Admiration in "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
Admiration in "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, illustrates the negative effects of white cultural domination on the African American society post-World War I. The Bluest Eye portrays the life of Pecola Breedlove, a poor black girl with an extremely difficult life. Pecola is constantly picked on by her peers, lives in an abusive home, and is constantly being reminded of her “ugliness.” Pecola lives a life of disappointments and unfulfilled dreams. She eventually loses her sanity and becomes the perfect example, to the reader, of what the entire African American society was put through during her time period. Toni Morrison is able to better exemplify the consequences of white cultural domination through three of her characters, Cholly, Pauline, and Pecola.
One day in his teenage years Cholly was having sex with a girl named Darlene in the forest when suddenly two white men appeared and commanded that they continue while they watched. While he was initially angry with Darlene for this innocent because she was the one “who bore witness to his failure and embarrassment” (151) his “in time discover his hatred of the white man”(151). It was at this moment that Cholly’s own self destruction began. It was the incident in forest that destroyed his self-worth because it was in fact when he was “rapped” by white power. Before the white men appeared at the scene he was in complete control of what was going on, everything was under his own power, but when the men appeared he no longer had control, in fact all he had was fear, the domination of that moment was usurped by the white men. At this moment when Cholly realized that there was nothing in the world to have power, until Pecola was born. Throughout Pecola’s life Cholly never paid any attention to her. He dismissed his own daughter, just as the rest of society did, as an ugly black without feelings or even a personality. That is until he realized that Pecola was the only thing that he could actually have control over. He knew that despite everything he did Pecola still loved him. He used this power and dominance in a very negative way, he rapes his daughter, which eventually gets her pregnant. His whole life Cholly knew that he...