Category: The Bluest Eye

According to Zlogar, “The Bluest Eye opens and closes with Claudia MacTeer’s reflection on the meaning and significance of a little girl’s suffering and her community’s responsibility and obligation to her” (“The Bluest Eye” 188). According to Zlogar, “Dark-skinned Claudia values herself more than the world does” (“The Bluest Eye” 188). According to Zlogar, “Using Marigold seeds as a metaphor for the affection that might have allowed her abused friend PecolaBreedlove to thrive, Claudia realizes that the failure of her seeds to sprout demonstrates that the soil of her community ‘is bad for certain kinds of flowers” (“The Bluest Eye” 188). According to Zlogar. “While Claudia MacTeer withstands that world’s harshness through the strength and love of her family, a fragile child such as Pecola has no chance’ (“The Bluest Eye 188).

The author of the “The Bluest Eye” is Toni Morrison. According to Bloom,” Novelist Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford, on February 18,1931, and grew up in Lorain, Ohio, the second of four children of George Wofford, a shipyard welder, and his wife Ramah Willis Wofford” (“Toni Morrison” 2762). According to Bloom, “After attending Lorain High School she went to Howard University Players, and in the summer toured the South with a student-faculty repertory troupe” (“Toni Morrison” 2762).

According to Bloom, “After earning her an M.A. at Cornell in 1955 Morrison taught for two years at Texas Southern University, and then in 1957 took a teaching position at Howard, where she married Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect” (“Toni Morrison” 2762). According to Bloom, “In 1964, she divorced Morrison and returned with her two sons to Lorain; a year and a half later she became an editor for a textbook subsidiary of Random House in Syracuse” (“Toni Morrison” 2762). According to Bloom, “By 1970 she had moved to an editorial position at Random House in New York, where she eventually became a senior editor” (“Toni Morrison” 2762). According to Bloom, “In the early 1970s, she began to write a series of articles, most of which appeared in the New York Times Book review” (“Toni Morrison” 2762). According to Bloom, “She has taught Afro-American literature an creative writing at the State University of New York, Purchase, Yale University, and Bard College” (“Toni Morrison” 2762).

According to Bloom, ‘Toni Morrison began to write when she returned to Howard in 1957, and since then she has published several novels in which the problems of Black women in the north are a major theme” (“Toni Morrison” 2762). According to Bloom, “her books have a fabulistic quality, and she has at times been directly inspired by Afro-American folktales” (“Toni Morrison” 2762). According to Bloom, “Her novels are “The Bluest Eye (1970)”; “Sula (1974)”; “The Song of Soloman (1977)”; and “Tar Baby (1981)”” “(Toni Morrison 2762). According to Bloom, “Morrison, like many of the powerful women in her fiction, has capacities that strike her friends as other-worldy. According to Bloom, “To Toni Morrison, however, there is no magic in writing, editing, teaching, and raising two boys alone” (“Toni Morrison” 2762).

According to Bloom, ‘Toni Morrsion is an editor with a New York publishing firm, and (The Bluest Eye) is her first novel” (“Toni Morrison” 2763). According to Bloom, “The title pinpoints the focus of her book” (“Toni Morrison” 2763). According to Bloom, “Pecola Breedlove, in her first year of womanhood, is black, ugly, and poor living in a store front, sharing a bedroom with her brother, her father, she goes to Soaphead Church, a man who believes himself possessed of holy powers” (“Toni Morrison’ 2763). According to Bloom, “What she wants is blue eyes” (“Toni Morrison” 2763). According to Bloom, “In this scene, in which a young black on the verge of madness seeks beauty and happiness in a wish for white girl’s eyes, the author makes her most telling statement on the tragic effect of face prejudice on children” (“Toni Morrison” 2763). According to Bloom, “For most of way, Pecola knowing her, and perhaps offering contrast, by themselves being black and poor (though from a happier home), serve little purpose beyond distraction” (“Toni Morrison” 2763). According to Bloom, “Claudia tells the story part way into each of the four seasonal divisions of the book” (“Toni Morrrison” 2763). According to Bloom, “There are vivid scenes: Pecola’s first “ministratin”, a “pretty milk-brown lady” driving Pecola from her home for the killing of a cat, by the woman’s own son; the young Cholly Breddlove (later to be Pecola’s father0 caught during the sex act by white men and being forced to continue for their amusement” (“Toni Morrison” 2763).

“The Bluest Eye” symbolizes a lot of important themes society as dealt with and are still dealing with today. The novel revolves around themes such as race, beauty, innocence, and purity, which are such major and sensitive topic to talk about. Toni Morrison based the novel off of a true event in which she had a childhood conversation with a girl who wanted blue eyes. The novel is such a heartbreaking story because it deals with so much that society as dealing with back in the 1940s and 1950s and still in the present day. People often forget how hurtful racism was in the past. Black women and children were never at center stage and were always unimportant, for this reason Morrison wanted to focus on a young black girl being hurt.

The novel “The Bluest Eye” is about Claudia Macteer and her sister Fredia living with their parents. Their family decide to take in a boarder name Mr. hendryand they also decide to take in a young black girl named Pecola Breedlove who is experiencing phyical and sexual abuse and neglect. Society makes Pecola feel like she is ugly so she thinks in order to be beautiful she should be white and have blue eyes. Her parents are Cholly and Pauline bbeedlove. According to Zlogar, “Pecola’s mother, a maid and frustrated artist who abuses her children” (“The Bluest Eye” 188). According to Zlogar, “Pecola’s abusive father is Cholly Breedlove” (“The Bluest Eye” 188). Pecola is a quiet child and her home life is very difficult. Her father is an alcoholic and is constantly fighting with her mom. Pecola gets bullied by the boys at her school and the new light-skinned girl Maureen Peal. In the novel one day Cholly comes home drunk and finds Pecola in the kitchen washing dishes. He then rapes her and afterwards puts a quilt over her. Pecola tells her mother but her mother doesn’t believe her and hits her. Pecola is then impregnated with her father’s child, the child soon dies. According to Zlogar, “The narratives of Pauline and Cholly Breedlove help the reader at least to understand their characters, even if it is difficult to empathize with them” (“The Bluest Eye” 190).

Novelist Toni Morrison talks about serious subjects such as race and beauty to grab the reader’s attention because people often don’t talk about race and beauty especially when it comes to black women. Society back then and even now make black women feel as if they are ugly and not cared for. The point Most back girls’ mothers taught them that they were ugly and white was beautiful and more superior to them. Morrson writes about these types of things because it makes her writing more interesting and teaches people about African American history as well.

Introduction to Pecola’s World

The Bluest Eye begins with a brief story about Dick and Jane. The story repeated three times to make sure the readers aware that the line of the story will be the heading of every chapter. The Bluest Eye presents Claudia MacTeer is the narrator of the story. She and her sister, Frieda MacTeer, are lived in Lorain, Ohio, after The Great Depression. They lived with their parents, although their parents didn’t give them much attention, their life seems good. Claudia didn’t tell the story about herself. She mostly narrates about an African-American girl, Pecola Breedlove. She is the center of this story.

Pecola’s Struggles and Dreams

Pecola’s life was not easy. Her parents always fight each other. Her mom works while her dad gets drunk. She never got the attention she should have. In school, she also didn’t have friends. The other children always mock or teasing her like she is not a human being. She teased by Maureen Peal, a light-skinned girl. And also, by Junior, a boy who pretends to be kind to her but wants to trap Pecola. She started to think about how was her life if she has a pretty face, white skin, and blue eyes, just like people she met, maybe her life will be much better. Pecola stayed in MacTeer’s house when her father hits her mother and tried to burn their house. When she was there, she got her first menstruation. She was confused. She is very innocent to know about that thing. Mrs. MacTeer finally knew about it and tried to help her cleanse herself.

Besides of the sorrow she had, some women still be kind to her. They are Miss China, Miss Marie, and Miss Poland. They lived above Pecola’s house. They are prostitution women but still want to be friends with Pecola and like to talk about anything with her.

In the spring, Claudia found out Frieda was crying. She said that because Mr. Henry touched her private parts (her breast) and when she told her parents, her dad beats Mr. Henry and drove him out.

The Impact of Family and Community

There are parts of the story which describe Pecola’s parents and their past. Before they’re married, and all of the struggles they have in life until now. About how Pauline Breedlove, as Pecola’s mother, through her life before and after marriage. How she raised both of her children and how she deals with her life. She never sees her family as her family, as we know that Pecola calls her Mrs. Breedlove, while the child in her work calls her Polly. The story also tells about the past of Cholly Breedlove. As a man with two children, he never acts like a father. He ignored his family and going home drunk.

