| The Bluest Eye | |
|---|---|
 1st edition |
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| Author | Toni Morrison |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Holt, Rinehart and Winston |
| Publication date | 1970 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 224 pp (Hardcover edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0375411557 (Hardcover edition) |
| OCLC Number | 43963986 |
The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel by American author Toni Morrison. It is Morrison's first novel, written while Morrison was teaching at Howard University and was raising her two sons on her own.[1] The story is about a year in the life of a young black girl in Lorain, Ohio named Pecola. It takes place against the backdrop of America's Midwest as well as in the years following The Great Depression. The Bluest Eye is told from the perspective of Claudia MacTeer as a child and an adult, as well as from a third person omniscient viewpoint. Because of the controversial nature of the book, which deals with racism, incest, and child molestation, there have been numerous attempts to ban it from schools and libraries.[2]
Contents |
Claudia and Frieda MacTeer live in Ohio with their parents. The MacTeer family takes two other people into their home, Mr. Henry and Pecola. Pecola is a troubled young girl with a hard life. Her parents are constantly fighting, both physically and verbally. Pecola is continually being told and reminded of what an “ugly” girl she is, thus fueling her desire to be a caucasian girl with blue eyes. Throughout the novel it is revealed that not only has Pecola had a life full of hatred and hardships, but her parents have as well. Pecola’s mother, Pauline only feels alive and happy when she is working for a rich white family. Her father, Cholly, is a drunk who was left with his aunt when he was young and ran away to find his father, who wanted nothing to do with him. Both Pauline and Cholly eventually lost the love they once had for one another. While Pecola is doing dishes, her father rapes her. His motives are unclear and confusing, seemingly a combination of both love and hate. Cholly flees after the second time he rapes Pecola, leaving her pregnant. The entire town of Lorain turns against her, except Claudia and Frieda. In the end Pecola’s child is born prematurely and dies. Claudia and Frieda give up the money they had been saving and plant flower seeds in hopes that if the flowers bloom, Pecola's baby will live; the marigolds never bloom.
In the afterword, Morrison explains that she is attempting to humanize all the characters that attack Pecola or cause her to be the way she is.
Ideas of beauty, particularly those that relate to racial characteristics, are a major theme in this book. The title refers to Pecola's wish that her eyes would turn blue. Claudia is given a white baby doll to play with and is constantly told how lovely it is. Insults to physical appearance are often given in racial terms; a light skinned student named Maureen is shown favoritism at school. There is a contrast between the world shown in the cinema and the one in which Pauline is a servant, as well as the WASP society and the existence the main characters live in. Most chapters' titles are extracts from a Dick and Jane reading book, presenting a happy white family. This family is contrasted with Pecola's existence.
In this book whiteness stands for beauty. This is a standard that the black girls can not meet, especially Pecola, who has darker skin than the rest. Pecola connects beauty with being loved and believes that if she would just have blue eyes all the bad things in her life would be replaced with love and affection. This desire that is obviously hopeless leads her to madness by the end of the novel.
Pecola’s story is essentially her quest to find beauty. While she believes that the blue eyes of a white girl will make her beautiful, this view of beauty is not Pecola’s. Her society has revered whiteness, so she begins to see that as the essence of beauty. At the end of the book, Pecola believes that she got her wish. She has an eerie conversation with herself, which seems to reveal that Pecola has traded her sanity for the blue eyes she has always dreamed of. However, Claudia clarifies 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”. By trying to conform to everyone else's ideas of beauty instead of her own, Pecola never actually obtains what she wants. She thinks blue eyes are beautiful simply because society thinks that blue eyes are beautiful, which is what fuels her desire for them. The conformity in the end does not lead to Pecola’s true satisfaction, as what she is satisfied with she cannot have. Although she believes that she has the blue eyes, it is clear to everyone except Pecola that the pleasures of being white, and blue eyed is not attainable. Although the goal is unattainable physically, Morrison makes the point that it is unattainable metaphorically as well. We cannot achieve beauty unless we achieve our own idea of beauty, not just what others have led us to believe is beautiful.
The Bluest Eye is a novel that contains several relationships, although the relationships never end pleasantly. Morrison sees love as a dynamic force, which can be extremely damaging depending on who is doing the loving. The biggest example of this is the relationship Cholly has with his daughter Pecola. Cholly is the only character in the whole book that can see past Pecola’s seemingly revolting shell enough to touch her. While this sounds like a beautiful thing, in actuality it is the violent rape that serves as the climax of the story. As Claudia points out in the final chapter of this novel, “Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly” While Cholly definitely loves, the core of his personality forces him to manifest this love in violent ways. Because he is not a good person, his love is extremely tainted. The reader can look at this in one of two ways. It can be seen as a very pessimistic view, claiming that true love can only be achieved if the lover is a good, honest person. However, the reader can also see this as uplifting. Even though love can be distorted, Morrison makes the point that everyone can, in fact, love. Even if an evil person loves evilly, they still love.
