The novel opens with an excerpt from an old-fashioned reading primer. The lines begin to blur and run together — as they do at the beginning of select chapters. What social commentary is implicit in Morrison’s superimposing these bland banalities describing a white family and its activities upon the tragic story of the destruction of a young black girl? How does Morrison’s powerful language — both highly specific and lyrical — comment on the inadequacy of ‘correct’ English and the way in which it masks and negates entire worlds of beauty and pain?
I believe that the lines that were describing the bland activities of a white family are juxtaposed next to the life of Pecola to show just how different Pecola’s life was from the life depicted in the blurred lines. Toni Morrison was able to use this as a tool to highlight how Pecola’s want for a life similar to that of a white family just could not happen by the events that happened in each of the chapters. Morrisons language, and lack of the use of “correct” English, allowed the readers to feel the imagery a little more because the blurred lines could represent the inequalities in Black vs White communities during that time in areas such as education. By writing using incorrect punctuation and spacing it can give a more “raw” feeling to the readers so they can connect to the writing.
‘Quiet as it’s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow.’ With these lines Morrison’s child narrator, Claudia MacTeer, invites the reader into a troubling community secret: the incestuous rape of her 11-year-old friend Pecola Breedlove. What are the advantages of telling Pecola’s story from a child’s point of view? Claudia would appear to connect the barrenness of the land to Pecola’s tragedy. In what ways does Morrison show how Pecola’s environment — and American society as a whole — are hostile to her very existence?
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Telling the story from a child’s point of view allows for a more innocent and simplistic view of the situation. A child will not yet be able to understand the maliciousness of the world, and will explain the situation using things such flowers in this case. In contrast, if any of the adults were telling the story then they would be clouded by their own perception and biases of what life is. By comparing her tragedy to the Marigolds, Morrison shows that not only the Whites are against Pecola, but the land seems to be against the girl as well. Pecola was constantly mistreated starting with her parents’ abuse towards her, being bullied by people at school, and being constantly told that she was ugly. The way that Morrison adds the barrenness of the land to the list of things against Pecola strengthens the argument that no one or no thing is on her side.
The title of the novel refers to Pecola Breedlove’s intense desire for blue eyes. She believes herself ugly and unworthy of love and respect, but is convinced that her life would be magically transformed if she possessed blue eyes. How does racial self-loathing corrode the lives of Pecola and her parents, Cholly and Pauline Breedlove? How does racial self-hatred manifest itself in characters like Maureen Peal, Geraldine, and Soaphead Church?
Pecola and her parents each attribute their current circumstances to their race and the things that happened to them as they grew up. Cholly excuses his mistakes as a father, blaming his abandonment as a baby and the humiliation that he suffered from white men. When he was forced to perform sexually for the white men to watch, rather than blaming the white men, he blamed the woman. This began his trend of blaming women for actions that they may not have committed. On the other hand, Morrison comments that Pauline feels like she needs Cholly despite his abusive nature to make her life “exciting.” The arguments and violent nature between the two of them caused self hatred in Pecola.
Pecola began her self hate by wishing herself to disappear while her parents were arguing. This led to her attributing her life to her race and wanting to feel invisible because of her looks. Maureen inadvertently shows hate for her own race through her actions and the things she says. Due to the fact that she is light-skinned, she treats others of color as if she is better than them. This is shown when she is arguing with the girls and after they call her boy-crazy, she calls them black and ugly. In Geraldine’s case, worship of cleanliness was associated with her internalized hatred to the African American race.
The way Geraldine said derogatory words towards Pecola when she was blamed for the death of the cat also shows her hatred towards her race. Soaphead Church also shows self hatred by the way Soaphead was accepting of Pecola’s request for blue eyes. Rather than comforting her and trying to lift her up, Soaphead understood her want for “whiteness.”
At a certain point in the novel, Morrison, through her narrator, states that romantic love and physical beauty are ‘probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.’ How do the lives of individual characters bear out that statement? To what degree are these two concepts generated from within or imposed on us by society? Where do the characters first encounter ideas of romantic love and beauty — ideas which will eventually torture and exclude them? What positive visions of beauty and love does the novel offer?
