The Bluest Eye: Summary
Toni Morisson's novel The Bluest Eye is about the life of the Breedlove family who reside in Lorain, Ohio, in the late 1930s (where Morrison herself was born). This family consists of the mother Pauline, the father Cholly, the son Sammy, and the daughter Pecola. The novel's focal point is the daughter, an eleven-year-old Black girl who is trying to conquer a bout with self-hatred. Everyday she encounters racism, not just from the White people, but mostly from her own race and in particular. In their eyes she is much too dark, and the darkness of her skin somehow manifests that she is inferior, and according to everyone else, her skin makes her even "uglier." She feels she can overcome ...
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as well. Her own father, who is constantly drunk, sexually molests his daughter more than once. The first time he has sexual intercourse with his daughter, he leaves her slightly unconscious, and lying on the kitchen floor with a quilt covering her frail, limp, preteen body. The next time he performs the same act, but this time he impregnates her. Of course, the baby is miscarried. This is obviously not a love a father should be sharing with a daughter. This act displays hatred in the worst way.
Her mother's rejection is subtle yet potent. When Pecola tells her mother about the molestation, Mrs. Breedlove does not believe her own flesh and blood. Pecola calls Pauline Mrs. Breedlove instead of calling her mother. Allowing this, Mrs. Breedlove shows that unconsciously she does not acknowledge Pecola as her daughter, and Pecola does not avow Pauline as her mother. Distance is quite evident in this so-called mother-daughter relationship. How can one learn trust if trust is not first ...
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names such as "black e mo" (as if they are not black themselves). Every day different people have to deal with outside racism, and that hurts a great deal, but when the racism is coming from your own race, I imagine it hurts worse, and the bruise left is more severe. At this point, Pecola is saved from the ridiculing from Claudia, Frieda, and Maureen Peal. It is quite surprising that Maureen befriends Pecola because Maureen is in somewhat of an upper class. All the boys and the girls leave her alone, black and white alike, because everyone is “enchanted” by her demeanor. Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda are saved from the ring of boy’s on account of the boys’ reluctance beat up three ...
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The Bluest Eye: Summary. (2008, February 12). Retrieved December 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye-Summary/78918
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"The Bluest Eye: Summary." Essayworld.com. February 12, 2008. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye-Summary/78918.
"The Bluest Eye: Summary." Essayworld.com. February 12, 2008. Accessed December 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye-Summary/78918.
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