The Bluest Eye (1/3)

In the foreword of this novel, Morrison describes how she tried to show how "the death of self-esteem can occur quickly, easily in children" (Morrison x). From her perspective, a young black girl would be "the one least likely to withstand such damaging forces" of a relentless, despair-driven society, and so Pecola became the protagonist of this story.

From the beginning of this novel, the societal circumstances of the Breedlove family are part of what brings Pecola down. One description of their house in particular stood out to me: "The furniture has aged without ever having become familiar" (35). The simple way that it describes years of existing in the house but not actually becoming meaningful or important was very piercing. The "joylessness" of living like that "stank, pervading everything" similarly to how the "ugliness" became a part of the Breedloves themselves (36, 39). The way that they embrace their so-called ugliness and incorporate it into their own sense of self and being is striking in how it truly begins to define them all; Pecola becomes "a little black girl" that a man "need not waste the effort of a glance" to look upon, not "desirable or necessary" at all (48). To top it off Pecola doesn't feel outraged or wronged by such treatment; she accepts it even while it upsets her and makes her feel ugly and want to cry. In contrast, the "whores in whores' clothing" seem to be the only characters enjoying themselves and their places in life (57). "Three merry gargoyles" "dissolved in laughter" while discussing their whoredom and didn't care (55). This sort of reversal of self-images between a young girl and a whore and how comfortable and accepting they are in their own shoes is shocking. The "fear of ugliness than enables more readers to identify with this basic situation of racism" that is seen throughout this book is possibly the easiest way that we as readers can relate to the situations described in the book (Bump 607). So far there have been certain phrases in the prose that have struck true with me, and hopefully there will be more yet to come.

Bringing the topic a little closer to home, the anthology speaks a great deal about the racial history of UT. I had no idea that one of the dorms was named after the man "who organized the Ku Klux Klan in Florida after the Civil War," nor that MLK "spent the night in a little apartment on the top floor of the Texas Union" (anthology 584, 587). Such facts are much healthier aspects of UT's racial history than the multitude of pro-Confederate statues out on our lawns. There are many things that we as a campus as well as we as people ourselves can fix in terms of our responses towards racial identity and how we confront racial history. This is one of the ways that we can move forward.