It relates to the present when Pecola washing dishes, he found her. He was drunk and thought that Pecola was Pauline, her wife. Then, he raped her. Pecola faints. She wakes up when Mrs. Breedlove looking at her, and when she told her about the raped thing, Mrs. Breedlove doesn’t believe her and hits her. Shortly after, Pecola realized that she was pregnant. It must be her father’s child. She feels depressed and goes to Soaphead Church and told him about her dreams. She wants to see the world with her beautiful blue eyes. At first, the Soaphead shocked. But then, he wants to grant Pecola’s dream. He gives Pecola meat to feed the dog. He said that if the dog died, she can get her dream. The Soaphead just hates the dog, but Pecola doesn’t know that the meat poisoned. So, when the dog died, she feels very happy and believes that she will get her blue eyes soon.

The Tragic Outcome of Pecola’s Wish

Claudia and Frieda know about the pregnant from the neighbors who talked about it. People want her child to die, but Claudia and Frieda don’t. They want to grow a marigold flower, which means that they want the baby alive as the flowers will blossom. But the baby died. Pecola has lost her mind because she believed that she has blue eyes. At the end of the story, Pecola talks to the mirror, which is herself, and admiring the blue eyes she had, that actually not.

Character Analysis and Their Roles

There are six main characters in The Bluest Eye, First, Claudia MacTeer. She is a nine-year-old African-American girl and has dark skin. She is the narrator of the story. Sometimes she felt insecure about herself, but she didn’t want it to stop her. So, she acts like normal and ignored any mockery that talked about her. She also has a sister, Frieda MacTeer. She is older and smarter than Claudia. She was also braver and more mature than her.

And then, Pecola Breedlove. Her life narrated by Claudia in this story. She is eleven years old African-American girl. She was born with black and dark skin, from an unhappy family, and poor. She never felt great, nor with herself. She thought that she is the unluckiest girl in the world. Every mistake or problem in her life, she always thought that is because she’s ugly. Her life was hard. Her mom and dad never gave her attention. One day, she raped by her dad, and when her mom knows, she didn’t believe her. After that, she goes to Soaphead Church. She told him that she wants to have blue eyes. But the Soaphead gave the meat that already poisoned, and told her to give it to the dog. He said if the dog acts strange, she will get the blue eyes. And then the dog coughed and died. She didn’t know that the meat poisoned, so she goes away, and thought that soon, she will get the blue eyes. She finally lost her mind and talked to the mirror, like she has the most beautiful blue eyes, which is not.

Another character is Cholly Breedlove. He is Pecola’s father. He ruined Pecola’s life. His life told as a flashback. In the story, when he was 4 days old, he almost dumped by his mother. He has unforgettable sexual experience. He finally met a woman in Kentucky, who later becomes his wife, Pauline Breedlove. She is Pecola’s mother. Though she never makes a ‘mother’ vibe in Breedlove’s family. Pecola calls her Mrs. Breedlove, while a child in a white family her works calls her Polly. He never sees love from her family, she found it in movies which told about romantic love and physical beauty.

The last is Soaphead Church or Elihue Micah Whitcomb. He is an advisor and a dream reader. In his letter, he said that he does the thing that God can’t. It because Pecola asks him about blue eyes. He wrote, ‘I did what You did not, could not, would not do: I looked at that ugly little black girl, and I loved her. I played You. And it was a very good show!’ (p.182). There are also some supporting characters, such as Mr. and Mrs. MacTeer, Miss Poland, Miss China, Miss Marie, Sammy Breedlove, Mr. Henry, Aunt Jimmy, Geraldine, Junior, and Maureen Peal.

The story took place in Loraine, Ohio, United States of America. This place is a place where Toni Morrison, the author, was born. She was born on 18th February 1931. The perspective that she used in The Bluest Eye was from a nine-year-old girl in 1941, the year when Morrison at the same age. She is an African-American writer who succeeded in her career. The Bluest Eye was the first novel that she wrote while she is the writer’s group at Howard University (Toni Morrison Biography). She got a lot of prizes because of her works, ‘Beloved’ is one of them. She also got the Noble Prizes in 1993 (Fox,2019). She was born in 1931 during The Great Depression. Her dad works in three different jobs to support the needs of the family during an economic crisis.

The Bluest Eye was written in the 1950s or 1960s when there was a Civil Rights movement in America. Many people supporting the rights of women and blacks. At that time, blacks with many whites rally for asked for equality for blacks in the United States. they demand equality under the law and eliminate discrimination against blacks. African-Americans had more than enough prejudice and violence against them. But Morrison wrote about an innocent little girl who suffers in the middle of dissimilitude that happened around her, including racism, discrimination, rape, and another mess (History, 2019)

Themes and Symbols: Beauty Standards and Racial Discrimination

The themes of the story are whiteness as beauty standards and racial discrimination. In this story, most of the characters are African-Americans who have dark skin thought about their lives if they have white skin they surrounded by happiness. At that time, women with white skin became respected by many people who flattered them. Surely this makes Africa-America jealous about have white skin as the beauty standards. For example, first, of course, Pecola Breedlove. She even wanted to change his eyeballs to blue because she thinks, beauty was in the color of his skin and blue eyeballs. Then, Pauline Breedlove who saw that white was like in movies, so she was seen by others. She also prefers his employer’s white child to her daughter, Pecola. Claudia has a doll with white skin and blue eyes, Shirley Temple as an idol at that time who has a perfect beauty standard, etc.

Beauty standards actually not always have white skin and blue eyes. A person’s beauty cannot be judged only by their appearance. When someone makes a standard of beauty, they make it for themselves. Every human being has its beauty and uniqueness. If you want to make a beauty standard for everyone, then it will not be owned by anyone. In this story, African-Americans who have dark skin, are not included in the standard of beauty. They are never satisfied with what they already have. It makes them lose their confidence.

If we take a look at the story, African-Americans often became a joke by their friends or are the talk of society. In this story, Pecola Breedlove often experienced racial discrimination. She was ridiculed by some boys in her school, Maureen, and by Junior, who accused her of killing his mother’s cat. All that makes Pecola feel that having dark skin and not blue eyes makes her always live in misery and sadness. She thought that if she had white skin and blue eyes like Mary Jane, other people would respect and be nice to her. If that happens, then all she feels is happiness and calmness. And finally, these feelings make her lost her mind. Worse than his previous African-American life.

The Point of View of the story is a bit tricky. Claudia, as the narrator, told the story about her past using the present tense. She mostly told about Pecola’s life than herself. She tried to understand Pecola’s feelings so she can describe Pecola well. The reader could easily understand when she describes herself or when she describes Pecola. And in the other part, there were told the past of some characters such as Pauline Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, Soaphead Church, etc. This Point of View uses a third person to tell their stories. The third person knows everything about the person, like what they feel and think. We can say that the third person is omniscient. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Omniscient is having or seeming to have unlimited knowledge. So, that’s why the third person is Omniscient.

The tone used by the narrator in this story is sympathy but still neutral. At first, when Claudia tells about herself and the people around her, she tends to use language that is easy to understand and still in her establishment. When she told about Pecola, it appeared that he was very sympathetic to Pecola. She tried her best to describe how Pecola’s feelings and what she does in a day. Though she doesn’t have a connection with the characters she told, she pretty well to explain their story. This story using Claudia’s perspective when she was a child, so the language Morrison used could be easily understood. It tends to be descriptive and metaphorical. She is also detailed in, but because of the children’s point of view, the details she keeps remain simple.

The Bluest Eye, as the story’s title, becomes the main symbol in this story. It represents a beauty standard in that era. People who didn’t have blue eyes thought that they’re ugly. They felt like they don’t deserve to be happy and respect from other people. Beauty standards in that era had white skin and blue eyes. The Bluest Eye means that everybody will get their happiness if they have bluest eyes from other people. This beauty standards also became a standard for other people to get a better life. To African-American people like the characters of this story, lived in a place where beauty can affect their life, is not easy. They should face the fact that they will be disrespectful people. The Eye also becomes a symbol because eyes are a place where we can see the world and reality. When the eyes are closed, it’s the same as closing yourself to see the world and reality. When Pecola didn’t want her eyes because she thought it’s ugly, it means that she ignores the fact and reality. She blinds because of her fault that she didn’t want to accept her life.

