Toni Morrison's novels offer elements of a theory of beauty, a theory which includes rather than excludes black women. These narratives suggest the opportunity for theorizing that Barbra Christian encourages as a way of freeing black women theorists from relying exclusively upon Eurocentric assumptions. At the heart of Morrison's suggestions is the ability of black women to define the beauty in themselves rather than accept often destructive images imposed by the psychological limitations of slavery and of post-slavery constructs. Morrison's novels, rather than offering closed or definitive solutions, invite continued discourse, exchange, and discovery. An explanation of Immanuel Kant's normative theory of beauty as grounded in individual freedom is a point of departure for the present study, which finds Kant's notion of beauty to be flawed, in that it fails to give voice to individuals like the slave or other subordinates who lack the very quality (freedom) upon which Kant's theory stands. Morrison's novels appear to correct this failing. For instance, Beloved and Jazz suggest that the essential problem of beauty for black women begins prior to slavery itself because African men brought to the new world ancient patriarchal attitudes towards women. The Bluest Eye demonstrates that these patriarchal attitudes (as well as those imposed by white slave holders) were transferred from generation to generation. Love strongly implies that Morrison's solution is the development of a new civilization based upon a partnership between black men and women, and Paradise indicates that this partnership does not preclude a rewriting of the Eden myth to present a history based, not upon "his" story, but upon "hers." The need for this rewriting is evident even today, despite progress exhibited in contemporary literature and film. The shape of the new aesthetic as suggested by Morrison is to be determined by black women themselves, freed from the patriarchal gaze exhibited by men and women who have internalized the gaze.