796 Morrison, Toni
Throughout Beloved, Morrison reveals the vari-
ety of ways in which individuals deal with an
unspeakable tragedy. Interestingly, in the process
she sheds light on why it has been difficult for the
United States to grieve for the tragic victims of
slavery. Like Sethe, the United States recognizes
its complicity in the tragedy. However, the fact that
Beloved has achieved such popularity, and films
such as Gone With the Wind that deny the realities
of slavery are no longer produced, suggests that the
United States has finally conquered its feelings of
guilt and can now remember the truth and sincerely
and unselfishly grieve for its past. Morrison’s effort
in Beloved is a solid start.
Nancy Wilson
morriSon, Toni The Bluest Eye
(1970)
The Bluest Eye tells the story of three little black girls
whose lives are indelibly impacted by the racism of
the 1940s. Nine-year-old Claudia MacTeer, who
occasionally narrates the text, does not yet believe
society’s mandate that she is ugly and worthless
because she is black. Yet her older sister Frieda
and friend Pecola Breedlove have fully absorbed
the message imparted by the adults’ adoration of
Shirley Temple and white baby dolls. Indeed, Pecola
believes she would be loved if she only had blue eyes.
Claudia and Frieda passively witness the destruc-
tion of Pecola as she is tormented by her peers and
shunned even by her family. Schoolmates Mau-
reen Peal and Junior despise Pecola for her dark
complexion, even though they also are black; even
Pecola’s mother, Pauline, thinks, “Lord she was
ugly.” Cholly, Pecola’s alcoholic father, cannot com-
prehend parenthood after being abandoned at
birth and traumatized by white men as a teenager.
Ultimately, in what began as a misguided attempt
to show her affection, Cholly rapes his daughter.
Pregnant at 11 years, Pecola visits Soaphead Church,
a fraudulent spiritualist, in the hope of receiving
the life-changing blue eyes, as her prayers to God
remain unanswered. He tricks her into believing her
wish has been granted. Pecola’s baby dies and she
goes insane, finally happy from looking at her blue
eyes in a mirror. An adult Claudia muses that the
townspeople needed Pecola’s destruction in order to
feel better about themselves: “We were so beautiful
when we stood astride her ugliness.” The Bluest Eye
is an impressive testament to the inveterate cru-
elty and destructiveness of racism in America. This
novel addresses the themes of isolation, race, and
violence.
Robin E. FieldiSolation in The Bluest Eye
Although the theme of isolation is one that tran-
scends writer, place, and time, it has a special signifi-
cance in African-American literature, considering
that Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in
all areas of American life. Even before the advent of
Jim Crow laws, the institution of slavery featured an
intentional separation of black family members from
one another. Even though The Bluest Eye focuses
on Pecola Breedlove’s descent into madness and
estrangement from everyone, it is vital to understand
that her mother, Pauline Breedlove, shares much
responsibility for Pecola’s disconcerting conditions.
Although Pauline contributes tremendously to Pec-
ola’s emotional and physical isolation, Pauline’s own
past impacts her ability to give her daughter the
emotional support she needs.
In examining Pauline’s past, the reader under-
stands that Pauline’s inability to help prevent Pec-
ola’s isolation is a result of Pauline’s own mother,
Ada’s, emotional isolation from Pauline. When
Pauline is a very young child, she accidentally suffers
an injury that leaves “ . . . her with a crooked, arch-
less foot that flopped when she walked. . . . ” Ada
fails to protect Pauline from “the general feeling of
separateness and unworthiness . . . ” that her physical
conditions create for her. With a full understanding
of this aspect of Pauline’s past, one can see that she
has to battle internal demons of her own. Moreover,
her mother’s lack of response to her feeling of alien-
ation suggests a reason why she might isolate herself
from Pecola. Because Pauline never received the love
she needed from Ada, she in turn feels no affection
for Pecola. Ada’s unwillingness to help Pauline con-
front her “feeling of separateness” has an impact on
the type of love that Pauline is able to show Pecola.
Without the love she wants to receive from Ada,
Pauline has a void that she needs to satisfy before