The other symbol of this story is the marigold. This flower symbolizes the growth of Pecola’s baby. Marigold is the plant that easies to grow, which means that when Claudia and Frieda plant this flower, they hope that the baby will flourish like how marigold grows. Only Claudia and Frieda that still wants the baby alive. They bury their desire to buy a bicycle to plant the marigold. They pray to God to save the baby, and they said they promise to be a good person for a whole month (p. 191). But unfortunately, the baby was dead, and the marigold didn’t grow. Their expectations shattered.

Foreshadowing in this story is in the prologue that told about a family, the Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane. The prologue describes the house and the family briefly. It was in 1941, the year after The Great Depression. Jane wants to play. She asks the cats, dogs, Mother, Father, and Dick to play, but they refused her. And then comes a friend, they play together.

This prologue divided into several sentences for the heading in each chapter. And these headings become a foreshadowing for each chapter. For example, ‘HEREISTHEFAMILYMOTHERFATHERDICKANDJANETHEYLIVEINTHEGREENANDWHITEHOUSETHEYAREVERYH’ (p.38). It was the heading of the chapter told about the Pecola family. Or ‘SEETHECATITGOESMEOWMEOWCOMEANDPLAYCOMEPLAYWITHJANETHEKITTENWILLNOTPLAYPLAYPLAYPL’ (p.81). It was the heading of the chapter told about Junior, Geraldine, and their cats. When Pecola went to Junior’s house to see a cat, something terrible happened. Junior kills the cat. He accuses Pecola, so Geraldine was angry at her.

Then, in the next paragraph, there is also foreshadowing. When Claudia told about her past in 1941, and how marigolds didn’t grow that year. Morrison told this as a clue to the ending of The Bluest Eye. Anything that happened in Pecola’s life after the great depression, and also about marigolds, which symbolize the destruction of Claudia and Frieda’s hopes of wishing that the baby Pecola survived.

Besides its popularity and meaningful story, ‘The Bluest Eye’ (1970) was ranked as the second most banned book in the United States by the American Library Association (When Murakami, Toni Morrison, J D Salinger’s Books Were Banned, 2018). From 1994 until 2015, noted that about 15 countries have already banned this book (Banned Library, 2016). The reason why those countries banned the book is that it’s contained violent content, a lot of sexual scenes, racism, and some bad words which inappropriate to taught at school. Some parents also complain to the school about the book the school gives to their child.

References

1. Fox, M. (2019, August 6). Toni Morrison, Towering Novelist of the Black Experience, dies at 88. nytimes. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/books/toni-morrison-dead.html
2. Toni Morrison Biography. Notablebiographies. https://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Morrison-Toni.html
3. History. (2019, August 28). Civil Rights Movement. History. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement
4. When Murakami, Toni Morrison, J D Salinger’s Books Were Banned. (2018, August 7). Economictimes.indiatimes. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/when-murakami-toni-morrison-j-d-salingers-books-were-banned/women-in-love-by-dh-lawrence/slideshow/65303739.cms
5. Banned. (2016, July 3). Banned Library. http://www.bannedlibrary.com/podcast/2016/6/23/banned-62-the-bluest-eye-by-toni-morrison

Books are banned or considered controversial for many reasons. A major reason some create controversy is the sexuality within the writing. Though, the definition of sexuality is sexual interest and attraction to others, the way the term sexuality will be viewed in this paper is specifically related to women and how they are sexually abused, physically abused, and verbally abused for being a woman abused (Boundless). Such as the idea that women are lesser beings and are treated as such. In the books The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, there are scenes of rape, sexual violence, and poor treatment of women for just being women.

Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye mainly focuses on forms of racism in American society however it also includes scenes of sexual violence and mistreatment toward women (Adair). There is also racism in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street though this book is about the maturation of a young girl who faces sexual violence and mistreatment of women. Both books allow the reader to learn about life situations they may never face as well as giving someone facing these situations a friend. Each book is different in the ways they present these scenes. Morrison writes about an African American girl named Pecola and her family’s stories. Morrison mainly focuses on the women in Pecola’s life, though, the readers do get to see some explanation on the men’s side and why they may be like they are towards women. In Cisneros novel, however, she focuses on a girl named Esperanza, her friends, and the women that live in her community.

There are many examples of women’s sexuality being used against them throughout both books. First let us look at the book by Sandra Cisneros. A small example of sexuality towards women in The house on Mango Street is when the reader is learning about Sally’s (a friend to Esperanza) father is hitting her and she says, “Just because I am a daughter…” (Cisneros, 92). Here, Sally is shaming herself for the fact that she is a girl, had she been a boy there would be praise of her but since she is a girl, she has been raised to believe that this allows her father to abuse her. Another example is in the chapter “Boys and Girls”, Esperanza talks about how her brothers can only talk to her inside their home because they are females, she says, “But outside they can’t be seen talking to girl.” During this chapter she says the only friend she is able to have is her sister, all because she is a female she is considered less of a human (Cisneros, 9). During this book we see the treatment of women get worse and worse as Esperanza grows up and experiences more. In the next chapter it is learned that her grandmother had a sack thrown over her and was forced into a marriage.

Esperanza describes what happened to her by saying “… as if she were a fancy chandelier.” Once again showing women to be seen as less of human beings and more of items to be owned (Cisneros, 11). The sexual violence scenes Cisneros provides are not detailed but implied such as, when Esperanza is at the carnival. She does not give the readers any details other than he kissed her and wouldn’t let her go. All she kept saying was “Sally, you lied, you lied.” this makes the readers think about how Sally had told Esperanza that sex was a joyful thing and put it together that the boy had not only kissed her but had raped Esperanza as well.

In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison women aren’t seen being treated as badly as they are in Cisneros’s novel. Morrison focus is not women sexuality; however, we do see men oppressing women through the use of sex as well as hating women for not being men. The men that are seen doing this have had bad sexual experiences during their life that have caused their hatred for women. Cholly, for example was caught by two white men while having sex and turned the hatred he had for the white men onto the girl he was with (Morrison, 150) this event is the probable cause of Cholly raping his daughter Pecola. Morrison describes this seen with as few of details as possible while still getting the scenes message across. Cholly does not rape her because he enjoys sex, we see he does it because Pecola does not enjoy what he is doing. Morrison writes, “The rigidness of her shocked body, the silence of her stunned throat, was better than Pauline’s easy laughter had been.” He wants Pecola to feel the way he did during his sexual experience, humiliated and worthless (Morrison, 162). This experience also shows what society thinks of women because when Pecola becomes pregnant she is the one blamed. Morrison provides a conversation between people in town saying things like, “She carry some of the blame.” and “How come she didn’t fight him.” These people do not know what happened to her, they do not consider how a young girl might not able to fight a man off (Morrison, 189). Another scene showing the feelings toward women is in a scene where Mr. Henry touched Frieda and she says to Claudia, “I don’t want to be ruined!” (Morrison, 101). Frieda saying this gives us an example into how women are seen as sexual objects only good for what they can provide sexual wise.

Each of the two texts, “This One Summer by Julian and Mariko Tamaki”, and “The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison” discuss common Incidences which happen in everyday Lives of teenagers such as Jealousy, problems caused by social standards which these girls just can’t seem to meet. In addition, both these texts portray the agony and suffering caused by unwanted Pregnancy. Pecola in “The Bluest Eye” was impregnated by her father. Jenny was impregnated by Dunc, her boyfriend in “This One Summer”. Both characters had a miscarriage later in the stories. “This One Summer” will serve as the lens text in this paper for “The Bluest Eye”. Since both texts discuss the pains and torments that these two girls suffered in each of these stories, “This One Summer” asserts the challenges that a lot of girls must deal with due to being forced in to a pregnancy. Jenny attempts suicide due to an unwanted pregnancy by Dunc. This was partly influenced by Jenny’s surroundings and mainly the teenagers she was interacting with. Her parent’s problems contributed to her feelings of worthlessness. This is also seen in in Alice, another character in “This One Summer” who fails to tell her daughter Rose that she lost her baby the year prior while swimming. This idea is seen on a greater scale in Pecola’s situation. Her environment in “The Bluest Eye” has led to her adversity. She got impregnated by her own father. Her family and growing up in an African American culture were culprits of her wretched life conditions. All of this led to Pecola’s final self-loathing, negative self-concept and miscarriage. How was the projection of negative social circumstances and the consequent agony and specifically due to unwanted pregnancies in “The Bluest Eye” seen through different characters in “This One Summer”?

