Kai Myers
3-29-15
Professor SoYoung Park
Tough Love
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is supposedly a follow-through a person’s life where they did not receive emotional stability or support to the level that made them feel adequate. It is an examination of someone going through and falling into the trap of self-loathing; it is a powerful, shaking story that is intended to move audiences into action.
The first chapter, titled Autumn, begins with the main character of the story becoming ill. Her mother acts like it is a hinderance on her, but she cares for the girl. It is a version of tough love that the main character vividly describes. “Love, thick and dark as Alga syrup, eased up into that cracked window. I could smell it-taste it-sweet, musty, with an edge of wintergreen in my tongue, to the frosted windowpanes. It coated my chest, along with the salve, and when the flannel come undone in my sleep, the clear, sharp curves of air outlined its presence on my throat…. So when I think of autumn, I think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die” (Morrison, 12). It is obvious that the mother-figure in the young girl’s life is a strong sense of security, regardless. She is the girl that will observe someone close to her, Pecola Breedlove, dissolving into despair. Unlike her, Pecola has very little self-confidence. She does not voice her opinions with the other girls unless it concerns Shirley Temple; she is infatuated with the standard of white beauty. What will happen because of this will certainly not be good.
1. Why does Toni Morrison give us so much detail about the girl who is supposedly Pecola Breedlove’s observer?
2. Is there some significance that Pecola drinks so much milk? Is there symbolism because of its color?
3. What do you make of the adult figures in the young girls’ lives?
Pecola could be drinking so much milk because she associates the color with purity or beauty. Just as she wishes to have blonde hair and blue eyes to be beautiful, the consumption of milk is a subconscious way of Pecola trying to internalize and absorb these attributes. White is a common color symbol in many other aspects of the book as well. Many of the white characters are valued above the black, and it maybe because of this aspect that Pecola tries so desperately to internalize the 'white' characteristic. She childishly drinks milk to absorb the privileges associated with its color, and to satisfy her search for moral and emotional purity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rachel, the drinking of milk is passed off in the story as just her drinking out of her favorite Shirley temple cup but the significance of the color of the milk is hard to ignore, with her so desperate to be and or have white features that she consumes it multiple times daily.
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