To yearn for something unnatural to your own being is unproductive and unsatisfying. Throughout Morrison’s novel, Pecola Breedlove underwent a journey of ridicule, self-discovery, and self-appreciation, a journey that people of this time needed to take because the pressures of Whiteness imposed upon and accepted by the Black Community created loads of self-hatred and low self-esteem within the self just as it did for Pecola Breedlove.
Through Pecola who was trying to escape her Blackness and Geraldine who had already “escaped” her Blackness, a person can see Morrison’s tale come to life and can get the real reason why Morrison could not have allowed Pecola to produce anything in her current condition. Paying close attention to her, in the very beginning of the novel, living with Claudia and Frieda, Pecola is very fond of drinking out of a cup plastered with a blue-eyed blonde by name of Shirley Temple. A major symbol of Whiteness in the book.
Frieda and Pecula have a “conversation of how cu-cute Shirley Temple [was]” (Morrison 19). They want to be like her, especially Pecola who envied Temple’s blue eyes. However, these children think that to become more like Shirley Temple, they have to drink out of the cup – they have to ingest the Whiteness from the cup. Although this may seem absurd, the act of ingesting Whiteness becomes a huge deal to the children in this story. It is seen again when Pecola visits the store and purchases Mary Jane’s, a candy named after a blue-eyed white girl and shows the blue-eyed white girl on the wrapper. To “eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane” (50).
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Pecola falls into the fallacy that to eat more Mary Jane’s somehow makes her “more white” and “less black,” and more white makes her more beautiful (209). The goal for them is to be more white and less black, and as the story shows this goal beginning with childhood exposure to the ideals of Whiteness: to be white is to be beautiful, little white girls with blonde girls are cute, and blue eyes are the best eyes. In this search for Whiteness, Pecola meets a lady by the name of Geraldine, a lady who has embraced Whiteness and is just like her (91).
Geraldine is a lady who went to “land-grant colleges, normal schools and learned how to do the white man’s work with refinement” (83). She is the epitome of Whiteness imposed upon the Black community. She straightens her hair, does not embrace “jungle love” (a rough sex that is named for its roots traced back to Africa and noted for its attachment to black people). Instead, Geraldine embraces a calm, ordained sex with little frills and excitement (84). Geraldine, like Pecola, also tries to run from her Blackness. In doing so she has constructed a difference between being a nigger and being colored, and to be colored is closer to being white as “Colored people are neat and quiet.” On the other hand, “niggers [are] dirty and loud” (87).
Geraldine considers herself colored because she has broken away from her Blackness, has moved away from the Black parts of town, sports a house with elegant furniture and amenities, and somehow “elevated” herself to something better by mixing in Whiteness (92). However, even Geraldine’s attempt to escape her Blackness is a flawed. The thing she loves most and gives her affections to happens to be a mirror to her soul: the black cat with the blue eyes (90).
Just by the cat being Black, it is Geraldine’s reminder that she too is black, with the blue eyes represent the Whiteness Geraldine tries to portray. This is her constant reminder that while the glitter, glamour, add-ons, and accessories of Whiteness may be tacked to her Black skin, it does not change who she is. She will still remain Black although she has taken on a certain Whiteness. Furthermore, this account with Geraldine describes why Pecola’s baby did not last and why the marigolds did not bloom in 1941. For any soil to produce crop, it has to agree with the crop that it is producing.
In terms of the Blue Eye, Whiteness cannot successful grow in Black Soil. Whiteness is a soil of its own. In Blackness, we are to plant values and characteristics that are natural to us, and embrace them: our skin, our hair textures, our facial features, and our frames. However, when we reach for Whiteness and try to plant them in our “black pots” as Pecola tried to plant in her own black pot, the results are never successful.
Although Pecola ate the Mary Jane’s and drunk from the Shirley Temple cup, nothing came from it. Although Gerladine spent several hours and money refining herself and getting a lavish house away from the Black community, her love was still reverted to herself. She still saw herself as a little Black girl just like Pecola. Her attempts to cover up did not produce anything but a terrible son with psychotic issues which implies that covering up Blackness is dangerous and can have permanent, damaging results (91).
It goes back to the self-hatred of the children on the playground who were picking at Pecola in the early part of the novel. This move towards Whiteness is the beginning of the “Crabs in a barrel mentality.” The more a black person moves towards whiteness or thinks you are moving towards Whiteness, whether in appearance or achievement, the more they are prone to criticize one another and run down the street shouting “Black e mo Black e mo” (65) [ie. The lighter children who teased Pecola on the playground, Geraldine and her success outside of the Black community who looked down on loud and rambunctious Black folks].
With actions such as these, it is not a wonder why marigolds did not bloom or Pecola’s baby did not last. No good thing comes from the act of suppressing Blackness, therefore dormancy and unproductiveness were needed as themes in the novel. If Pecola’s baby would have survived or the flowers bloomed, Morrison would have sent the wrong message that Whiteness can flourish in Blackness. That is not true. Blackness and Whiteness are two separate foundations which are predetermined naturally. Therefore, Morrison could not have allowed Pecola’s baby to live nor the flowers to grow. The unnatural cannot consistently dwell in the natural without causing some type of death or dysfunction.
The Bluest Eye is a must read. It sends a message that is imperative to all Black ears and hearts. There is a message in the marigolds. There is a message in Shirley Temple and Mary Jane. There is a message in Pecola and Geraldine. In it, a Black person learns the values of self-pride and appreciation, a message that to stay true to Blackness should be the most willful and consistent practice of any African-American. In other words, Whiteness only belongs in Whiteness and Blackness only belongs in Blackness regardless of the outside pressure to assimilate.
