Cast away the innocence of childhood and the answers you seek shall make themselves bare witness to your gradual downfall. In The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison, we see vivid images of the lives and personalities that make African American stereotypes. The main characters are Pecola Breedlove who is the daughter of a dysfunctional and poor African American family. The second main character is the perceived idea of "inherited ugliness" that plagues Pecola Breedlove's thoughts and self-confidence. Pecola believes that her ugliness is the fault of her personal and social problems. Pecola's desire to have a beautiful blue eyes is but placing a bandage on the wounds of reality. Pecola can not hide the fact she is African American, and throughout the excerpt read; we see a young girl living the nightmare of being black and a woman in America.
Throughout the excerpt read, we are deluged in the complexities of being black, a woman, and poor. These attributes are best described by Pecola when she said "You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question."(Morrison 39). As it seems throughout the read, two distinctly opposite characters are presented. The stereotypes of the "religious, tough, black mother" and the "hooker Miss Marie". These two characters are the idolization presented to Pecola. The idea of Mrs. Breedlove; "for the articulation of character, for support of a role she frequently imagined was hers-martyrdom." (Morrison 39) Mrs. Breedlove is the symbol of tough love, and brutal nature; putting up with little in the way of disrespect. Mrs. Breedlove is presented to us as a character trying to keep the "rickety bridge" of relationships from falling apart completely. The family life for Pecola is mostly broken and abusive; with a drunk for a father and a runaway brother. Pecola throughout dreams of having a mostly white dominated trait of blue eyes. Pecola goes to a shop to buy some candy, and throughout her exchange with the white store attendant, Pecola realizes "she has seen interest, disgust, even anger in grown male eyes. Yet this vacuum is not new to her. It has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness. All things in her are flux and anticipation. But her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes." (Morrison 49). Through her eyes, Pecola perceives herself as weak and incapable. When we are introduced to Miss Marie, we see the confidence that Pecola strives for. Miss Marie is but of three sex workers whom represent "Three merry gargoyles. Three merry harridans. Amused by a long-ago time of ignorance. They did not belong to those generations of prostitutes created in novels, with great and generous hearts, dedicated, because of the horror of circumstance, to ameliorating the luckless, barren life of men, taking money incidentally and humbly for their "understanding." but these women hated men, all men, without shame, apology, or discrimination." (Morrison 55,56). These women are independent, confident, and above all else, unapologetic feminists. Pecola sees these sex workers as devoid of ignorance and innocence. A troop of women with the single purpose to survive on their own, removed from the "evil man" and his hemisphere of control. Pecola's experiences with her own "family", the store clerk, and these sex workers provides but a glimpse into the mindset of the African American in America.
Works Cited
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eyes. New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. LMU ERes. Web. 5 Feb. 2011.
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