The themes in “The Bluest Eye” which are about to be discussed and that are seen through events and characters in “This One Summer” are mainly the escape from reality, the reliance on physical attributes to solve problems and self-sabotage due to social influence.

It’s easy to read the final chapter in “The Bluest Eye” quickly, since it consists mostly of rapid dialogue between Pecola and what appears to be an imaginary friend. But when it’s read more closely, it’s seen how this conversation speaks to two of the major themes in the book: Appearance, Society and Class (Morrison 201). First, this chapter highlights the fact that Pecola’s obsession with beauty has evolved throughout the novel. By the end, ‘blue eyes’ are no longer simply code for white beauty; rather, they are how Pecola makes sense of the rape she has endured. Pecola convinces herself that the reason no one talks to her and the reason her own mother can’t make eye contact with her is because everyone is jealous of her eyes (Morrison 199). In the end, it’s as if Pecola is shouting, ‘You’re just jealous!'(Morrison 194) It’s just too hard, and Pecola is too young, to admit that the real reason she is being ignored is because she was raped by her father and delivered his child. If someone were to think about the underlying motifs behind this happening, this is a realistic portrayal of the way children and a lot of adults deal with cruelty and teasing. It’s also an example of what someone would do to maintain the status quo. In “This One Summer”, Alice refuses to tell Rose that she had a miscarriage and denies her desire of wanting another baby to maintain the status quo with her daughter Rose. Rose was escaping her parent’s problems and her mom’s desire for another baby by hanging out with her friend Wendy and other teenagers. Rose wasn’t even satisfied with this sort of lifestyle. She immersed herself in this toxic teenage surrounding regardless. Only, to her, it was an escape from the circumstances which her parents subjected her to. She knew that her friendships with people besides Wendy were fake, but she chose to be around such fakeness anyways. This really represents how kids or even a lot of people in society nowadays make up stories in their lives and live those stories as if they were real. Through this lens, one would understand Pecola’s escape from the wretched life circumstances by inventing an imaginary friend. (Morrison 200)

Another form of escape from the wretched life circumstances and the cons which the girls encountered due to unwanted pregnancies is that of the compensation for the social and psychological problems that all three of Pecola from “The Bluest Eye” and Jenny and Rose from “This One Summer” experienced due to their misfortunate life circumstances. In “The Bluest Eye”, We see the consequences of relying on physical beauty to make up for psychological and social problems. If beauty is being used to cover up ugliness, and the world keeps doing ugly things to Pecola, then beauty can never be enough to fight that. Even though Pecola has, in her delusional mind, received blue eyes, she now wonders obsessively, ‘what if there’s someone with bluer eyes?'(Morrison 200) There will always be someone out there more beautiful than you, and Pecola seems to be an example of how crazy someone can get if they don’t face the ultimate unacknowledged truth that her physical beauty is unreal. Even if it were real, it’s not enough to solve the psychological problems ensued by an unwanted pregnancy and other damaging life conditions she’s encountered thus far. This could also be seen through the lens of “This one Summer”. When Rose and Wendy are both at Awago beach, there happens the conversation of growing breasts. The girls seem to endure agony due being treated disrespectfully by Dunc and his teenage peers (Tamaki 270). Wendy compensates for the lack of attention from Dunc by hoping for bigger breasts. She fantasizes about how a marriage relationship with Dunc would be (Tamaki 30). Rose buys into her illusion reassuring her that she will grow bigger breasts (Tamaki 37). Both Wendy and Rose also escape the ultimate truth that Dunc isn’t interested in them. He ends up impregnating one of their friends, Jennie. Rose on the other hand, is firm that she’ll follow her mother’s footsteps who also has big breasts. Even if both Rose and Wendy grow bigger breasts, this still won’t be enough to rectify their situations in both these texts. What the girls refuse to acknowledge is that physical attributes can’t compensate for lack and predicaments in other areas of their lives. Resorting to beauty and physical compensation is an escape from their problems.

Also, the eventual self-loathing and anger is seen in “The Bluest Eye” as well as in “This One Summer”. In “The bluest Eye”, Pecola eventually withers. She has an unwanted baby from Cholly. Finally, the ending reminds us that Pecola’s ‘madness,” is not her fault but is embedded in her community. The chapter begins with a quote from the initial Dick and Jane grammar school primer that is the book’s epigraph, at the point in the story where a ‘friend’ comes to play with Jane. The epigraph says, ‘THEYWILLPLAYAGOODGAME.'(Morrison 5) It’s painfully ironic that this excerpt foregrounds the theme of friendship. Pecola doesn’t have any real friends, only this voice inside her head. Perhaps the unseen tragedy of the novel is that in ignoring her completely, Pecola’s community forces her into such devastating loneliness that she must imagine someone talking to her. The community commits a crime on a par with Cholly’s abuse. If Cholly failed her by raping her, Pecola’s community failed her by never acknowledging that a rape took place. By this allusion, Morrison illustrates that Pecola’s life is an imitation of the real experiences of black women. Morrison also uses metaphors to describe the conditions under which African-Americans in general and Pecola are forced to live. There are two major metaphors in The Bluest Eye, one of marigolds and one of dandelions. Claudia, looking back as an adult, says in the beginning of the novel, “there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941” (Morrison 200). She and her sister plant marigold seeds with the belief that if the marigolds would grow and survive, so would Pecola’s baby (Morrison 185). Morrison unpacks the metaphor throughout the book, and, through Claudia, finally explains it and broadens its scope to all African-Americans on the last page. “I even think now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruits it will not bear . . .” (Morrison 193).The implication is that Pecola, like so many other African-Americans, never had a chance to grow and succeed because she lived in a society (“soil”) that was inherently racist and would not nurture her. The other flower, the dandelion, is important as a metaphor because it represents Pecola’s image of herself. Pecola passes some dandelions going into Mr. Jakubowski’s store. “Why, she wonders, do people call them weeds? She thought they were pretty”. After Mr. Jakubowski humiliates her, she again passes the dandelions and thinks; “They are ugly. They are weeds”.(Morrison 156). She has transferred society’s dislike of her to the dandelions. Claudia, Pecola’s companion in “The Bluest Eye” often finds it necessary to fight for herself, because other children try to put her down while adults are too busy with their own affairs and only notice children when there is working to be done. Claudia finds a lot of her anger and aggression directed towards the little white dolls that she receives as presents. It seems to her that these white dolls are given more love and attention than a little black child such as herself (Morrison 134). This is one of the most obvious Metaphors asserted by “This One Summer”. Wendy and Rose pick milkweeds from a nearby garden (Tamaki 31). They both thought they were one of the most beautiful flowers they had ever seen in their lives (Tamaki 31). They were so happy with these flowers until Alice, Rose’s mother told them that milkweeds are poisonous (Tamaki 34). After that, every time Milkweeds are mentioned, Wendy makes a “hurling sound” (Tamaki 35). Through this lens, a reader could understand this obviously recurrent cycle of projection of feelings that is going on in “The Bluest Eye”. Pecola transfers her hate on to the weeds and sees them differently to protect her ego. Claudia projects her hatred on White dolls (Morrison 59). The realty is she’s jealous of the dolls. She projects the inflicted contempt on other things in society as a defensive mechanism. The beauty of the milkweeds vanishes from Rose’s and Wendy’s eyes after Alice changes their views (Tamaki 34). This shows the psychological impact that society has on people to the extent that they could drastically change their view of a certain matter due to this influence. Also, the meaning of the metaphor in “The Bluest Eye” is seen in “This One Summer”. Rose and Wendy don’t stand a chance against the toxic factors they’re encountering daily. They’re surrounded by these drunk teenagers who alongside the girls’ parents randomly use curse words. They have access to X-rated material and horror movies (Tamaki 62) and they are ignored and left alone most of the time by the people who should care most for them, their parents. These really shows how the environment always finds a way to change youngsters in the society and shape who they’ll be in the future. Pecola’s later circumstances and her final self-sabotage were a direct result of her own race and community failing her. Rose and Wendy were transitioning into adulthood unsoundly due to their environment.

A good note to end with is a brief discussion of the way these two stories are told. The narrative in “This One Summer” seems to speak directly and graphically to girls in their early teens. “The Bluest Eye” on the other hand, seems to speak to the reader through words, only the used language seems to be one that would only come out of a 15-year-old. This shows that the purpose of each of these books goes hand in hand. Both aim to demonstrate the hardships that a lot of girls endure during their transition to adulthood. Only, one, “The Bluest Eye” tends to demonstrate harsher ordeals.

