The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye

Michael Barrus

American Literature

G330

Lee Ann Kinkade

March 21st, 2013

Author Note

This research paper is being submitted on March 21st, 2013 for Lee Ann Kinkade's

G330 American Literature class.

The Bluest Eye

"Get out you nasty little black bitch" (Morrison, 1970, p.92) as spoken by Geraldine to Pecola. Toni Morrison touches on many "ugly" things in this novel. Many are obviously ugly. The rape of a child by one man, molestation of children by two others and the lack of basic caring and love that a mother and father "should" want to be giving to their daughter. What isn't so obvious is what Morrison shows us about interracial racism. She gives a peek into what is the true downfall of Pecola Breedlove, and that is self-loathing and hate not brought on this little girl by whites as much as blacks such as Maureen, Geraldine, Polly and as Claudia later, at the end, while describing the talk of the local ladies they eavesdropped on.

At first glance, and without reflection, we could take The Bluest Eye as a novel of a poor confused black child in the suburbs of Cleveland that has been taught through the actions of whites that black is ugly and beautiful is light skin and blues eyes. That is, " Pecola is victimized by a society that conditions her to believe that she is ugly and therefore worthless because she does not epitomize white western culture's idea of beauty" (Cormier-Hamilton, 1994). While there are certainly some instances of direct white on black racism described in the novel, the majority comes from the local black community and even her own family.

One of the first clear instances is when the new girl shows up to school. Maureen Peal, the "high yellow dream child with a hint of spring in her sloe green eyes" (Morrison, 1970, p.62), that is treated with respect by all the teachers and the other kids starts out nice enough to the other "darker black children but the truth soon is shown. Pecola was being taunted one day by several black boys yelling " Black e mo, Black emo, Ya daddy sleeps necked" (Morrison, 1970, p.65) when Claudia saved her. Yet, the boys continued to harass Claudia that is, until Maureen showed up. "The boys were not willing to beat up girls under her watchful gaze", (Morrison, 1970, p.67), the question is why?

Morrison answers this for us clearly and cleanly writing "That they themselves were black, or that their own father had similarly relaxed habits was irrelevant. It was the contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth. They seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred..." (Morrison, 1970, p.65). Black boys picking on a black girl simply because she is black but cease when the light skinned girl shows up is what Pecola learns from. There must be something special about not being black in her mind, the darker the worse. This she learned not from whites but from other blacks.

Everywhere the message resounds in American culture that black cannot be beautiful, indeed as the Breedloves self-loathing demonstrates the blacker the less beautiful (Palanski, 2010, p.4). Indeed, somewhere in the past this self-loathing did not exist, and it was learned from having to deal with whites and bigotry. But instead of working to remove it from themselves they looked to the weaker among themselves to take the pent up frustration out on. Further concerning Maureen, when Claudia and her began to argue about Pecola's daddy Maureen stated "What do I care about her old black daddy?" Claudia responds arguing "Black? Who you calling black" and Maureen responds, "You, I'm cute and you ugly" (Morrison, 1970, p.73). "Not only is Pecola being reduced into a lesser being by whites, she also suffers to a greater extent from intra-racial discrimination because of her skin color" (Pao-Fang, nd, p.1). Even the stronger MacTeer girls respond aggressively when being called black as if it an insult to be so. The teachings of self-hatred of blacks again are reinforced by others of their own race and this is a continuing theme of Morrison's throughout. She shows us it is a societal issue and her own community was inflicting damage that eventually will get the best of Pecola.

Through her characters Morrison "demonstrates how inter-relatedness between the yearning for social advancement and privilege associated with white skin engenders the internal color prejudice known as colorism" (Lobodziec, 2010, p.3). This clearly explains how Morrison turns the black characters on each other based on the darkness or lightness of their skin. This again is demonstrated when Morrison begins to tell the tale of Geraldine. The existence is clear that from the omniscient narrator that there exists an "us and them" mentality within the black community.

"They come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From Marietta. From Meridian" (Morrison, 1970, p.81). "They are thin brown girls" (Morrison, 1970, p.81). Morrison is beginning to shows us where the separation within the black community comes from. She makes it abundantly clear that they are looked at as the "better" side of the black community through her descriptions of them. "They are as sweet and plain as butter cake" (Morrison, 1970, p.82). Morrison is giving us a look into how the blacks in the lower class or the darker blacks perceive "them" and how they, the lighter more affluent blacks perceive themselves. They are separate and different and Geraldine made sure her son new it. "White kids; his mother did not like him to play with niggers. She had explained to him the difference between colored and niggers. Colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud" (Morrison, 1970, p.87). She has already started to perpetuate intra-racial discrimination in her son. The omniscient narrator throws in a reference to "them" as some sort of animal writing "Junior not bothering the nigger girls; they usually traveled in packs" (Morrison, 1970, p.87). "Geraldine, like Pecola does not believe that black is beautiful" (Douglas, 2010, p.4).