Morrison continually places the idea and image of dirt and impurity-both figuratively and literally-in each new setting. In the beginning she introduces an ill Claudia plagued with bronchial and flu-like symptoms, cooped up in an “old, cold, green” house. The Breedloves own appearance and home is poor and ugly. Pecola befriends the prostitutes living above her, who are impure in their own nature. They sleep around, refute religion, are caked with make-up, surrounded themselves with smoke and are overweight. Altogether, the characters live in a dusty, hot town, separate from the upper-class whites. They themselves are dark and not pristine in appearance with their dark skin and nappy hair; Pecola is especially insecure about her differences and imperfections. Morrison uses this repetitive concept to emphasize the severity of their lifestyles and their desperation to keep up appearances.
Most of Morrison’s characters are a martyr to some cause or some person. Claudia and Frieda’s mother gave up youth and her own life to stay at home and care for a family. Pecola believes she’s ugly so that others may be beautiful. Her body is sacrificed to Cholly for his self-fulfillment. Claudia and Frieda gave up their bike money and flower seeds to “make magic” for Pecola and her baby. Mrs. Breedlove gave up her family, wealth, and status for Cholly and the trouble he brings economically, physically, and emotionally. Even the Maginot Line and China gave up their bodies and social position to have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. The book’s constant discussion of sacrifice, sin, and an unattainable redemption stresses a larger idea of life’s real purpose and the struggle to make it through something that yields no reward.
Believing a new pair of eyes will change the way she sees things as well as the way she is seen, Pecola’s one deep desire is to have the bluest eyes in the world. The young girl’s innocent wish is marked by her perception of a world where the cruelty and hardships she suffers are a result of her appearance as an ugly black girl with dark eyes. She imagines having blue eyes will earn her respect and possible admiration. This is demonstrated when Pecola is teased by the little boys on the playground—when Maureen approaches staring at them with her light eyes, the boys back down and behave in a more respectable manner. Furthermore, Pecola wishes specifically for new eyes rather than lighter skin because she also hopes to literally view the world in a better way. At home and all around her, Pecola is tortured by the cruelty and dirtiness she constantly witnesses; if she were blessed with new eyes, she would be able to see herself and her world in a new, beautiful way. Pecola’s desire for blue eyes makes a connection between how a person is seen and what he or she sees.
Throughout the novel, white skin is identified with beauty and purity. There are many recurring implications to the superiority of whites over blacks, specifically in women. The adoration of the Shirley Temple doll given to Claudia, light-skinned Maureen being cuter than the other black girls, and Pauline Breedlove's preference for the little white girl she cares for demonstrate the prevailing dominance of whiteness. As a result, women learn to hate themselves for being black and in turn relay this disgust to their daughters. This is most apparent within the Breedlove family, where Mrs. Breedlove despises the ugliness she sees in her own daughter. Pecola is most affected by this connection of beauty with whiteness, believing that beauty is associated with love and is necessary for affection and respect. Her hopeless desire to be identified as a white girl eventually drives Pecola to insanity.
The Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois commissioned Lydia R. Diamond to adapt the novel into a full-length stage production. This play was developed through the Steppenwolf for Young Adults and the New Plays Initiative where it received its world premiere in February, 2005. The play was reprised in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theatre in October, 2006 by popular demand. The Bluest Eye received its off-Broadway premiere at the New Victory Theater in New York in November, 2006.
In 2010, Phantom Projects Educational Theatre Group will present the Lydia R. Diamond adaptation at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in La Mirada, California
It is also in the process of being adapted into a French version.
Rapper Talib Kweli used the book as an inspiration for his song "Thieves in the Night" with Mos Def on the Blackstar album.
3. Ancestral Wisdom in Toni Morrison's The Bluest EyePreview By: Lucy, Crystal J.; Proteus: A Journal of Ideas, 2004 Fall; 21 (2): 21-26. (journal article)
4. Family Systems Therapy and Narrative in Toni Morrison's The Bluest EyePreview By: Bump, Jeromo. pp. 151–70 IN: Knapp, John V. (ed. and introd.); Womack, Kenneth (ed.); Reading the Family Dance: Family Systems Therapy and Literary Study. Newark, DE; London, England: U of Delaware P; Associated UP; 2003. 333 pp. (book article)
5. Girls into Women: Culture, Nature, and Self-Loathing in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970)Preview By: Waxman, Barbara Frey. pp. 47–49 IN: Fisher, Jerilyn (ed., preface, and introd.); Silber, Ellen S. (ed., preface, and introd.); Sadker, David (foreword); Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 2003. xxxix, 358 pp. (book article)
6. Black Self, Racial World: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye as a Terminated BildungsromanPreview By: Ragaisiene, Irena; Darbai ir Dienos, 2002; 32: 219-40. (journal article)
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