university and University of Exeter exploring contemporary literature and publishing projects founded by young Venezuelan women and this article in collaboration with Dr. Manuel Botero Camacho. Her interest in folklore and children’s literature must be highlighted as well as her experience as Student Representative in the Faculty of Philology. Currently, she is benefiting from an editorial internship at Penguin Random House Publishing Company.

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