The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Morrison's first novel
Star Rating: ★★★★/5
Pub. 1970
“Of all the wishes people had brought him— money, love, revenge— this seemed to him the most poignant and the one most deserving of fulfillment. A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power.”
The most prominent passage of this work follows Pecola as she walks to purchase candy for herself. On the way, she passes by some dandelions. “Why, she wonders, do people call them weeds? She thought they were pretty.” Although they appear like any other flower, dandelions are perceived as being less than. Neighbors brag about their lawns, not a dandelion in sight…
While leaving the candy shop, Pecola thinks to herself: “They are ugly. They are weeds.” This belief is a learned behavior. There is no other reason for Pecola to view dandelions as less than if not for the adults around her that confirm this to be true. Much like the dandelions, Pecola views herself as being a sight of distaste for others. Pecola views her blackness as causing this great distaste.
“It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights— if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.”
To young Pecola Breedlove, beauty is essential to being treated fairly and with love. Not just beauty but particular traits. Blue eyes are beauty; whiteness is beauty. To Pecola, if she were to display white traits such as blue eyes, people would be kind to her and love her and treat her better. People would view her as beautiful.
Toni Morrison does not shock, she does not embellish, and she doesn’t sugar coat. From the very beginning, she tells you exactly what to expect. She is blunt; her language is sharp and piercing. By the second line of the first chapter, we are told what most authors would only reveal towards the end. Toni Morrison is not here to shock you; she doesn’t want to cheapen Pecola’s story in that way. Instead, she takes us along to show the reality of being a young black girl in the 20th century, a girl that is taught that she is ugly and less than because she is not white. Not only does Pecola face the brutality of racism, but her home life is coarse and cold. Belted with poverty and two parental figures dealing with their own internalized racism and traumas, Pecola is utterly hopeless. and we are aware of this from the start.
Note: Although the specifics are told to the reader in the very beginning, if you wish to avoid possible spoilers than please avoid the following paragraphs within this divided portion.
A large portion of the narrative is from the perspective of Claudia and her older sister Frieda. They are schoolmates of Pecola and have briefly lived with our main character after her father, Cholly, burned down the family home. We are told by Claudia that Pecola is expecting a child— her father’s child.
Claudia and Frieda are also present when Pecola begins menstruating. The two girls take on a kind of protective role in regards to Pecola, though their own inexperience renders them unable to help Pecola in the way they would like.
To read about the innocence of a child from the perspective of a child is incredibly tragic given the circumstances.
We are also shown numerous events in the life of different individuals, including the early life of Pecola’s parents.
It was refreshing to read a novel so sensitively considered. There was a genuine responsiveness to the subject within Morrison’s writing, a kind you don’t often find in sensationalized writings. Care like this warrants a title other than fiction— it is an acknowledgment of reality and the consequences faced by everyday individuals.
The Bluest Eye is a tragic reminder of racism and its impact on the psyche. It is a story of poverty, neglect, abuse, and adversity. Morrison’s power in this novel impressed me, especially considering this was her first novel. I can only imagine her intensity in other works and look forward to them, though I know I’ll have to prepare myself for impact.
“A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment.”