The theme of self versus other was pervasive throughout both Julio Cortazar’s “Axolotl” and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. In comparison, both protagonists have poor, confused concepts of self, and both measure themselves against unusual norms, which they cannot really compete with, and thus, set themselves up for a certain type of non-orthodox identification.

Ultimately, it could be argued, they really are not able to be true to themselves, in any healthy way. Thus, they are attempting to identify with “others” who are seen in their respective worlds, as being more dissimilar. However, there are differences in how both the characters acquire this, and the varying narrative techniques of the two authors help in this respect.

First, differences in author technique impact the themes in both stories. Toni Morrison has written a detailed novel, told from another’s viewpoint. Morrison thus delves further, in more detail, into the thought processes, of both her main character and others in the tale.

However, in contrast,. “Axolotl” is a short story by Cortazar and as such, doesn’t provide such variety in thought and action by the main character. As the saga is also recounted in the third person, although a very dramatic event, it’s thereby presented in a more straight forward factor, although also more mystical.

First, Pecola Breedlove, is never even loved by her own parents. This young girl’s life in 1940’s Ohio is told through the eyes of another young, black girl named Claudia. It quickly becomes clear to the narrator that Pecola’s circumstances are worse than her own, in white America. For the

Breedlove family is poorer, and Pauline, mother of Pecola, is most unkind to her own family as they do not compare favorably with the white family for whom Pauline works as a maid.

In addition, Pecola’s father is neither supportive nor caring, really, although she never gives up trying to win his affections.. In fact, he is a drunkard, and eventually rapes his own daughter. Pecola actually gives birth to his child, who dies soon after birth. Nevertheless, Pecola had always tried to create identity and seek love from Cholly, her father, despite the futility there. She says, “We loved him. Even after what came later, there was no bitterness in our memory of him.” (Morrison 16)

Next, it becomes apparent that Pecola thinks that if she could only be beautiful, she would have a better life. Like her mother, Pecola longs to be pretty, although her mother is seen to be quite attractive, for a black woman. In order to acquire the desired pulchritude, Pecola actually wishes for blue eyes, like some other whites, and like the popular child star, Shirley Temple.

Then, following attendance at the local Soaphead Church, a preacher there tells the young girl he has the power to turn her eyes blue. Pecola then actually begins to think that this has happened, and now she will be loved by all, because of it. However, because she experiences no caring from neither family nor schoolmates, and she is lied to, regarding her eye color, she experiences a mental breakdown. She has truly become a victim of her very own world, unlike Claudia, who is still loved by her family, despite her race.

As Pecola seeks beauty, identity and love, she finds it in a different form, upon viewing dandelions, and then finding herself an identity as an angry person. As Pecola attempts to find beauty in her perceived ugly world, she also finds disappointment here. She walks down the street and finds a clump of dandelions, which she initially finds lovely.

She speaks, fondly. “Dandelions”. (Morrison 50) However, since they fail to look at her and don’t return her affection, the girl is then disappointed and bitter. She thinks, ‘They are ugly. They are weeds.” (Morrison 50) As she is dwelling on these feelings

of distress, she trips herself on the sidewalk. Her rage is now fierce. Toni Morrison describes how Pecola finds self-validity in this ire. The author writes that Pecola is now feeling that “.There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth.” (Morrison 50) Hence, the only shred of self identity she is able to claim for herself now, is one of a sad and destructive anger.

Thus, a true theme of perception and isolation is present in The Bluest Eye. One who is not loved perceives this and cannot return love to others. This is her identity, or lack of it, which began with her very parents’ perception and lack of caring for her. This type of family neglect is not brought out in Julio Cortazar’s tale of “Axolotl”.

Next, Julio Cortazar’s short story “Axolotl”, is told by a man who has been turned into an axolotl, a type of salamander, after spending much time looking at axolotls in an aquarium. There is no mention of a dearth of love from others as with Pecola, but he too, as a Latino, is part of a minority, as is Morrison’s young girl. Living in Paris, he may feel somewhat of an outcast, as Pecola felt, in her locale.

However, Pecola does not identify herself really with any other human or being, yet the unnamed man in Cortazar’s short story makes this connection. He sees the salamanders as living beings, just as he is. So, then he suddenly and fantastically finds himself looking out of the glass at himself, through the eyes of a lizard. Yet he doesn’t completely break down, as Pecola did, although it can be argued that he possibly had a break with reality. However, he is still feeling better about things, unlike Pecola, through this association.

Even as an axolotl, the man still observes the being he was, and hopes the human will pen a tale of the individual who becomes an axolotl. In contrast to Pecola’s story, the man feels some communication and unity. However, like the Morrison tale, Cortazar wants his audience to comprehend that reality is truly experienced through another’s eyes, to some degree.

Self identity and identification with others are the story’s primary emphasis. Thus, the man as observer notes initially that he self-identifies with the larvae, on his first look at the aquarium. He actually felt a secret connection, although he couldn’t come up with a rational explanation for this.

He does note that the animals possess hands, and some other features, as humans do, though not nearly as evolved. Here, one could wonder whether or not, if perhaps, as a Modern Latin American man, he feels that his identity is lacking, is lost, and is not authentic, just as the character in the Morrison story.

Yet, the reader is left not sure whether or not the unbelievable has occurred. So, is he now ensconced within the body of the axolotl? Has he turned into the animal, or have they merged? He tries to figure this out, and states the following:

those eyes of gold without iris, without pupil. I saw my

face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the

tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass. Then my

face drew back and I understood. (Cortazar 8)

Lastly, the visitor indicates that he has less future need now, to return as often to the aquarium, because of this inexplicable relationship. He takes comfort in the idea that maybe the “man” will tell their stories. He actually believes that they have communicated with one another.

And in this final solitude to which he no longer

comes, I console myself by thinking that perhaps he is

going to write a story about us, that, believing he’s

making up a story, he’s going to write all this about

axolotls. (Cortazar 9)

Therefore, it should be clear to readers that the theme of self versus other was indeed prevalent in both Julio Cortazar’s “Axolotl” and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. For since both characters are confused regarding their own identifies, and they both relate to impossible, seeming implausible norms, they may be ensuring that their individual self identities will not be anything usual or normal.

Some may see Pecola as being more tragic in this instance. However, surely, they are not really able to grasp a true and healthy reality. Both individuals have self identified with beings and worlds very unlike themselves and their own realities. This sometimes actually happens, and sometimes it’s different in each individual.

Nevertheless, the reading of these two works reminds the reader how truly vital to human happiness are the abilities to both self-identify and to also relate to others, and how they may or may not be interrelated with one another. Thus, both authors have effectively presented through their characters, the need for humans to focus on the search for identity of and with self and others..

Works Cited

Cortazar, Julio. Blow-Up and Other Stories. New York: Pantheon, 1967.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Random House, 1970.

In the history of the world, the most oppressed person has largely been the black. From the ages of slavery to the modern times, the black person has continually received indifferent treatment extending to exploitation, as well as oppression. In her work, Toni Morrison draws on this complex relationship set between the black person and the rest of the world which apparently is the white person.

This relationship has left the black people on the losing end from the political to the economic aspects. As a result, the black culture has faced serious challenges from the societal point of view in terms of socialization due to the economic factor. Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye traces the history of the black people in the most prolific and unique manner that traces their position and lives in the society. As a black writer, she makes a revealing statement that observes that the black people subjective consciousness is a product of the crumbling nature of the white culture.

As the story begins, Morrison powerfully draws the reader to the historical oppression of the black people’s lives. In their living, the Breedloves are depicted to have the most deplorable life conditions which are a contrast to white’s. The black people lost their own position in the social in order to be the first. The Breedlove’s live in an “old, cold and green house” where at “night a kerosene lamp lights one large room” while the “others are braced in darkness, peopled by roaches and mice” (Morrison, 10).

The dominant white social reality has pushed the black’s living to the margins of society. The economic and the political oppression have for a long time kept the black person in dark silence.

This is well captured in the line, “evening we go to the railroad tracks where we fill burlap sacks with tiny pieces of coal lying about” (Morrison, 10). Morrison’s line is like a commentary that the black culture is crumbled into small pieces by the apparent dominant white culture. This is represented by the coal and the railroad respectively.

