Study Of Adolescence In Toni Morrison's"The Bluest Eye"

International Referred Research Journal,June,2011,ISSN-0975-3486, RNI: RAJBIL 2009/30097, VOL-II *ISSUE 21
June, 2011
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Research Paper—English
From the beginning black writers have produced a
literature of social protest and human enlightenment.
We can clearly see that most African-American novelist
of the 20th century are concerned with the plight
of black woman, her position within the family, in
society and the world at large. Toni Morrison, one of
the major literary figures in contemporary American
fiction was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in
1993. The central motif of her work is the role of race
in American life. Some of the issues she addresses
include racial discrimination, victimization of the
blacks, the emotional and psychological problems faced
by Afro Americans in trying to achieve a sense of
white cultural codes.
Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye (1970), presents
a simple theme: the story of a black adolescent
girl Pecola who wants to "rise up out of the pit of her
blackness and see the world with blue eyes"¹. She
wants blue eyes as a symbol of beauty and therefore of
happiness and tries to set forth Anglo-Saxon standards
of physical beauty and life-style as norms in the
existing society. But Pecola is unable to adopt this
standard and consequently live a life of alienation,
self-hatred and inevitable destruction. She develops
in her as Carolyn Gerald says, "an unfulfilled, insignificant
and negative sense of self."²
The novel is narrated by nine years old
Claudia Macteer who is a friend of Pecola but in contrast
to Pecola, Claudia and her sister Frieda Macteer
have confidence in themselves against the harsh realities
of society. They have enough courage to humiliate
light skinned Maureen by calling her "Six-finger-dogtooth-meringue-pie".
Both have a well developed sense
of worth. This has been possible because they have
received both love and feeling of security from their
parents. They are given extra care when they are sick.
Claudia herself says: "And in the night, when my
coughing was dry and tough, feet padded into the
room, hands repined the flannel, readjusted the quilt
and rested a moment on my forehead" Thus MacTeers
love and concern for their children provides them with
security and confidence, which is the basic need for
adolescents in this age. Adolescents have within them
much of the child. They have strong feeling of depen-
Study Of Adolescence
In Toni Morrison's"The Bluest Eye"
* Mrs. Seemant
* Research Scholor Singhania University , Pacheri Bari, Jhunjunu
dence upon parents and authority figures. But contrary
to it Pecola does not get all this love and concern.
Cholly Breedlove is the head of the Breedlove
family. His psyche is that of an oppressed man. Cholly
has had no family or parents, therefore he knows nothing
about the significance of the family or parentschild
relationship. As a father, Cholly is a total failure.
His mental state is so much confused that he is unable
to understand the feeling he has towards his daughter.
Cholly's yearning for love and his desperate desire to
give love to his daughter ends in his raping Pecola. In
this manner, Cholly Breedlove, though unconsciously
contribute towards her insanity. Pecola gets a great set
back in her life through this incident. After regaining
consciousness following the rape, Pecola is able to
speak. She tells to her mother, Pauline Breedlove, what
has happened. As Mrs. Breedlove does not want to
hear and does not want to believe, Pecola recognizes
the futility of attempted communication. Thus when
Cholly rapes second time, Pecola keeps the story to
herself; in silence this eleven year old girl steps into
her own personal world of silence and madness. Pecola's
* self" becomes so crazed, so fragmented, that it conducts
conversations with itself and with no one else:
* How come you don't talk to anybody?" * I talk to you."
* Besides me." * I don't like anybody besides you……."
* You don't talk to anybody. You don't go to school. And
nobody talks to you" .
Pauline too does not have a positive sense of
self. She denies the reality of her own family and life.
She neglects her family more and more: "More and
more she neglected her house, her children, her manthey
were like the afterthoughts one has just before
sleep, the early-morning and late evening edges of her
day, the dark edges that made the daily life with the
fishers lighter, more delicate, more lovely". Pauline
attitude makes her daughter Pecola hate her black self.
She plays a pivotal role in turning her daughter's sense
of self-negative. So, Pecola feels excluded from family.
Even her mother fails to see in her daughter the need
of belongingness. The need for acceptance,
belongingness and recognition is so pressing in her but
she does not get any response from her family or surroundings.
