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.