This means that the black abandoned their culture and values under the impact of the white culture. In effect, the black people have accepted and desired the white culture as presented by Pecola’s affection of the white silhouette of Shirley Temple and her loving gift of the blue eyed baby doll (Morrison, 19). This is a symbol of the white culture that has pushed the black person almost to paths that lead to self hate.

This in effect translates to the next phase, that of depravity, humiliation and a sense of defeat. Morrison illustrates this in the story by observing that Cholly feels deeply insulted at two white men who disturb his romance scene by flashing lights at them. It is most intense since there is nothing he can do and thus the observation that he lives in the shadows of the white man.

The author describes the psychology of Cholly “even a half-remembrance of this episode, along with myriad other humiliations, defeats, and emasculations, could stir him into flights of depravity that surprised himself—but only himself” (Morrison, 42). This way, Cholly reflects the black face. Accordingly, the black’s main consciousness and social status has been lost.

Furthermore, the black people also forgot their responsibility in the family. The novel The Bluest Eye describes the Breedlove’s family members as influenced by the white culture through different ways to pursue their self-value. For example, Cholly is abandoned by parents, insulted by whites and the pain of finding a father make his spirit distorted.

This begets violence as depicted when he batters his wife. The raw nature human depravity is at its highest when Cholly, in his drunken stupor, rapes his daughter. Therefore, the reader questions the pillars of ethics in the black person (Long and Collier, 32).

In the novel, he is disgusted and has contempt for the whites’ a treatment. In the same way, Pecola’s mother Polly also attempts to alienate her family. When she gets a job in white Fisher’s Home, she is proud of the work and so she spends all day shuttling between the white families. As a result, her husband and daughter become more and more neglected.

It is clearly evident when Pecola knocks the hot jam accidentally in Fisher’s home, that her mother, “Mrs. Breedlove yanks her up by the arm, slaps her again, and in a voice thin with anger, abuses Pecola directly” (Morrison, 109). This is in deep contrast to the utmost care she gives the hosts family’s little girl. Her behaviour shows that her personality is alienated, and she has lost her responsibility and position in the family. As a family, people should love, trust and tolerate each other. In Breedlove’s family, things are opposite since they all aspire to become whites hence losing the strong holds of a family. This almost suggested by the name where love breeds in pain.

As if the black people recognize this, they each in unique ways try to change their destinies and positions though in a faulty manner hence end up doomed. Morrison strongly makes a comment that, despite their efforts, the black people cannot choose their color and eyes. However, it may be easy to abandon their culture. The Bluest Eye not only introduces readers to a black tragic life and existence, but also wants the black people to adhere to their own culture and self value under the impact of the white culture (Gupta, 14).

As a fact, it is clear that there was no difference between the two cultures and race whether good or bad. It is only through contrast in political and economic strength that made the white culture stronger than the black culture. The long-term oppression has translated to demoralized spirit of the black people such as Pecola.

The black people were unable to fight under the heavy hand of a dominant culture, and thus they cold not realize their identities. This led to forsaking of their culture and their traditional values, choosing instead to accept and respect the white culture. Their main concern was to appreciation the beauty of the whites as the peak performance of their desperate need to be like them.

In this act, the belief was that the white skin, brown hair and blue eyes, are the standards of beauty, while the black color is a dirty and ugly symbol. Such are like Polly, who wants to have blue eyes. Influenced by the white culture, the black community has thus lost self consciousness spiraling to abdicate family responsibilities (Page, 24).

The awakening of a nation always starts from an ideology which can also lead to perishing of a culture. For a nation that has lost its social position, there is a need to adhere and develop own national culture. Without any distinction, every nation is equal and free. Therefore, the black race should also be respected. The black children should be happy and lead a normal life full of beautiful dreams, lively songs, self worth and social recognition.

Works Cited

Gupta, Monika. Women Writers in the Twentieth Century Literature. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2000. Print.

Long, Richard A, and Eugenia W. Collier. Afro-American Writing: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985. Print.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Vintage, 2007. Print.

Page, Philip. Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison’s Novels. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1995. Print.

Introduction

In the novel, The Bluest Eye Morrison depicts life and grievances of black women and their self-identity. Morrison’s emphasis on form manifests itself through a conscious framing of the narrative that demands specific interpretations by the reader but also suggests closings and resolutions.

Thesis

Many black women characters feel they do not meet standards of beauty because of false social values and ideals imposed by “white” community.

Main text

Morrison portrays that black women characters are considered as common women and never portrayed as beautiful. They represent a homogeneous Black culture from which the author calls materials to construct her fictional worlds. She focuses primarily on the “village” or the “tribe.” Moreover, every minor detail is considered in terms of its effect before it is incorporated in her works. The Morrison goal, then, is the construction of well-wrought ideals of black women that portrays a mythical Afro-American community.

The ideals of beauty are based on contrasted characters of a white and black woman. The Bluest Eye develops its dominant themes through the interplay of two narratives: Claudia MacTeer’s rite of passage and the disintegration of Pecola’s life. The novel suggests closure through its exploration of the tragedy of Pecola, mediated within the frame of the Dick-and-Jane story, and its evocation of the marigold symbol to signify Claudia’s passage from ignorance to knowledge. Morrison portrays Claudia” “If I pinched them, their eyes—unlike the crazed glint of the baby doll’s eyes—would fold in pain, and their cry would not be the sound of an icebox door, but a fascinating cry of pain” (34). Cultural domination is seen as a struggle between two competing discourses: a codification of reality whose legitimacy is asserted (the Dick-and-Jane myth), and an alternative (oppositional) representation that challenges and threatens to displace the first (the “real” story of the Breedloves).

The novel illustrates concept of the relationship between authoritative and internally persuasive discourses. The Bluest Eye depicts the struggle between two warring factions. The Dick-and-Jane frame has as its referent not only the primer but the cultural values of the dominant society. It is read and deconstructed by the lived experiences of the Breedloves. Juxtapositions of the two narratives not only reinforce the dominant theme of the novel but illuminate the novel’s textual processes. Contrasts between the Dick-and-June world and the “real” world of the Breedloves are structured around several sets of binary oppositions: White/Black, affluence/poverty, desirability/undesirability, order/chaos, valued/ devalued. After Cholly’s rape of Pecola, the disintegration of the Breedlove family, and Pecola’s descent into madness, Claudia reflects on her own narrative and that of Pecola by locating them within the framework. The “truth” of the authoritative discourse is challenged by the internally persuasive discourse. The comfortable home of the Dick-and-Jane myth is contrasted with the squalid living conditions of the Breedloves; the Dick-and-Jane family has its counterpart in the misery and violence that seem normal among the Breedlove clan; the Dick-and-Jane myth celebrates familial love, while rape and incest are rife in the Breedlove household.

The ideal of beauty portrayed by Morrison is a blue-eyed blonde, slim and tender, young and pleasant. This dominant ideal, however, is subverted by embedded narratives that contribute to the overall effect of the book and simultaneously indicate a departure from the novel’s primary focus. Morrison portrays an American idea through the description of a doll:

I had only one desire: to dismember [the doll]. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. “Here,” they said, “this is beautiful, and if you are in this day ‘worthy’ you may have it”…. I could not love it.” (3),

Although they seem to fill in the ideal that constitutes Afro-American culture, they also disrupt the textual dominant emphasis by introducing the problem of feminine desire. This is particularly true in two narratives that inform the dimensions of the novel while advancing peripheral materials. These women have rejected the norms of the community, although they are inscribed in the text as one aspect of “the real” community. They generate issues that are almost totally unrelated to the novel’s dominant focus. What is stressed is their absolute economic and sexual autonomy, the significance of which becomes evident when we examine another group of women.

Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, “Do this.” White children said, “Give me that.” Then they were old. Their bodies honed, their odors sour. Squatting in a cane field, stooping in a cotton field, kneeling by a riverbank they had, they had carried a world on their heads…. [Their] lives were synthesized in their eyes — a puree of tragedy and humor, wickedness and serenity, truth and fantasy” (109).

These two narratives are readily subsumed by the ideological thrust of the novel through their focus on the feminine, but they create points of rupture in the text. As elements of “real life,” they contribute to the total representation of Black culture, but as specific articulations of women’s lives. The prostitutes’ beauty ideals embody women’s independence and empowerment, while Aunt Jenny’s peers, largely a reproduction of Hurston’s characterization of Black women as “mule of de world,” eloquently address the complexities of Black women’s existence. Unlike the women in Hurston’s novel, however, these women are ultimately triumphant.