The school children, who shout names at
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

International Referred Research Journal,June,2011,ISSN-0975-3486,RNI: RAJBIL 2009/30097,VOL-II*ISSUE 21
Pecola, shame her and use her features as a way of
denying her admission into their society. Boys circle
her in a ritual of insult and shout, "Black emo Black
emo ya daddy sleep nekked". In the process, Pecola is
given another opportunity to view her status as an
outsider. Her rescue by Maureen Peal, Claudia and
Frieda is only temporary. Maureen insults her by saying
"I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e
mos. I am cute!" . Conscious of her unattractiveness
and her color, Pecola seems to disappear where she
stands. Children, neighbours and other adults have
confirmed that Pecola will never be an insider in the
black community and cannot possibly hope for acceptance.
Pecola for Geraldine serves as a symbol of
everything ugly, dirty and degrading. Physically as
well as symbolically, Graldine negates Pecola, denies
the ragged eleven year old access to her world. She
says to Pecola, "Get out…………You nasty little black
bitch. Get out of my house" . Instead of defending
herself against the humiliation, Pecola backs out of the
room keeping her head downward. The most powerful
illustration of Pecola's failure to act occurs in the novel,
when she enters in the shop of a white shopkeeper.
When Pecola looks up she finds only, "the total absence
of human recognition, the glazed separateness"
. Being aware of her ugliness, Pecola is overpowered
by a tremendous sense of shame. She equates herself
with dandelion weeds which she regards ugly and
unwanted like herself. Pecola's belief that the only
escape for her is to become beautiful through obtaining
the blue eyes, the eyes that will dazzle into loving
her. Pecola's wish for blue eyes ties her into an illusion.
She is victimized physically and psychologically by
Cholly Breedlove and Soaphead Church respectively.
Thus, as a black girl, Pecola undergoes all the
traumatic experience she wants to rise up out of the pit
of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes, but
the pity is that she is not allowed to, Pecola's misfortune
is that she is never given the opportunity in any
realm to see anything positive in herself as she is. She
seems doomed whatever she does -if she resorts to
fantasy, she is considered crazy, and if she tries to live
in the real world, there is no place for, this, Pecola fails
in her quest for self. Instead of gaining individuality,
ultimately she gets alienated not only from the society
but also from her own self. She fails to get recognition,
it is the first step in being acknowledged, acceptance
R E F E R E N C E
because it is the first step in being acknowledged,
acceptance because it confirms that the self has been
recognized which is one of the prominent need of an
adolescent. Consequently she cowers, shrinks and
resides behind walls of madness.
Thus her family atmosphere and other shattering
experiences make Pecola hate her blackness
and long for white standard of beauty. Pecola as Royster
point out is "the novel's central scapegoat, "³ for she is
made scapegoat by her parents as well as whites and
other light skinned people in the novel.
In many ways The Bluest Eye is similar to
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man in its very theme and
structure. "What did do to be so black and blue?" This
question must reverberate in Pecola's mind throughout
her life. Again and again she is confronted with
people who tell her to 'stay back' because of her blackness.
Pecola's fate seems along strikingly parallel lines.
Despite the offerings and incantations of Claudia and
Frieda, Pecola miscarries and remains friendless.
Grown people turn away, children laugh and no stranger
attempts to share Pecola's world. Pecola is violated by
a male relative, ayoung virgin suffers sensual loss to
such an extreme that her very identity is called into
question.
By exploring the devastating effects that the
western ideas of beauty and romantic love have on a
black adolescent girl, this novelist also demonstrates
how these ideas can invert the natural order of an
entire culture. This simple theme is a real and symbolic
statement about the conflict between the good
and the beautiful of two cultures and how it affects the
psyche of the people within those cultures. Morrison
treatment of this adolescent character shows that she
attaches great importance to one's self-acceptance and
inner harmony. Through Pecola she seems to say that
at this age peer group and family hold a major importance
in adolescents' life because they have no way to
support themselves outside the family. The need for
acceptance, belonging and recognition is so pressing
that adolescents constantly look from the vantage point
of those they are trying to impress. They think about
appearance, they evaluate their social performance.
But the novelist stresses the fact that one's distorted
self, whether caused by one's own limitations, family
or environment, leads to one's destruction; while one's
balanced psychology and honest acceptance of life can
lead to a more fulfilling survival.
¹Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970; rpt. London: Vintage, 1999), p.138. (All subsequent references to the novel are from the same edition
and page numbers in all such cases are within parenthesis, following the quotations). ²Carolyn Gerald, quoted by Wilfred D, Samuels, "The
Damaging Look: The search for Authentic Existence in The Bluest Eye, "Toni Morrison, (Boston, Massachusetts: Dwayne Publishers, 1990),
p.10.³Royester, quoted by Wilfred D, Samuels, "The Damaging Look: The search for Authentic Existence in The Bluest Eye, "Toni Morrison,
and p.14. 4Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Random House, 1972).
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