#Cholly the bluest eye full#
#Cholly the bluest eye series#

Does PecolaвЂ™s desire for blue eyes have ramifications for the possibility of political resistance to racial oppression? Can this desire serve as not just self-destruction, but a means to articulate extreme violence and subjection? I hope to use PecolaвЂ™s character to expand on my understanding of redress, utilized by Saidiya Hartman in Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. Blue eyes represent a remedy for the structural violence that she experiences вЂ“ poverty, domestic violence, and hunger. It is through these moments of вЂњcontentmentвЂќ or вЂњenjoyment,вЂќ that we can begin to understand subjection/subjectivity. While PecolaвЂ™s desire for blue eyes may be translated as a desire for whiteness and feelings of worthlessness defined by her blackness, I argue that longing for blue eyes constitutes black youth redress. In this paper, I intend on examining PecolaвЂ™s body and her hunger for blue eyes as possibilities for redress and resistance, rather than self-destruction. We mustnвЂ™t do bad things in front of those pretty eyesвЂќ (Morrison, 46).

People would look at her and say, вЂњWhy look at pretty eyed Pecola. She believes that if she had blue eyes, she would not only be вЂњdifferentвЂќ and beautiful, but that she may find love and belonging in her family and community. Her love for Shirley Temple and drinking milk is part of her desire to internalize values of white culture, foreshadowing her yearning for blue eyes. In the beginning of the novel, we learn that Pecola adores Shirley Temple, which represents pure beauty and innocence. Many of PecolaвЂ™s encounters with people throughout the novel validate her perception of her ugliness- schoolboys ridicule her appearance, the grocer ignores her when she tries to purchase candy, and a light-skinned girl, Maureen, who befriends her temporarily, makes fun of her. To possess blue eyes is to possess whiteness.

#Cholly the bluest eye full#

Head full of pretty hair, but Lord was she uglyвЂќ (Morrison, 126).ДЄs Pecola grows up, she longs for blue eyes, a yearning for whiteness, which symbolizes beauty and worth. She characterizes Pecola as a вЂњright smart babyвЂќ who knew вЂњright off what to do. In the novel, she reflects back to the moment that Pecola was born and was breastfeeding her. Ideas that her blackness is marked by ugliness and worthlessness get reproduced to her daughter, from the moment that Pecola war born. Her dysfunctional and violent relationship with her husband Cholly reaffirm her belief that she is ugly and that romantic love is reserved for those who are beautiful and valued in society. PecolaвЂ™s mother, Pauline, feels isolated and disconnected from her community. This is witnessed very vividly in PecolaвЂ™s very household. Morrison presents her central character as the inevitable target of LorainвЂ™s deeply ingrained and multilayered racism, of a community that has absorbs and now replicates destructive dominant cultural myths about beauty and value. While Pecola is the protagonist of the novel, this story is told through the eyes of Claudia MacTeer, a nine year old child whose family takes in Pecola after PecolaвЂ™s father, Cholly, burns down their home.

#Cholly the bluest eye series#

Set in Lorain, Ohio during the 1930s, this book explores the series of abuses that the main character Pecola Breedlove, an eleven year old child, is subjected to, which includes living in harsh poverty, moving from one home to another as a foster child, experiencing rape by her own father, and being ridiculed at school for being an вЂњugly schoolgirlвЂќ. While many texts in American literature engage with the legacy of slavery and the years of deeply-imbedded racism that followed, Toni MorrisonвЂ™s novel The Bluest Eye focuses specifically on the lingering effects through commentary on internalized racism and black self-hatred.