Study Of Adolescence In Toni Morrison's"The Bluest Eye"
Study Of Adolescence In Toni Morrison's"The Bluest Eye"
Study Of Adolescence In Toni Morrison's"The Bluest Eye"
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<strong>In</strong>ternational Referred Research Journal,June,2011,ISSN-0975-3486, RNI: RAJBIL 2009/30097, VOL-II *ISSUE 21<br />
June, 2011<br />
24<br />
Research Paper—English<br />
From the beginning black writers have produced a<br />
literature of social protest and human enlightenment.<br />
We can clearly see that most African-American novelist<br />
of the 20th century are concerned with the plight<br />
of black woman, her position within the family, in<br />
society and the world at large. <strong>Toni</strong> Morrison, one of<br />
the major literary figures in contemporary American<br />
fiction was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in<br />
1993. <strong>The</strong> central motif of her work is the role of race<br />
in American life. Some of the issues she addresses<br />
include racial discrimination, victimization of the<br />
blacks, the emotional and psychological problems faced<br />
by Afro Americans in trying to achieve a sense of<br />
white cultural codes.<br />
<strong>Toni</strong> Morrison's '<strong>The</strong> <strong>Bluest</strong> Eye (1970), presents<br />
a simple theme: the story of a black adolescent<br />
girl Pecola who wants to "rise up out of the pit of her<br />
blackness and see the world with blue eyes"¹. She<br />
wants blue eyes as a symbol of beauty and therefore of<br />
happiness and tries to set forth Anglo-Saxon standards<br />
of physical beauty and life-style as norms in the<br />
existing society. But Pecola is unable to adopt this<br />
standard and consequently live a life of alienation,<br />
self-hatred and inevitable destruction. She develops<br />
in her as Carolyn Gerald says, "an unfulfilled, insignificant<br />
and negative sense of self."²<br />
<strong>The</strong> novel is narrated by nine years old<br />
Claudia Macteer who is a friend of Pecola but in contrast<br />
to Pecola, Claudia and her sister Frieda Macteer<br />
have confidence in themselves against the harsh realities<br />
of society. <strong>The</strong>y have enough courage to humiliate<br />
light skinned Maureen by calling her "Six-finger-dogtooth-meringue-pie".<br />
Both have a well developed sense<br />
of worth. This has been possible because they have<br />
received both love and feeling of security from their<br />
parents. <strong>The</strong>y are given extra care when they are sick.<br />
Claudia herself says: "And in the night, when my<br />
coughing was dry and tough, feet padded into the<br />
room, hands repined the flannel, readjusted the quilt<br />
and rested a moment on my forehead" Thus MacTeers<br />
love and concern for their children provides them with<br />
security and confidence, which is the basic need for<br />
adolescents in this age. Adolescents have within them<br />
much of the child. <strong>The</strong>y have strong feeling of depen-<br />
<strong>Study</strong> <strong>Of</strong> <strong>Adolescence</strong><br />
<strong>In</strong> <strong>Toni</strong> Morrison's"<strong>The</strong> <strong>Bluest</strong> Eye"<br />
* Mrs. Seemant<br />
* Research Scholor Singhania University , Pacheri Bari, Jhunjunu<br />
dence upon parents and authority figures. But contrary<br />
to it Pecola does not get all this love and concern.<br />
Cholly Breedlove is the head of the Breedlove<br />
family. His psyche is that of an oppressed man. Cholly<br />
has had no family or parents, therefore he knows nothing<br />
about the significance of the family or parentschild<br />
relationship. As a father, Cholly is a total failure.<br />
His mental state is so much confused that he is unable<br />
to understand the feeling he has towards his daughter.<br />
Cholly's yearning for love and his desperate desire to<br />
give love to his daughter ends in his raping Pecola. <strong>In</strong><br />
this manner, Cholly Breedlove, though unconsciously<br />
contribute towards her insanity. Pecola gets a great set<br />
back in her life through this incident. After regaining<br />
consciousness following the rape, Pecola is able to<br />