At times in the novel, an embedded narrative apparently developed to support the dominant theme is related to the feminine issue and ideals. For example, the schoolteacher Geraldine can be seen simply as a middle-class Black woman who has divorced herself from “real” Afro-American culture. My view, however, is that she is far more complex. What strikes one first is her background: “They [women like Geraldine] come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From Marietta. From Meridian.” These are southern or borderline provincial towns, not quite rural yet not quite urban, in which certain constraints are imposed on social conduct, particularly that of women. “Respectability,” an instrument of repression, dictates standards of morality and ethics. Moreover, Geraldine is a product of a Black land-grant college — in the novel’s historical period Blacks could not have attended white institutions of higher learning in the South — that primarily serves Black working-class families and allows them entry into the lower middle class, largely as teachers, social workers, and similar professionals.

These traits are encoded in our society as within the domain of the feminine, and represent what is being repressed. While the control of passions is the dominant issue, stability and security are corollary concerns. These issues emerge in contrasting portraits of Geraldine’s family life and her perception of Pecola’s life. The narrator presents Geraldine’s life as a symbol of stability.

[Women such as she never seem to have boyfriends, but they always marry. Certain men watch them, without seeming to, and know that if such a girl is in his house, he will sleep on sheets boiled white, hung out to dry on juniper bushes, and pressed with a heavy iron (68).

At one level, what is presented is free indirect discourse in which the text provides a dual voice; the narrator’s and character’s perspectives are merged so that there is an interweaving of the two positions. The contrast is reinforced by the intervention and mediation of the narrator, as in the following commentary on the extent of the Breedlove’s oppression. The novel focuses on this characterization and the ideology implied in it. Each episode enlarges on the Breedlove tragedy; minor characters (Geraldine and Maureen Peal) are introduced to elaborate on this theme. The Dick-and-Jane framework restates it, and the fusion of the first-person narration of Claudia MacTeer with the author’s narrative intervention keeps the issue of cultural domination in the foreground.

Summary

In sum, Morrison portrays that false social ideals put manacles on the society and deprived black women of a chance to feel equal to white women and fit the ideal of an American beauty. Rebellion against socially dictates roles and emphasizes the hostility that the community encourages between white and black girls. This idea of beauty marks the emergence of a consciousness grounded in feminine experiences. The questioning and challenging of beauty ideals, the insertion of the problem of female bonding in the text, and, most significantly is the construction of a rebellious protagonist. Beauty is nothing more than ideological production imposed on society and deprived black women a chance to ‘compete’ with white females. One major effect of this is that the complexities of women’s issues, although suggested in the text, are often passed over.

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Washington Square Press, 1970.

Dandelions Meaning to Pecola

Dandelions have a strong meaning to Pecola’s view if the world and the way the world views her. She communes with dandelions as a way of pouring out the affection she lacks due to her looks. She views them as beautiful even though everyone else sees different. She can feel her resemblance to the dandelions and they amount to her feelings about the people around her. Her view of the dandelion depicts a clear picture of how she thinks the world should see them. She even drafts affection to the dandelions and consider them appealing. She loves her teeth, her nose but despise her eyes the same way people love and harvest the dandelions leaves and despise the head.

Dandelions Meaning to People in Pecola’s World

Even though Dandelions are beautiful in Pecola’s eyes, they are views as weeds by the people around Pecola’s. Grownups consider them unwanted and view perfection as lack of dandelions. The women in black babushkas consider the dandelions jagged leaves useful and sees the yellow heads as worthless. Grownups view dandelions as ugly and they do not love them. For example, Pecola’s mother tell her that she was ugly similar to the dandelions (Morrison, 1994). Additionally, Morrison shows that people deem dandelions as weeds, “They are ugly. They are weeds” (Morrison, 1994). It is evident in school where she sits alone in a double chair and she is only given a chance to talk when everyone else is talking (Morrison, 1994). Generally, the story shows that one’s association with the dandelions makes them unattractive and due to the contempt expressed by people like Pecola’s mother towards dandelions.

Reasons for Pecola’s Change on Dandelions Outlook

At the end of the story, Pecola’s view of dandelions change. She gives dandelions affection, which fail to reciprocate the love. During this time, Pecola learns to accept herself but resorts to considering the dandelions ugly similar to how the people that surrounded her did. According to Morrison (1994), Pecola felt anger, which resembled the fury that arose every time she got rejected. The author calls Pecola’s new dandelions views as a revelation, which can be translated as accepting reality or including dandelions to the people rejecting her.

Reference

Morrison, T. (1994). The Bluest Eye. New York, 751-59.

Introduction

At the heart of The Bluest Eye lies a personal tragedy of an eleven-year-old African-American girl, Pecola Breedlaw. Living in the world owned by whites, the protagonist believes that her life would be more comfortable if she looked unique: blue eyes become a symbol of the desired appearance. After experiencing several terrifying incidents, such as incest, bullying, death of the unborn child, Pecola becomes mentally ill and makes herself believe her eyes changed to the color of the sky. The Blue Eyes not only expounds the cruelty and violence in the life of little Pecola but also explains why it happens. This essay discovers the child’s view of the problems of racism, poverty, incest, and the inability to love.

The Main Characters and Themes

Pecola vs. Claudia: The Girls’ Views on Beauty

Pecola and Claudia are both young black ladies and best friends, yet they possess strikingly contrasting opinions about beauty. For instance, at the beginning of the novel, Claudia destroys her light-skinned dolls out of internalized contempt for white individuals. The girl clarifies that she is courageous since she has not learned self-hatred yet, what is a problem of numerous grown-ups within the Afro-American community.

On the contrary, the protagonist reliably acts on her craving to realize American excellence benchmarks and aspires to attain the bluest eye. According to Morrison (2014), “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty” (58). In other words, Pecola possesses low self-esteem and does not embrace the features of her appearance. Thus, even though both of the girls share the same skin color and community they live in, their reaction to social stigmas differs.

Proper Family Upbringing as the Foundation for Raising Strong Personalities

Claudia and Pecola possess different family backgrounds, which undeniably impacted their behavior in society. Claudia, as Pecola, suffers from social pressure and beauty stereotypes, but she is growing up in an adoring and caring family, which makes all the difference for her. The protagonist, however, is facing challenges in relationships with parents, such as incest and humiliation. Consequently, in critical situations, Claudia presents herself as a fighter, whereas Pecola behaves passively and vulnerably. For instance, according to Morrison (2014), when Claudia watches a bunch of boys teasing Pecola, she assaults them. Thus, a caring family is a solid foundation for bringing up an individual who can withstand social pressure.

Unhealthy Family Relationships as the Cause of Psychological Damages

The protagonist grew up in a poverty-stricken abusive family and has consistently observed her parents fighting. The girl’s mother disgracefully calls her daughter “little black bitch” and convinces her that she is ugly. Furthermore, Pecola’s father, Cholly, not only sexually assaulted the girl twice but impregnated her. Consequently, a healthy individual cannot be raised in such a toxic environment, inflicting numerous psychological traumas on a delicate child’s mind. The rape produced traumatizing psychic experience, destroying her connection with reality. Therefore, the young lady starts to blame her brown eyes, which she considers gruesome, for not finding freedom and later becomes convinced her eyes have turned blue. This is an appeal to the invisible forces to find admiration and approval of others, which she failed to receive from people who are usually the closest ones – the parents.

Cholly’s Projection of Pain

Cholly is the father of the Breedlaw family and the one who took advantage of his underage daughter. The man is depicted not so ugly outwardly as morally, the result of despair, laxity, and dissatisfaction in his own life. He represents a “little” person trying to control everyone by spreading his power and ugliness on the members of his family. Cholly did not rape Pecola out of lust, but the mixed feelings of sadness, hatred, and care. Drunk, he observed his daughter, scratching a leg while washing dishes. This picture reminded him of his past, the first meeting with his lame wife, Pauline. Consequently, with guilt and nostalgia, nothing other came to his head then, except for sexually assaulting his offspring (Gale, Cengage Learning, 2015). Such Cholly’s depravity illustrates projecting his pain on Pecola, trying to return a sense of freedom.

