HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ 1/HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/blueeye.txt

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A Reality of Presence        March 1995


    In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shows that anger is healthy and that it is not something
to be feared; those who are not able to get angry are the ones who suffer the most.  She criticizes
Cholly, Polly, Claudia, Soaphead Church, the Mobile Girls, and Pecola because these blacks in her
story wrongly place their anger on themselves, their own race, their family, or even God, instead of
being angry at those they should have been angry at: whites.
    Pecola Breedlove suffered the most because she was the result of having othersÆ anger
dumped on her, and she herself was unable to get angry.  When Geraldine yells at her to get out of
her house, PecolaÆs eyes were fixed on the ôprettyö lady and her ôprettyö house.  Pecola does not
stand up to Maureen Peal when she made fun of her for seeing her dad naked but instead lets
Freida and Claudia fight for her.  Instead of getting mad at Mr. Yacobowski for looking down on
her, she directed her anger toward the dandelions she once thought were beautiful.  However, ôthe
anger will not holdö(50), and the feelings soon gave way to shame.  Pecola was the sad product of
having othersÆ anger placed on her:  ôAll of our waste we dumped on her and she absorbed.  And
all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to usö(205).  They felt beautiful next to
her ugliness, wholesome next to her uncleanness, her poverty made them generous, her weakness
made them strong, and her pain made them happier.
    When PecolaÆs father, Cholly Breedlove, was caught as a teenager in a field with Darlene
by two white men, ônever did he once consider directing his hatred toward the huntersö(150),
rather her directed his hatred towards the girl because hating the white men would ôconsumeö him.
He was powerless against the white men and was unable to protect Darlene from them as well.
This caused his to hate her for being in the situation with him and for realizing how powerless her
really was.  Also, Cholly felt that any misery his daughter suffered was his fault, and looking in to
PecolaÆs loving eyes angered him because her wondered, ôWhat could her do for her - ever?  What
give her?  What say to her?ö(161)  ChollyÆs failures led him to hate those that he failed, most of all
his family.
    PecolaÆs mother, Polly Breedlove, also wrongly placed her anger on her family.  As a
result of having a deformed foot, Polly had always had a feeling of unworthiness and separateness.
With her own children, ôsometimes IÆd catch myself hollering at them and beating them, but I
couldnÆt seem to stopö(124).  She stopped taking care of her own children and her home and took
care of a white family and their home.  She found praise, love, and acceptance with the Fisher
family, and it is for these reasons that she stayed with them.  She had been deprived of such
feelings from her family when growing up and in turn deprived her own family of these same
feelings.  Polly ôheld Cholly as a mode on sin and failure, she bore him like a crown of thorns, and
her children like a crossö(126).
    PecolaÆs friend Claudia is angry at the beauty of whiteness and attempts to dismember
white dolls to find where their beauty lies.  There is a sarcastic tone in her voice when she spoke of
having to be ôworthyö to play with the dolls.  Later, when telling the story as a past experience, she
describes the adultsÆ tone of voice as being filled with years of unfulfilled longing, perhaps a
longing to be themselves beautifully white.  Claudia herself was happiest when she stood up to
Maureen Peal, the beautiful girl from her class.  When Claudia and Freida taunted her as she ran
down the street, they were happy to get a chance to express anger, and ôwe were still in love with
ourselves thenö(74).  ClaudiaÆs anger towards dolls turns to hated of white girls.  Out of a fear for
his anger the she could not comprehend, she later tool a refuge in loving whites.  She had to at least
pretend to love whites or, like Cholly, the hatred would consume her.  Later however, she realizes
that this change was ôan adjustment without improvementö(23), and that making herself love them
only fooled herself and helped her cope.
    Soaphead Church wrongly places his anger on God and blamed him for ôscrewing-upö
human nature.  He asked God to explain how he could let PecolaÆs wish for blue eyes go so long
without being answered and scorned God for not loving Pecola.  Despite his own sins, Soaphead
feels that he had a right to blame God and ot assume his role in granting Pecola blue eyes, although
her knew that beauty was not necessarily a physical thing but a state of mind and being: ôNo one
else will see her blue eyes.  But she willö(182).
    The Mobile girls wrongly placed their anger in their own race, and they do not give of
themselves fully(even to their family).  These girls hate niggers because according to them,
ôcolored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loudö(87).  Black children, or they as
Geraldine called them, were like flies: ôThey slept six to a bed, all their pee mixing together in the
night as they wt their beds. . . they clowned on the playgrounds, broke things in dime stores, ran in
front of you on the street. . . grass wouldnÆt grow where they lived.  Flowers died.  Like flies they
hovered; like flies they settledö(92).  Although the Mobile girls are black themselves, they ô. . .got
rid of the funkiness.  the dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the
wide range of human emotions,ö(83) and most of all they tried to rid themselves of the funkiness of
being black.  They were shut off by the whites because they did not belong, but shut themselves off
from their own black race.
    To the blacks in The Bluest Eye, ôAnger is better(than shame).  There is a sense of being
in anger.  A reality of presence.  An awareness of worthö(50).  the blacks are not strong, only
aggressive; they are not compassionate, only polite; they were not good, but well behave; they
substituted good grammar for intellect, and rearranged lies to make them truth(205).  Most of all,
they faked love where felt powerless to hate, and destroyed what love they did have with anger.
Toni Morrison tells this story to show the sadness in the way that the blacks were compelled to
place their anger on their own families and on their blackness instead of on whites who cause their
misery.  Although they didnÆt know this, ôThe Thing to fear(and thus hate) was the Thing that
made her beautiful, and not usö(74), whiteness.