The most obvious example of the destructiveness of love is depicted by Mr and Mrs Breedlove. It makes sense that Pecola’s parents would be the ones to have the most unstable love life because it adds to the unbalanced life that is shaping her own personal view. By observing her parents getting into incredibly brutal and unbearable fights, her view of love and life as an African American is slowly deteriorated. I feel that romantic love is initially dictated by one’s own interpretation of physical beauty. Physical beauty is largely influenced by the media and those around you.
While romantic love evolves from the perception of physical beauty but sometimes can look past this idea as it goes on. In the book, Pecola first encounters her own perception of beauty each time she sees the beautiful white girl with blonde hair being treated nicely or advertized on the front of her favorite candy. The following quote from the novel describes Pecola’s view on love. “What did love feel like? she wondered. How do grown-ups act when they love each other? Eat fish together? In her eyes came the picture of Cholly and Mrs. Breedlove in bed….Maybe that was love. Choking sounds and silence” (pg. 57). A wonderful example of the positive side of beauty and love is by one of the younger characters, Claudia. When she was imagining Pecola’s baby, she imagined it as beautiful even if it was going to be an African American baby.
What role does social class play in the novel? Pecola first comes to stay with the MacTeers because her family has been put ‘outdoors’ owing to her father’s drunken violence and carelessness. The threat of ‘outdoors’ focuses families like the MacTeers on upward mobility. ‘Being a minority in both caste and class we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the folds of the garment.’ Is divisiveness one result of this upward striving Morrison describes? What are others?
Social class is instrumental in this novel when illustrating the divisiveness between the races. Morrison associates white, or the idea of being white, with being clean through the use of several different characters. Morrison also uses the idea of possessing property as a necessity to illustrate the class that Pecola and her family fell into. This is shown through the following quote. “Knowing that there was such a thing as outdoors bred in us a hunger for property, for ownership. The firm possession of a yard, a porch, a grape arbor. Propertied black people spent all their energies, all their love, on their nests.” Divisiveness is a result of this upward striving because it caused characters in the novel to constantly compare themselves to others on both their race and wealth. For example, although Maureen was a light skinned girl, she saw herself as superior to the darker skinned girls due to the fact that she was closer to “white” and wealthier than the other girls.
The novel is set in a Midwestern industrial town, Lorain, Ohio, Morrison’s own birthplace. Pauline and Cholly Breedlove are transplanted Southerners and several key scenes in the novel are set in the South. How does Morrison set up comparisons between a Northern black community and the Southern black way of life? What values have been lost in the migration north?
A vital difference between the North and the South in this novel is how Morrison highlights the differences in values. The North is associated with wealth and opportunities while the South places more emphasis on family values. This is shown when Cholly and Pauline were married and Cholly want to move “way up north…where steel mills were begging for workers’ (pg 92). Working in the steel mill would allow for his family to afford all of the things discussed in the previous question. However, Pauline did not have an appreciation for the Northerners.
“Northern colored folk was different too. Dirty-like. No better than whites for meanness. They could make you feel just as a no-count, ‘cept I didn’t expect it from them ” (pg 117). This quote also shows that the Northerners did not like the Southerners. Northerners saw themselves as better than people from the South. By migrating North, the family definitely lost some of the concentration on family values.
Consider Morrison’s characterization of Cholly Breedlove. While she clearly condemns his actions, she resists dehumanizing him. If rape of one’s daughter is an ‘unimaginable’ crime, can one at least trace the events (and resulting emotions) that made it possible for Cholly to commit this brutal act? Is there a connection between the white hunters’ ‘rape’ of Cholly and the sexual aggression he eventually turned on his daughter?
I believe that in most cases, one can see what actions in a person’s life caused him or her to act the way he or she did. Throughout the book, Cholly repeatedly hurts the ones he loves. Cholly’s version of self hate was one born from guilt. What I mean by this is that Cholly would hurt the people he loved the most out of the guilt he felt by failing them. It began by the “rape” of Cholly at the hands of the two white men. Although he was committing the act with a woman, he failed her by getting caught and hated her rather than the men that humiliated him. Later on, he repeatedly abuses Pauline for the same reason. When it comes to Pecola’s rape, Cholly’s inner dialogue was the most revealing about his actual feelings towards the ordeal. Cholly felt ‘revulsion, guilt, pity, then love’ (pg 161) when he saw Pecola. His feelings show that he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but his endless cycle of abuse in the form of guilt stemming from his younger years would not let him stop.
