Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison...

In the Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison gets across a very powerful idea that is found in every society today. Although the book is written during the 1940’s and the most of event that occur mirror that time period, the main idea transcends to this day and age. With a persuasive argument in mind and a Poor, innocent black girl to appeal to the reader’s pathos, Morrison craftily writes her story.

    

       She uses the rhetorical knowledge that “arguments are often improved through the use of sensory details that allow us to see the reality of a problem or through stories that make specific cases and instances come alive”. Morrison’s argument is how influential society can be on an individual and how strongly its ideas and views are impressed upon that individual. The ideas and views that she speaks of mostly pertain beauty and what makes an individual beautiful. This idea of beauty can  turn someone’s life upside down and in the end lead them to madness. Thus, Morrison is trying to impress upon her readers what a negative effect society’s ideas and views can have on an individual and how that individual’s life is changed forever.

About Pecola:-

            The protagonist in The Bluest Eye is Pecola Breedlove. This lack of Beauty even intruded upon her family life. Pecola’s first encounter with her lack of beauty comes from her mother.

        Living  in grubby storefront, turned and alienated by her classmates and either beaten or ignored by her parents, Pecola is tragic figure who begins life at the bottom the moment her mother, brainwashed by white movie industry, decides her daughter is irretrievably ugly: Pauline Breedlove “was never able after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in full from the silver screen.”  

        By society’s standards, Pecola is ugly. Morrison takes this poor, innocent, ugly, little black girl and shows the devastating effects of daily events. Morrison tries “to show a little girl as a total and complete victim of whatever was around her”. People, in many cases, whites would comment and say things without even thinking twice about their effects. Pecola  stands for the triple indemnity of the female black child: children, Blacks, and females are devalued in American culture.

     The causal argument is “one in which X cause / does not cause Y. it is often used when trying to show one events brings about another”. In The Bluest Eye, the entire book is one causal argument with all of the events resting on the initial idea that society influences the individual. Society’s standard of beauty at that time was white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. The Shirley Temples of the world were adored and cherished, many sought after their beauty. Baby dolls with these blue eyes and blond hair were all the rage. However, Pecola didn’t meet the standard, she was ugly. Soon, Pecola began to realize this and began wishing beautiful blue eyes. She was no longer satisfied with herself and became consumed with the idea of beauty and what it meant to be beautiful. Each night before she went to sleep she would fervently pray for blue eyes. After getting the Mary Janes she looks at the pale yellow wrapper with a picture of little Mary jane, for whom the candy named.

        “Smiling white face Blond hair in gentle

         Disarray, blue eyes looking at her out

         Of a world of clean comfort The eyes

        Are petulant, mischievous To Pecola       

       They are simply pretty. She eats the

       Candy, and its sweetness is good. To

       Eat the candy is somehow to eat the

       eyes. eat Mary jane. Love Mary jane

       be Mary jane”.

    

                 Poor pecola thought that only if she had those beautiful, blue eyes, she would no longer br thought of as “ugly” or “dirty”, but rather as “pretty” and “beautiful”.

              Pecola is led to further isolation by the harsh reality that no one encourages or loves her. All of the supports that a young child needs are not there. Her family does not support her, her teachers abhor her classmates ridicule her, and people in the town ignore her. She has more or less has no one to turn to. Her adult rolemodels are three uncouth prostitutes that were looked down upon by all the women in the town. The only kindness Pecola finds is the offhand acceptance from the three prostitutes, themselves outcasts who do not bother to intervene between Pecola and the destruction visited on her. She was only reprimanded for her negative actions, no positive encouragement or praise ever was instilled in her.

                 All of the isolation , self-blame and negativity of Pecola’s life finally escalates when she in the kitchen washing dishes and her father, who is extremely drunk, becomes overwhelmed with sexual desire and rapes has young daughter. This incestual act does nothing but bring out more sympathy for the protagonist. In using the casual argument one sees that this terrible act is brought on by Pecola’s ugliness and her inability to meet society’s standard of beauty. Cholly is full of rage from his unhappy childhood and his unsatisfying life.

          Pecola talks about how blue and beautiful her eyes and jealous everyone is of them. The reader learns, that even this dialoguing of Pecola does not bring her solace, because she is afraid the eyes given her by Soaphead Church are not blue enough.   

       Throughout the book, the reader mostly sees Pecola as other see her. People see her as an ugly child and this one label is the most significant aspect of her life. Pecola also sees herself as others have seen her, and for this reason thinks of herself as being ugly. It is important for this reader toundrstand that this is her reality. “it is the overriding factor that pushes her fantasy to make things right”, according to Holloway.

                   They have to de3al with the same problems, situations, and  dilemmas as do the rest of the things black community in the north. At the end f the book she is isolated from the town both physically and emotionally. Mrs. Breedlove and Pecola moved to the adge of town in a little brown house. Adults looked away when they saw her and children who were not frightened, laughed at her outright. A young girl’s life ruined as a result of society’s placing of beauty on such a high standard. And making that standard and the importance of it known to all

    

Conclusion:-

                                      The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison takes place during this time period. A main theme in this novel, says is the “quest for individual identity and the influences of the family and community in the quest”. Thos theme is present throughout the novel and evident in many of the characters. Pecola Bredlove ,Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove and are all embodiments of the quest for identity, as well as symbols of the quest of many of the Black northern newcomers of that time. At the end of the book, one of the main characters, Claudia, reflects as an adults that people need someone like Pecola in their lives.

          “All of us – all who knew her- felt so

           Wholesome after we cleaned

           Ourselves on her We were so

          Beautiful when we stood astride her

          Ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us,

          Her awkwardness made us think we

         Had a sense of humor her inarticulness

        Made us belive we were eloquent….

       We honed our egos on her, padded our

       Characters with her frailty, and yawned

      In the fantasy of our strength.”