The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison was a shocking revelation to me. After reading this book, I understand why this author got the Nobel Prize for literature. She was courageous enough to take all the dirt and sickness of the American society on the surface! All those things on which Americans try to close their eyes Toni Morrison brought up and discussed.

The main character of her novel, Pecola Breedlove, an eleven year old black girl hates and despises herself. Never in my life would I think that such a young child can hate herself. Again, we see the corruption caused by so-called American dream and American society on people who live there. It is ironic that Pecola's last name is Breedlove, because she and her family do not breed love, but only self-hatred. Pecola perceives herself as ugly because she is black, and like most black people she has heavy eyebrows, and her eyes are dark, closely set, she has high cheekbones and big lips. As I picture her in my mind she is not ugly, but an ordinary black girl.

She adores drinking milk from cup with Shirley Temple, who is ideal to her. Pecola wants to have blue eyes like Shirley, or to be like blonde, blue-eyed Mary Jane, pictured on the candy wrapper. Blue eyes are a means of happiness to her. Here we encounter the concept of perception again-Pecola thinks that people will look into her pretty blue eyes and love her; she thinks that her mom and dad will stop fighting if her eyes will be beautiful. ("Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes" p. 40)   Pecola also likes dandelions, although they are just weeds. She sees the beauty in those flowers. However, after Mr. Yacobowski humiliated her (he did not want to touch her hand to take money), Pecola starts to think they are ugly weeds. She starts to feel more angry and shameful. Prostitutes are her only real friends, for they accept her as she is; they have nothing to loose.

Because Pecola thinks she is ugly, and has so much self-hatred inside, she attracts more bad things to herself from outside world. Her mother beats her, school boys ridicule at her, teachers despise her, and finally, her own father rapes her and makes her pregnant. She was like a scapegoat for everybody-they mocked her to make themselves feel better.

Although Toni Morrison said she did not succeed very much with Pecola's character, I think there is nothing much to say. The author wrote what happened, and I think we do not need to get into Pecola's head to know her feelings. It is obvious that this little girl was just slowly dying inside. It was just too much for her age. After returning from misanthrope Soaphead, Pecola went insane and thinks she has blue eyes and everybody is prejudices, envy of her since she has the bluest-which proves that all perception is projection.     Her mother Pauline has a martyr complex, for she believed God made her ugly, defective and unlovable. In young age she stepped on the nail, and has been lame on one foot. Since that time she felt isolated from everybody, she had no friends. Polly constantly reinforced her martyr complex by watching movies and conforming her physical ugliness to herself by comparing herself to those movie stars. Praying to Jesus about Cholly drunkenness she received pleasure, for if Cholly would stop drinking she would loose her sense in life. Again, it all goes back to the ideas of self. Polly hated herself (especially since she lost her tooth while chewing candy), and projected this hatred to Pecola, Cholly and Sammy. She lived in imaginary world, filling the niche in her life first with movies, and then by working in white people's house, where everything was clean, and shiny, unlike in her own house. The scene where Pauline beats Pecola in the whites people house, not even caring if she got burned or not, and calms down pretty white girl is painful and full of shame. While reading it, I felt uneasy, as well as I read the passage about Pauline delivering her baby "They deliver right away and with no pain. Just like horses." p. 99)        

However, after reading this book I realized that Pecola, Pauline (and Cholly) were victims of American society standards. It is understandable that those standards were set by white people, but blacks like Breedlove family, should not look up to white, and accept them as they are.              

I think (and this is not prejudice from the side of the white person) that if black would respect and love themselves more, the whites would treat them accordingly. It does not matter what is your eyes color, for somewhere I heard that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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