Wanna Fit In? Gotta Fit Out.

Toni Morrison continues to display African-American inferiority during those times. As seen on my previous blog, she also compares it with esthetics. This time, instead of using a doll, she uses the Breedlove family. 

“The eyes, the small eyes set closely together under narrow foreheads. The low, irregular hairlines, which seemed even more irregular in contrast to the straight, heavy eyebrows which nearly met. Keen but crooked noses, with insolent nostrils. They had high cheekbones, and their ears turned forward. Shapely lips which called attention not to themselves but to the rest of the face. You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly.”(39) The Breedlove are nothing similar to the white, blue-eyed, dolls. Their physical differences have made them therefore ugly. Because of this shame in appearance, Pecola is disgusted towards her physical traits and uses them as an excuse to her daily problems: conflicts at home and at school.

"Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike. She was the only member of her class who sat alone at a double desk." (45) Naively, Pecola thinks that the only reason there is to her isolation is because of her ugliness. Instead, it was racial segregation and discrimination that caused it. However, because of these things, one could say that the Pecola was a bit right. Society's regard for beauty and acceptance was solely based on the Caucasian race.  Morrison's reason for the Breedlove's description was to show the inferiority of the African-Americans during those times. 

It seems Morrison is portraying life as an African-American through esthetics and the experiences of Pecola, who is just going through emotional and physical change, coincidentally connected to the African-American culture, who too is experiencing these changes. 

 

More Color to the Text

Soliloquies (24): noun. An act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, esp. by a character in a play.

Zest (28): noun. Great enthusiasm and energy. 

Prodded (31): verb. Poke (someone) with a finger, foot, or pointed object.

Fester (34): verb. (of a wound or sore) become septic; suppurate.


Don't Google Infection!!!


Wad (35): noun. A lump or bundle of a soft material, used for padding, stuffing, or wiping.

Malaise (37): noun. A general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify.

Me when googleing infection....

Schemata (37): noun. A representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model.

Not the Same

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is set right before the civil rights movement in the United States. Morrison describes the life of Claudia, a nine year old African-American. The conditions in which she lives in are seemingly different from those around her. It's not only that, her behavior is explicitly unusual.

Claudia is either nine or ten years old. Girls like her are innocent and happy. The complete opposite seems to be happening in this case. Morrison displays the difference between Claudia and the normal girls of that time. By normal I mean Caucasian girls. That was the perspective then. Claudia seems to be aggressive and violent. As Morrison states in the first page, "When she comes out of the car we will beat her up, make red marks on her white skin, and she will cry and ask us do we want her to pull her pants down."Last time I checked, this was not normal behavior for a nine year old. Morrison shows how different African-Americans are from Caucasians, how they were brought up and, most importantly, their social status.

Further into the book we see how the difference between Claudia and the rest of society is shown. When Claudia receives a doll, Morrison states, "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs - all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girls treasured." (20) Based on this, the concept of beauty during those times was the description of the doll. A little bit after, Morrison describes, "Remove the cold and stupid eyeball, it would bleat still, 'Ahhhhh,' take off the head, shake out the sawdust, crack the back against the brass bed rail, it would see the disk with six holes, the secret of the sound." (21) Claudia seems to despise the site of the doll, societies perfection. This marks the difference between her and other girls, or even, African-Americans with Caucasians.

Morrison illustrates a key contrast between two races. She shows it by displaying Claudia's acts towards symbols of society's beauty and perfection. Based on what I have read, I foreshadow a fight against Caucasians for a definition of African-American beauty. Or just the opposite.