The Bluest eye
An overview
The key elements
Prologue
The narrator
Introduction of the main character
Claudia and Maureen
Cholly and Pauline
The ending
The prologue
First prologue indicates the influence that white media
has on black perceptions of worth and beauty
The repetition and lack of punctuation indicates the
lack of meaning this image has for Pecola
Highlights the contrast between Pecola’s dysfunctional
family and the Dick and Jane one
Second prologue provides an outline of what is to
come
Symbolism of marigolds
Claudia MacTeer
Narrates the novel - allows for childlike view on things,
but also adult perspective in hindsight
Provides a contrast to Pecola: home, family, attitude
Rejection of the white doll indicates her rejection of
white standards of beauty
Her refusal to worship Maureen highlights her lack of
self loathing
Her sympathy for Pecola is at odds with the society
they live in
The Main character
Initial fascination with white beauty shown
through her obsession with Shirley Temple
Mr Yacobowski’s treatment sparks her
realisation she is ugly
Pecola wishes she could be white - Mary
Janes
Her desire for blue eyes is symbolic of her
wish for white beauty
Does not defend herself against insults as she
believes she is ugly
Claudia and Maureen
Maureen illustrates the link between class,
colour and social standing
She is worshipped by adults and children alike
for her light skin and eyes
She values white beauty - learned from her
mother - and negates black values
Claudia refuses to accept her superiority,
unlike most of the other characters
Maureen insults them for their colour
Cholly and Pauline
The narrative perspective shifts to allow us to
understand how the characters learn their values
Cholly brutalised from young age; traumatic sexual
initiation leads to his brutalisation of others
Pauline once considered herself beautiful, but her
lost tooth and lameness made her bitter
She loves and cares for the white family she work
for while rejecting her own family
The Ending
Loathing of Pecola results in her rape and
pregnancy
She turns to Soaphead church for the blue
eyes she feels will make her happy
Gains the acceptance she craves in madness
Is literally destroyed by racial self loathing
Somehow Morrison ends on optimistic note suggests things can be different
4 circles of control
(4 seasons)
•
Physical violence/ intimidation (lynching, rape, gay bashing)
•
Economic discrimination (lower pay, job segregation, lack of access to
education)
•
Psychological steroetyping (limiting roles and expectations)
•
self-policing (sub accept and/or act out steroetypes to protect
themslves from the doms)
Themes
•
Major themes include: internalized racism,
circle of oppression, romantic love,
materialism, religion, the role of parents and
what a good parent is, the media, sexuality and
how it infuses our lives with joy or hatred, the
perils of self-righteousness.
Four Seasons
•
Instead of conventional chapters and sections,
The Bluest Eye is broken up into seasons, fall,
winter, spring, and summer. This type of
organization suggests that the events
described in The Bluest Eye have occurred
before, and will occur again. This kind of cycle
suggests that there is notion that there is no
escape from the cycle of life that Breedloves
and MacTeer live in.
Vignettes
•
Therefore, she needed to break the narrative
unity of the novel to move from Pecola’s story
to her parents’ stories and the stories of other
adults and children who influence her life. The
novel then is plotted as a series of character
vignettes.
•
Each of these vignettes traces a tragic fall.
Pecola
•
The story of Pecola, the wounded little girl who
wishes to solve her problems by gaining the
racial mark of whiteness, blue eyes, begins in
the innocence of that wish and ends tragically
in her insanity, a playing out of that wish.
Cholly
•
Cholly also begins in innocent. An abandoned
child who nevertheless loves the only mother
and father figures he has available, but finds
them to abandon him too, one by dying and the
other by his drinking. Cholly’s hurts as a child
are compounded by his hurts as an AfricanAmerican living in a racist society. His initiation
into adult sexuality is perverted by two white
men who want to have sexual pleasure at his
and his lover’s expense.
Pauline
•
The story of Pauline also begins in innocence.
As a girl, Pauline wanted someone to love her
and after finding someone who would, she was
ruined in her thinking by the Hollywood images
of beauty and romantic love. She ended up
living the constricted morality of respectability,
loving her white employers and hating her own
family. Pauline and Cholly both emotionally
abandon their children.
Symbol-marigold
•
There are two major metaphors in The Bluest Eye, one of
marigolds and one of dandelions. Claudia, looking back as an
adult, says in the beginning of the novel, "there were no
marigolds in the fall of 1941". She and her sister plant
marigold seeds with the belief that if the marigolds would grow
and survive, so would Pecola's baby. Morrison unpacks the
metaphor throughout the book, and, through Claudia, finally
explains it and broadens its scope to all African-Americans on
the last page. "I even think now that the land of the entire
country was hostile to marigolds that year. Certain seeds it will
not nurture, certain fruits it will not bear . . ." The implication is
that Pecola, like so many other African-Americans, never had
a chance to grow and succeed because she lived in a society
("soil") that was inherently racist, and would not nurture her.
Symbol-dandelion
•
The other flower, the dandelion, is important as a
metaphor because it represents Pecola's image
of herself. Pecola passes some dandelions going
into Mr. Yacobowski's store. "Why, she wonders,
do people call them weeds? She thought they
were pretty". After Mr. Yacobowski humiliates
her, she again passes the dandelions and thinks;
"They are ugly. They are weeds". She has
transferred society's dislike of her to the
dandelions.