The Bluest Eye was published in 1970. At the time Morrison was writing the novel, the racist society that condemned Pecola Breedlove was still very much in place and Morrison took great risks — both within the black community and American society as a whole — to tell this important story. While advances in civil rights and racial attitudes have been made in the intervening years, it is arguable that many of the core issues so vividly evoked in the novel remain. What evidence is there that racial self-hatred continues to ruin lives? What present-day cultural factors could contribute to tragedies like Pecola’s?
In today’s society, racial inequalities are still prevalent. Social media, marketing campaigns, and entertainment are where it is still glaringly obvious. It seems that regardless of race, some individuals still want their skin to be as light as possible. When I try to think of the most famous African American people that I know, a majority of them are lighter skinned people. This idea is even forced at an extremely young age as toys for children are still made with predominantly lighter skin and light colored hair.
In the discussion posts, I have also seen some account that there is an idea of being “too white” and “too black” among the African American communities. Where both races will not even want to associate with others simply based on their mannerisms and the way they look. If one’s mannerisms set him or her apart from the African American community, but skin color also set someone apart from the White community then there could be a feeling of longing to look or act like someone else. This would most definitely lead to the feelings of loneliness and isolation that Pecola faced.
List four important characters in The Bluest Eye who experience deception, injustice or oppression . How, if at all, does each one resist the deception, injustice or oppression s/he is subject to? In your opinion, which characters are the most successful? Why?
Claudia MacTeer was a great example of one who resisted the injustices of her time. Due to the fact that this book takes place in the mid 1900’s, she was not dealt a good hand to start with simply due to the fact that she is African American. However, she remained one of the nicest characters in the novel. For example, she viewed Pecola’s unborn child as beautiful and gave up her money in hopes for the best for the child. This went against what everyone in society and surrounding Pecola was telling her at the time. I believe that she was the most successful in this book because she was able to love herself and her own race without succumbing to the thoughts of society.
Pecola is an example of deception in this novel. This entire book revolves around Pecola’s deception that blue eyes will grant her a better life. She spends the entirety of this novel facing racial discrimination from both Whites and African Americans to the point where her only belief is that if she were more like a different race she would live a better life. Unfortunately she was unable to resist this deception and it eventually drove her crazy.
Pauline Breedlove is an example of oppression. As an African American, she is oppressed by society constantly telling her she is not good enough. As a wife, she is oppressed by her own husband abusing her. She also oppresses herself by not believing in her own beauty and forcing herself to stay in an abusive marriage. She also does not overcome her own oppression because she finds comfort in romantic movies and at work caring for a white family.
Cholly was also an example of injustice. However, Cholly allowed the injustices imposed on him by society to drive his decisions and form who he is. His “rape” by the White men scarred him to the point where he began to felt justified in his actions of abuse. At the peak of this novel, Cholly’s rape of Pecola only showed that he was not progressing in overcoming the injustices that have affected his life so much. He was only becoming more and more abusive to the ones he loved.
Some argue that external idealizations become internalized, and thus contribute to the internalization of oppression. If this is so, how (if at all) does The Bluest Eye suggest we can resist this internalization? How do you think successful resistance could or does occur? (If you don’t think resistance is possible, explain why not.)
I believe that Morrison’s novel shows how external idealizations do become internalized in many occasions. From the beginning of the novel, Pauline does not find her or her daughter beautiful simply because she watches romantic movies to escape her marriage, and at that time nearly every character in a movie was white. The Bluest Eye has very few examples of resisting the internalization of oppression. Rather it shows character after character hating or comparing themselves based on how “White” they are. One exception to this however is the character Claudia.
When thinking about Maureen, Claudia says she feels “comfortable in her skin,” and “the thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful” (pg 62). This was Claudia’s way of saying that rather than fearing the racism that dominated the time, the idea of “whiteness” that made her feel beautiful is what she should fear instead. This was Morrison way to shine a light into the novel to propose that successful resistance to this oppressive internalization is through loving yourself for who you are rather than idolizing someone else completely different. Showing unforgiving, unconditional love to yourself and going against societal pressures could definitely be a key component to resisting internalized oppression.