Racial Self-Hatred as the Fundamental Part of Growing up

The Bluest Eye gives an amplified delineation of how internalized white superiority measures misshape the lives of Afro-American girls and women. Verifiable messages that whiteness is predominant can be found throughout the novel, including the idealization of light-skinned Maureen and Pauline Breedlove’s inclination to her daughter (Gayathri, Balachandran, and Sreenath Muraleedharan 2018). As stated by Abbasi and Bhatti (2017), “racial inequalities and poverty paved ways to the reduction of blacks’ self-image, self-worth, self-respect, and self-esteem with no courage and valor” (137). Consequently, adult black ladies, having learned to loathe the darkness of their bodies, take this contempt out on their children. Thus, self-hatred was not only a challenge for the Breedlaw family but all-female representatives of the black community after the Great Depression.

Personal Opinion

There is no shortage of debates on whether the mental illness of the protagonist serves as a particular psychological technique for disclosure of social problems or not. As far as I am concerned, the craziness of Pecola Breedlove is filled with psychologism and meaning, as it gives an example of how society impacts a child’s worldview. The author makes evident to the reader the reasons for the young lady’s mental disorder: low self-esteem due to social pressure, molesting, pregnancy and death of a child, racial hostility, dreams of blue eyes – they are all distorted in her consciousness. However, this craziness is not clinical as Pecola accepted herself “renewed” with pleasure and sincerely wanted to believe she measures up to expectations of a beautiful individual. Moreover, proof of her sanity is found on the last pages of a novel where a girl was talking to herself, simultaneously admiring the blue eyes (Morrison 2014). From my perspective, she became a kind of the impetus for others, who launched the evaluation mechanism, thanks to which the readers can stop and re-think their behavior.

Conclusion

The Bluest Eye is about what poverty, ignorance, and inability to love do to humans. Pecola, the protagonist, became the embodiment of ugliness for people, including her parents and classmates. However, they could not imagine that beauty that was found inside this young lady, as she finally succeeded at finding her beauty, even though by owning imaginable pair of eyes. If Pecola was not in the novel, the plot could have been described as follows: Black families whose children go to school, domestic affairs, family disputes. However, here, with the young Mrs. Breedlove, everything changes dramatically. It is undeniable that Pecola is the one who contributed to a greater understanding of howling problems of pedophilia, family, and moral values. Moreover, precisely the madness of eleven-year-old Pecola reminds others about their own “non-normality. ”

Bibliography

Abbasi, Muhammad Ismail, and Shaheena Ayub Bhatti. 2017. “White Linguistic Violence and Black Americans: A Textual Analysis of The Bluest Eye.” Journal of Research in Social Sciences 5 (1): 135—143.

Gale, Cengage Learning. 2015. A Study Guide for Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’. Farmington Hills: Gale, Cengage Learning.

Gayathri, A. R., Devika Balachandran, and K. Sreenath Muraleedharan. 2018. “Objectification of African American Women in The Bluest Eye.” International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics 119 (12): 2769—2777.

Morrison, Toni. 2014. The Bluest Eye. New York: Random House.

The portrayal of racism and its destructive consequences in literature serves the purpose of emphasizing the need to transform our society and respect the diversity of cultures. Tony Morrison is the author of the novel titled The Bluest Eye, which presents an overview of an African-American girl’s life and the challenges she encountered. This paper aims to summarize this novel, provide an assent of central themes and characters described by Morrison, and present a personal view of the topic discussed in this work.

Novel Summary

The events described by Morrison occur during the Great Depression, which affected all states of the country equally. The main focus is on a family living in Ohio that had two daughters and a temporary foster child. This child, Pecola, suffers from bullying in her neighborhood since people around tell her that she is not beautiful. As a result, the girl desires to have one thing she associates with beauty – blue eyes. Morrison (1990, 18) describes this issue in the following manner – “it had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes…were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” Perhaps such influence on her emerged as a result of seeing dolls with white skin and blue eyes that were considered beautiful by children around Pecola.

The girl is living with foster parents because her father burned down their house. In general, the depiction of Pecola’s family suggests that the girl encountered many difficulties while growing up. Her parents were always fighting, and her father suffered from fits of anger as a result of his alcoholism. Moreover, Cholly, who is Pecola’s father, raped the gird and ran away, leaving her pregnant. At this point, the commune’s perception of Pecola changed because of these events. At the end of the novel, Pecola’s child dies, and she becomes insane due to the difficulties and traumatizing experiences she went through. The final reflection of Pecola’s foster-sister Claudia provides insight into the main themes that Morrison aimed to highlight in his novel.

Main Characters and Themes

The title of the novel provides some insight into the theme that the author aims to describe. As was evident from the summary provided in the previous paragraph, Morrison seeks to depict the destructive consequences of the perceptions of African-American prevalent in society during the Great Depression. The fact that a young girl suffered from an inferiority complex is terrible on its own, but the implications of such events are frightening. It is because the main character of the book, Pecola, believed that she was not pretty, and to become more beautiful, she needed to have blue eyes. The idea that the girl had was fostered by her perception of white skin and other attributes associated with it. Hence, the primary theme that Morrison aims to disclose is the adverse impact that society’s stereotypes regarding race and appearance.

The beauty standard that Pecola chooses based on the appearance of her fair-skinned and blue-eyed doll is another theme, which is relevant to contemporary society as well. Although currently, manufacturers of popular child toys aim to improve the diversity of their products and depict people of different races, Rice et al. (2016) argue that these dolls still harm a child’s perception of beauty. Therefore, Morrison’s novel serves as an essential example of hurtful consequences that can affect a child’s perception of self-image.

When reflection upon Pecola’s life and the events that occurred throughout the novel, Claudia mentioned the innocence as a wrong approach. The girl states that “our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair” (Morrison 1990, 60). Hence, the idea that the author aims to convey here is that innocence with which these African-Americans approached discrimination did not produce a good result.

As was mentioned, the main character of this novel is Pecola, a young African-American girl who suffers from self-loathing and misery because of the perception of one’s appearance. Rosenbaum (2017) argues that the central theme of this work is the interception of race, gender, and personal identity, which is discussed using the example of Pecola. The race is an essential aspect of this novel because the author shares the experience of growing up as an African-American in a predominantly white community. While there are many examples of improper treatment of African-Americans due to their skin color and appearance in general, the author stresses the impact that such attitudes have on one’s mental health. This is especially hurtful for women as, according to Rosenbaum (2017), the intersection of race and gender and society’s perceptions of beauty subject African-American women to discrimination. Hence, Morrison’s work serves as a representation of difficulties and issues prevalent in the African-American community and allows us to emphasize the need for changing attitudes towards race.

The main characters of the novel are Pecola, her father Cholly, and her mother, Pauline. Throughout the majority of the timeframe depicted by Morrison, Pecola lives with her foster parents, who also accommodate Claudia and Freida, two African-American girls. Other vital characters that affect the events discussed by the author are the Fisher family, who employ Pecola’s mother as a servant, and Geraldine, who is an upper-class African-American woman. Morisson also describes Pecola’s other relatives, such as her brother Sam or grandfather Samson. Out of the people that bullied the girl and contributed to her faulty perception of herself, one should mention Louis Junior and Mr. Yacobowski.

Personal Opinion

The themes of violence and self-perception of African-American women, discussed in The Bluest Eye provide an understanding of many difficulties that arise as part of the inability to accept diversity. One can argue that the novel can be challenging to read since the author depicts events such as bullying or rape. However, being able to understand that these issues exist will allow society to focus on improving the attitudes towards African-Americans. As Abdullah (2019) states, Pecola serves as an example of the distrustfulness caused by a community, cautioning people from making similar mistakes. Therefore, from a personal perspective, the novel allows one to reevaluate opinions regarding beauty and the impact of other people’s opinions, which is essential for maintaining a healthy self-image.

Conclusion

Overall, Morrison’s novel provides an essential insight into the issues of discrimination that are experienced by many African-Americans. The example of a young gird and the depiction of the hurtful consequences of the community’s views regarding African-American body image affect Pecola’s mental health. Despite many changes, modern society is still subjected to these damaging effects of beauty perception, one example being the impact of dolls on children’s self-esteem.

References

Abdullah, Nibras Ahmed. 2019. “Theme of Gender in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes and Sula.” Journal of Al-Frahedis Arts, 37 (1): 493-509.

Morrison, Toni. 1990. The Bluest Eye. London: Pan Books.

Rice Karly, Ivanka Prichard, and Marika Tiggemann. 2019. “Exposure to Barbie: Effects on Thin-Ideal Internalisation, Body Esteem, and Body Dissatisfaction among Young Girls.” Body Image, no. 19: 142-149. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.09.005.

Rosenbaum, Kathrin. 2015. Race and Gender in Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.” Munich: GRIN.