The Angry Black Woman stereotype and alternative portrayals of Black women in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Raven Leilani’s Luster

The present thesis aims at exploring how the history of racial discrimination and the creation of controlling images, particularly those targeting Black women, shape their sense of self and contribute to the internalisation of negative stereotypes in two novels pertaining to the African American literary tradition. In particular, the analysis will be based on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Raven Leilani's Luster. Both novels indeed play a significant role in deconstructing controlling images of Black women, with a particular focus on dismantling the Angry Black Woman trope. The discussion will be approached using intersectionality as both a theoretical and methodological tool, to examine and comment on the image of the Angry Black Woman and its deconstruction, especially in The Bluest Eye and Luster.