speak. She tells to her mother, Pauline Breedlove, what<br />
has happened. As Mrs. Breedlove does not want to<br />
hear and does not want to believe, Pecola recognizes<br />
the futility of attempted communication. Thus when<br />
Cholly rapes second time, Pecola keeps the story to<br />
herself; in silence this eleven year old girl steps into<br />
her own personal world of silence and madness. Pecola's<br />
* self" becomes so crazed, so fragmented, that it conducts<br />
conversations with itself and with no one else:<br />
* How come you don't talk to anybody?" * I talk to you."<br />
* Besides me." * I don't like anybody besides you……."<br />
* You don't talk to anybody. You don't go to school. And<br />
nobody talks to you" .<br />
Pauline too does not have a positive sense of<br />
self. She denies the reality of her own family and life.<br />
She neglects her family more and more: "More and<br />
more she neglected her house, her children, her manthey<br />
were like the afterthoughts one has just before<br />
sleep, the early-morning and late evening edges of her<br />
day, the dark edges that made the daily life with the<br />
fishers lighter, more delicate, more lovely". Pauline<br />
attitude makes her daughter Pecola hate her black self.<br />
She plays a pivotal role in turning her daughter's sense<br />
of self-negative. So, Pecola feels excluded from family.<br />
Even her mother fails to see in her daughter the need<br />
of belongingness. <strong>The</strong> need for acceptance,<br />
belongingness and recognition is so pressing in her but<br />
she does not get any response from her family or surroundings.<br />
<strong>The</strong> school children, who shout names at<br />
R E S E A R C H A N A L Y S I S A N D E V A L U A T I O N
<strong>In</strong>ternational Referred Research Journal,June,2011,ISSN-0975-3486,RNI: RAJBIL 2009/30097,VOL-II*ISSUE 21<br />
Pecola, shame her and use her features as a way of<br />
denying her admission into their society. Boys circle<br />
her in a ritual of insult and shout, "Black emo Black<br />
emo ya daddy sleep nekked". <strong>In</strong> the process, Pecola is<br />
given another opportunity to view her status as an<br />
outsider. Her rescue by Maureen Peal, Claudia and<br />
Frieda is only temporary. Maureen insults her by saying<br />
"I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e<br />
mos. I am cute!" . Conscious of her unattractiveness<br />
and her color, Pecola seems to disappear where she<br />
stands. Children, neighbours and other adults have<br />
confirmed that Pecola will never be an insider in the<br />
black community and cannot possibly hope for acceptance.<br />
Pecola for Geraldine serves as a symbol of<br />
everything ugly, dirty and degrading. Physically as<br />
well as symbolically, Graldine negates Pecola, denies<br />
the ragged eleven year old access to her world. She<br />
says to Pecola, "Get out…………You nasty little black<br />
bitch. Get out of my house" . <strong>In</strong>stead of defending<br />
herself against the humiliation, Pecola backs out of the<br />
room keeping her head downward. <strong>The</strong> most powerful<br />
illustration of Pecola's failure to act occurs in the novel,<br />
when she enters in the shop of a white shopkeeper.<br />
When Pecola looks up she finds only, "the total absence<br />
of human recognition, the glazed separateness"<br />
. Being aware of her ugliness, Pecola is overpowered<br />
by a tremendous sense of shame. She equates herself<br />
with dandelion weeds which she regards ugly and<br />
unwanted like herself. Pecola's belief that the only<br />
escape for her is to become beautiful through obtaining<br />
the blue eyes, the eyes that will dazzle into loving<br />
her. Pecola's wish for blue eyes ties her into an illusion.<br />
She is victimized physically and psychologically by<br />
Cholly Breedlove and Soaphead Church respectively.<br />
Thus, as a black girl, Pecola undergoes all the<br />
traumatic experience she wants to rise up out of the pit<br />
of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes, but<br />
the pity is that she is not allowed to, Pecola's misfortune<br />
is that she is never given the opportunity in any<br />
realm to see anything positive in herself as she is. She<br />
