Book Review: Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" (Heather Graves)
“In a land that loves its blond, blue-eyed children, who weeps for the dreams of a black girl?” – Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye weaves tales in many different ways: in its 164 pages, it contains a trauma narrative, a work of historical fiction, a tale of racism and families working to survive during the Great Depression – but at the root of all of these stories is one constant: a girl who wishes to be anything but who she is. Throughout the novel, Toni Morrison aims to deconstruct racial prejudice by opening up a narrative largely about whiteness, and how whiteness is seen to represent beauty. Another theme throughout the book is love and sex, and how those two are seen to be interchangeable in the eyes of some.
Pecola Breedlove is the protagonist of the story. She is an eleven-year old girl who is constantly being reminded of her ugliness. Pecola believes that if only she had blue eyes, she could be beautiful and be seen in the same light as the little white girls with blue eyes. Everyone loves those girls, but nobody loves Pecola. The MacTeer family briefly takes Pecola in, and their two daughters, Freida and Claudia, aim to befriend Pecola. Though they resent her in some ways, they ultimately recognize her struggles as a young black girl in a world where whiteness is placed on a pedestal. Claudia narrates much of the story, both as a young girl and as an adult, so the reader only sees Pecola through her eyes. One of the most telling scenes in the novel happens early on, when Pecola begins to menstruate and the girls have to explain to her what it means. They tell her that now she can have a baby, if only she can find someone to love her. This confuses Pecola, because she has no idea what it means to be loved, so she searches high and low for answers. She begins to question older women she knows about their relationships, both past and present, in an attempt to understand what love is, and what exactly does it mean to get someone to love you? Many of these women equate love and sex to be the same, which continues to feed Pecola’s confusion.
So, where does Pecola learn all of this? How does an eleven year old girl come to hate herself with so much fervor, to wish to change who she is? Self-hatred is not ingrained in children, but it is learned. If a girl is told repeatedly that she is ugly and worthless, and if she sees that the white girls get treated better and more fairly solely because of the color of their skin, then she comes to believe that her life would be better if only she disappeared. Pecola begs God to make her disappear, and hallucinates her body slowly drifting away. This is the one scene in the novel where she seems truly happy, and it’s only because she is imagining that she no longer exists. At one point, Pecola visits a man who calls himself a “Reader, Adviser, and Interpreter of Dreams.” She asks him to make her eyes blue, and Sir Whitcomb himself even remarks to himself of her ugliness: “Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty” (138). He converses with God to make her dream come true, and to wash her pain away.
But Pecola’s pain can’t be erased that easily. Pecola’s father, who is a drunkard and has his own deep-rooted problems, rapes her and impregnates her. Going back to Claudia and Freida telling her that having a baby is the same as having someone love you, Pecola may not understand that what was done to her was a crime and was not love. Her pregnancy is the talk of the town, and Claudia and Freida overhear women talking about it. These women speculate about who the father is, and if it was consensual or not. There’s a bit of victim blaming, with some of the women saying “she carry some of the blame” and “how come she didn’t fight him?” (149). It’s mystifying to see adult women blame a child for carrying her rapist’s baby, but speaks volumes about how we still live in a culture that doesn’t trust children, that blames the victim, and that assumes fighting off a rapist is an easy task.
The novel ends with a conversation between Pecola and Freida, after Pecola finally gets her blue eyes. It’s unclear whether Pecola is having another hallucination, but even still, the more pertinent part of the conversation is how she answers Claudia’s questions about her father’s assaults. Pecola never acknowledges that they were wrong, but also never says she wanted it. It’s a fairly nonchalant conversation, and maybe it’s because Pecola’s obsession with her blue eyes is helping to erase the pain she feels inside. In the end, we see that Pecola’s wish is granted, but it doesn’t bring her happiness. Claudia says that “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” (162). Pecola loses her baby, which may have been a blessing or a curse, depending on which way you look at it. She “stepped over into madness, a madness which protected her from us simply because it bored us in the end” and thus Pecola loses the only people who were capable of loving her.
The problem with The Bluest Eye is that everything is being told from nearly every perspective except Pecola’s. This could be because she lacks agency, thus reading her story from the perspective of Claudia offers a more objective view. But still, how can the reader understand how Pecola, and consequently girls, feel if we don’t allow them to use their voice?
