The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Posted in Reading Reviewed at 12:00 on 1 December 2022
Vintage, 2016, 204 p, plus v p Foreword and viii p Afterword. First published in 1970.
This, Morrison’s first novel, is an elaboration of the US black experience in the mid-twentieth century, more specifically the female black experience. As such it is an examination of the effects racism has on the individuals who suffer it, how it became – becomes – internalised, the baleful ramifications it has.
So here we are told of a certain type of “brown girls” who cultivated “The careful development of thrift, patience, high morals, and good manners. In short how to get rid of the funkiness. The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions.” These girls will of course make excellent, untroublesome, wives.
The awful hierarchy of discrimination is illustrated by reference to a boy whose mother only allows him to play with white boys and tells him of “the difference between coloured people and niggers …. Coloured people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud.” At the bottom of this hierarchy lie women. If it is unfortunate to be black and poor it is even more so to be a poor black woman.
The tale is told – in sections corresponding to four seasons (Autumn round to Summer) – by two sisters, one in a first person narrative whose right hand margins are unjustified, the other in third person (and justified margins) exploring the history of the childhood friend whose story the overall novel tells.
In describing the black experience of that time and place the novel bears similarities to James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain but is a different beast entirely: not least in its lack of discussion of religion. Instead its core lies in the life of Pecola, a young girl who sees herself as ugly and wishes to have blue eyes as they would surely make her beautiful. That such an attribute would only make her stand out more is thankfully lost on her. Not that she is short of other problems. The shocking event at the heart of her young life is perhaps out of place as far as the rest of the narrative is concerned – even though it is referred to from the outset – but in her fore- and afterwords (present only because this is a later edition of the novel) Morrison contends that highlighting the particular serves to emphasise the general.
By implication the fecklessness of Pecola’s father, Cholly Breedlove – exacerbated by lack of choice and his own abandonment while a child – is a result of inbuilt disadvantage, circumstances all but impossible to overcome. His wife Pauline has things even harder though but still strives to do the best for her family.
The Bluest Eye is not comfortable reading but neither should it be. The trouble is, it is unlikely to be read by those by whom it ought to be. Then again, they may be so lacking in empathy that if they did they would not have the capacity for reflection required.
Pedant’s corner:- In the introduction; “atmo-sphere” (not at a line break.)