seems doomed whatever she does -if she resorts to<br />
fantasy, she is considered crazy, and if she tries to live<br />
in the real world, there is no place for, this, Pecola fails<br />
in her quest for self. <strong>In</strong>stead of gaining individuality,<br />
ultimately she gets alienated not only from the society<br />
but also from her own self. She fails to get recognition,<br />
it is the first step in being acknowledged, acceptance<br />
R E F E R E N C E<br />
because it is the first step in being acknowledged,<br />
acceptance because it confirms that the self has been<br />
recognized which is one of the prominent need of an<br />
adolescent. Consequently she cowers, shrinks and<br />
resides behind walls of madness.<br />
Thus her family atmosphere and other shattering<br />
experiences make Pecola hate her blackness<br />
and long for white standard of beauty. Pecola as Royster<br />
point out is "the novel's central scapegoat, "³ for she is<br />
made scapegoat by her parents as well as whites and<br />
other light skinned people in the novel.<br />
<strong>In</strong> many ways <strong>The</strong> <strong>Bluest</strong> Eye is similar to<br />
Ralph Ellison's <strong>In</strong>visible Man in its very theme and<br />
structure. "What did do to be so black and blue?" This<br />
question must reverberate in Pecola's mind throughout<br />
her life. Again and again she is confronted with<br />
people who tell her to 'stay back' because of her blackness.<br />
Pecola's fate seems along strikingly parallel lines.<br />
Despite the offerings and incantations of Claudia and<br />
Frieda, Pecola miscarries and remains friendless.<br />
Grown people turn away, children laugh and no stranger<br />
attempts to share Pecola's world. Pecola is violated by<br />
a male relative, ayoung virgin suffers sensual loss to<br />
such an extreme that her very identity is called into<br />
question.<br />
By exploring the devastating effects that the<br />
western ideas of beauty and romantic love have on a<br />
black adolescent girl, this novelist also demonstrates<br />
how these ideas can invert the natural order of an<br />
entire culture. This simple theme is a real and symbolic<br />
statement about the conflict between the good<br />
and the beautiful of two cultures and how it affects the<br />
psyche of the people within those cultures. Morrison<br />
treatment of this adolescent character shows that she<br />
attaches great importance to one's self-acceptance and<br />
inner harmony. Through Pecola she seems to say that<br />
at this age peer group and family hold a major importance<br />
in adolescents' life because they have no way to<br />
support themselves outside the family. <strong>The</strong> need for<br />
acceptance, belonging and recognition is so pressing<br />
that adolescents constantly look from the vantage point<br />
of those they are trying to impress. <strong>The</strong>y think about<br />
appearance, they evaluate their social performance.<br />
But the novelist stresses the fact that one's distorted<br />
self, whether caused by one's own limitations, family<br />
or environment, leads to one's destruction; while one's<br />
balanced psychology and honest acceptance of life can<br />
lead to a more fulfilling survival.<br />
¹<strong>Toni</strong> Morrison, <strong>The</strong> <strong>Bluest</strong> Eye (1970; rpt. London: Vintage, 1999), p.138. (All subsequent references to the novel are from the same edition<br />
and page numbers in all such cases are within parenthesis, following the quotations). ²Carolyn Gerald, quoted by Wilfred D, Samuels, "<strong>The</strong><br />
Damaging Look: <strong>The</strong> search for Authentic Existence in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Bluest</strong> Eye, "<strong>Toni</strong> Morrison, (Boston, Massachusetts: Dwayne Publishers, 1990),<br />
p.10.³Royester, quoted by Wilfred D, Samuels, "<strong>The</strong> Damaging Look: <strong>The</strong> search for Authentic Existence in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Bluest</strong> Eye, "<strong>Toni</strong> Morrison,<br />
and p.14. 4Ralph Ellison, <strong>In</strong>visible Man (New York: Random House, 1972).<br />
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