The Bluest Eye weaves tales in many different ways: in its 164 pages, it contains a trauma narrative, a work of historical fiction, a tale of racism and families working to survive during the Great Depression – but at the root of all of these stories is one constant: a girl who wishes to be anything but who she is. Throughout the novel, Toni Morrison aims to deconstruct racial prejudice by opening up a narrative largely about whiteness, and how whiteness is seen to represent beauty. Another theme throughout the book is love and sex, and how those two are seen to be interchangeable in the eyes of some.
Pecola Breedlove is the protagonist of the story. She is an eleven-year old girl who is constantly being reminded of her ugliness. Pecola believes that if only she had blue eyes, she could be beautiful and be seen in the same light as the little white girls with blue eyes. Everyone loves those girls, but nobody loves Pecola. The MacTeer family briefly takes Pecola in, and their two daughters, Freida and Claudia, aim to befriend Pecola. Though they resent her in some ways, they ultimately recognize her struggles as a young black girl in a world where whiteness is placed on a pedestal. Claudia narrates much of the story, both as a young girl and as an adult, so the reader only sees Pecola through her eyes. One of the most telling scenes in the novel happens early on, when Pecola begins to menstruate and the girls have to explain to her what it means. They tell her that now she can have a baby, if only she can find someone to love her. This confuses Pecola, because she has no idea what it means to be loved, so she searches high and low for answers. She begins to question older women she knows about their relationships, both past and present, in an attempt to understand what love is, and what exactly does it mean to get someone to love you? Many of these women equate love and sex to be the same, which continues to feed Pecola’s confusion.
So, where does Pecola learn all of this? How does an eleven year old girl come to hate herself with so much fervor, to wish to change who she is? Self-hatred is not ingrained in children, but it is learned. If a girl is told repeatedly that she is ugly and worthless, and if she sees that the white girls get treated better and more fairly solely because of the color of their skin, then she comes to believe that her life would be better if only she disappeared. Pecola begs God to make her disappear, and hallucinates her body slowly drifting away. This is the one scene in the novel where she seems truly happy, and it’s only because she is imagining that she no longer exists. At one point, Pecola visits a man who calls himself a “Reader, Adviser, and Interpreter of Dreams.” She asks him to make her eyes blue, and Sir Whitcomb himself even remarks to himself of her ugliness: “Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty” (138). He converses with God to make her dream come true, and to wash her pain away.
But Pecola’s pain can’t be erased that easily. Pecola’s father, who is a drunkard and has his own deep-rooted problems, rapes her and impregnates her. Going back to Claudia and Freida telling her that having a baby is the same as having someone love you, Pecola may not understand that what was done to her was a crime and was not love. Her pregnancy is the talk of the town, and Claudia and Freida overhear women talking about it. These women speculate about who the father is, and if it was consensual or not. There’s a bit of victim blaming, with some of the women saying “she carry some of the blame” and “how come she didn’t fight him?” (149). It’s mystifying to see adult women blame a child for carrying her rapist’s baby, but speaks volumes about how we still live in a culture that doesn’t trust children, that blames the victim, and that assumes fighting off a rapist is an easy task.
The novel ends with a conversation between Pecola and Freida, after Pecola finally gets her blue eyes. It’s unclear whether Pecola is having another hallucination, but even still, the more pertinent part of the conversation is how she answers Claudia’s questions about her father’s assaults. Pecola never acknowledges that they were wrong, but also never says she wanted it. It’s a fairly nonchalant conversation, and maybe it’s because Pecola’s obsession with her blue eyes is helping to erase the pain she feels inside. In the end, we see that Pecola’s wish is granted, but it doesn’t bring her happiness. Claudia says that “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” (162). Pecola loses her baby, which may have been a blessing or a curse, depending on which way you look at it. She “stepped over into madness, a madness which protected her from us simply because it bored us in the end” and thus Pecola loses the only people who were capable of loving her.
The problem with The Bluest Eye is that everything is being told from nearly every perspective except Pecola’s. This could be because she lacks agency, thus reading her story from the perspective of Claudia offers a more objective view. But still, how can the reader understand how Pecola, and consequently girls, feel if we don’t allow them to use their voice?
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