The Bluest Eye
Misdirection of Anger "Anger is better [than shame]. There is a sense of
being in anger. A reality of presence. An awareness of worth."(50) This is how
many of the blacks in Toni Morrison's felt. They faked love when
they felt powerless to hate, and destroyed what love they did have with anger.
shows the way that the blacks were compelled to place their
anger on their own families and on their own blackness instead of on the white
people who were the cause of their misery. In this manner, they kept their anger
circulating among themselves, in effect oppressing themselves, at the same time
they were being oppressed by the white people. Pecola Breedlove was a young
black girl, ...
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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 that she once thought were beautiful. The
dandelions also represent her view of her blackness, once she may have
thought that she was beautiful, but like the dandelions, she now follows the
majorities' view. However, "the anger will not hold"(50), and the feelings soon
gave way to shame. Pecola was the sad product of having others' anger placed
on her: "All of our waste we dumped on her and she absorbed. And all of our
beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us"(205). The other black
people 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. In effect, they were oppressing her the same way the whites
were oppressing ...
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seem to stop"(124). She stopped taking
care of her own children and her own home and took care of a white family and
their home. She found praise, acceptance, power, and ultimately whiteness with
the Fisher family, and it is for these reasons that she stayed with them. "The
creditors and service people who humiliated her when she went to them on her
own behalf respected her, were even intimidated by her, when she spook for the
Fishers."(128) She had been deprived of such feeling from her family when
growing up and in turn deprived her own family of these same feelings. Polly
"held Cholly as a mode on sin and failure, she bore him like a crown of thorns,
and her children like ...
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The Bluest Eye. (2005, August 21). Retrieved November 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye/32046
"The Bluest Eye." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 21 Aug. 2005. Web. 23 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye/32046>
"The Bluest Eye." Essayworld.com. August 21, 2005. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye/32046.
"The Bluest Eye." Essayworld.com. August 21, 2005. Accessed November 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye/32046.
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