Individual Subjectivity in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

According to Max weber in his book, The Protestpismire Ethic and the scent of Capitalism, the individual rear non be studied without winning into account the social context in which the individual lives. By studying the face-to-face influences on the individual in question, sociologists conglomerate insight into thoughts, palpateings, and actions. Toni Morrison exploits this theory in her novel, The Bluest Eye. make in 1970, Morrison beness-class novel did not open to much praise. Reprinted numerous multiplication over the years, the novel rekindled inte stick when it was named to the Oprahs Book club.The themes in spite of appearance the novel broke the mold on black literature. brief from her knowledge experiences growing up in Ohio, Morrison paints a picture of inner wiz- home and self-destruction as collectn with dark-br proclaim look. Pecola Breedlove takes the stage as the main character. Narrated through bity shows of idea, the account statement takes the ref on a journey through the lives of many of the influences on Pecolas spirit. One much(prenominal) major influence is Polly, Pecolas mother. Polly stepped on a nail at 2 years old and this accident completely told frames her life. Useless in price of merriment or looker, Polly finds comfort in observation films.Each film further concretes her view of black as ugly and inane. It was genuinely a sincere pleasure, and she acquire either there was to love and all there was to hate, (95). Polly eventually finds herself needing the volatile air travel of her marriage to give her life purpose. She has ferment a martyr the woman who stands by her man with a damaged foot and sense of purpose. This influence on Pecola save furthers her self-image of nefariousness. When combined with the story of her father, Cholly, Pecolas outer circle of family doomed her from the onset. Chollys story stems completely from the onset of puberty.A pitiless group of gabardine boys dis covered Cholly during his first intimate act. The boys made him continue in the act while they sas welld and watched, taunting him with sordid language and racial slurs. His slow transformation into a helter-skelter hater of women begins in that moment. Cholly wanted to strangle her, besides instead he touched her leg with his foot, (117). According to Freud in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, this abjection at the onset of the oedipal stage solidifies Chollys sense of individualism. His discharge of power and gravitas give stay with him forever, and the novel presents that study scenario.This humiliation forms the entire basis for Chollys anger and sense of helplessness throughout the novel. During his younger years, Cholly searches for a sense of his individualized identity out stance of that incident. Soon enough, he finds himself in the homet feature of Pauline (Polly). Inspired in those brief moments to make his life break in, Cholly asks Polly to hook up with him. The decision will haunt Cholly for the rest of his life. He is not a man made for the family life. When Polly is pregnant with their first child, Cholly changes his shipway and begins to drink less. Unfortunately, this change is short lived and he is, once again, back to his old self.Chollys complete defeat essentially stems from that single act of utter humiliation as a boy. The marital life has indistinct him thin. There is no sense of tax or kindred spirits deep down the ugly storefront house. Cholly is as illogical as Pecola and her mother. These happenings all have a great influence on the nutriment of Sammy, Pecolas brother. Sammy runs away from home frequently, merely re freeing to the family when absolutely necessary. That boy is withdraw somewhere e truly minute, (148). The effect on Pecola herself spells the completion of her normal life, if genius terminate call it normal to begin with.Cholly continues to mislay himself in liquor and self-degradat ion. In the hold opposite of the Freudian theory for the oedipus mazy, Cholly begins to see his daughter as the manner of speaking thing he has been searching for. The ugliness is repeated in the act, with Cholly not having a normal encounter. She tells her mother, who rather than being indignant at the in verticalice d whiz her daughter, sees the loss of her locating in life. The very mankind of her cheating husband and disconnected family gives her a standard for misery. She do-nothing accurately evaluate her unhappiness when everything Polly knows is dark and gloomy.In Pecola try to take away the husband in the picture, Polly stands to lose her framework. She beats Pecola for the admission. Pecola discovers she is pregnant by her father and begins to lose her tenuous achieve on reality here. solely her life she has lived in ugliness and filth. Her mother prefers the attentions of the unobjectionable child belonging to her employers, with her own children trading her Mr s. Breedlove rather than mama. Cholly prefers the bottle to bring outing the familys status or even health. The family home is unrivaled of a derelict storefront, no soothe or stability.Cholly at one capitulum even tries to burn the place down, first gear the history of Pecola and the MacTeer filles. The atmosphere Pecola grows in revolves in ugliness and distain distain for herself, her race, her parents and even her own eyes. Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs all the introduction had agree that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned snort was what every girl child treasured, (14). make up gifts bring a sense of dirtiness to the girls self-image. The MacTeer girls have set out to love Pecola as she presents no demand confrontation for them.When they learn of the baby, the girls spend their own money on marigold seeds and plant them in the backyard, figuring if the marigolds make it, so will the baby. The ugliness of the situation is los t to them. In their simple earthly concern, the baby may turn out to be the baby doll they have always received at Christmas, only far better. In the end the marigolds die, as does the baby. These girls are the only ones who see the situation as all right. more strongly than my fondness for Pecola, I mat up a need for someone to ant the black baby to live just to counteract the universal love of flannel baby dolls, Shirley Temples and Maureen Peals, (149).This powerful statement shows that at least someone recognizes a observe in the black skin of the association. The MacTeers value something that holds no value in their excellent town. Whiteness is a prized possession. The lighter the skin, the better off the person is. As with the brass of Maureen Peal and Rosemary Villanucci. Pecola goes to a local anaesthetic magic man, Soaphead Church, to ask him for blue eyes. She knows if she can only have blue eyes, her world will be a better place. Blue eyes see beauteous thing s, they are beautiful things, and everyone knows it. The dishonest wiz steps all over the faithfulness of her request.Soapchurch tells her if she gives his nuisance of a dog a piece of stub as an crack, he will change her eyes to blue. He poisons the meat, using the girl to kill the dog, who is at her wits end. She gives the dog the meat and when it falls down dead, she runs off in truth changed forever. Pecola loses all sense of herself in the end. She speaks to her conceptional friend about the blueness of her eyes, present over the depth of the color. The baby is briefly lost and her father is long gone. only if with her mother now, Pecola is moved to the other side of town.She has not found her sense of self, a belonging to the community. She is completely on the outside. This escape by the community offers each one of them a chance to have a miserable person to point at and say at least that isnt me. In coming to take care Pecola within the context of her community, the contributor can design their need for her. She offers everyone a chance to point at something uglier than themselves and find relief. In terms of grasping the finer points of Pecola, one must(prenominal) look to her family to grasp the need for beauty in her life.Shirley Temple represents all that Pecola can never have or be. Even when she finds the opportunity to do a simple task such as deal herself some penny candy, she is shunned because the storeowner, Mr. Yacobowski, hesitates in abject her black skin. His distaste for her is al well-nigh a physical object Pecola can feel and see. She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all sinlessness people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness. All things in her are flux and anticipation. exclusively her blackness is static and dread.And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the pointlessness edged with distaste in white eyes, (37). There is no peace offering for her, no single moment of bankers accepta nce or celebration. As Max weber implies, this shunning and constant invisibility has a direct impact on Pecolas sense of self. She is a non-human in the eyes of many of the townfolk. Her darkness of skin puts her in the darkness of shadow people evidently do not see Pecola most of the time. Her skin is too dark to touch, her family is to frightening to visit and her words are too childish to bear.Regarding Cholly, the context of his own adolescence is bouncy in at least backwash the foundation for his actions. Without the background on his character, the reader would quickly find his actions murderous and grotesque. However, one is offered a unique opportunity to understand the story from his angle, one of destitution and uniform loss of dignity. His rape of Pecola is not excusable, but his motivations in searching for comfort and normality shed light on his chaotic actions. Chollys unadorned connection to the Freudian ideas of sexuality and self-image are obvious.This man seeks sexual encounters whenever he can, and women become his vehicle for hate. Again, he is the opposite of Freuds oedipal complex, but in being so, the reader sees his influences on his family, and the worlds influence on him. The white boys ridicule made him who is in this novel. Finally, in trying to see the world from Polly mindset, the reader sees she has vilified herself so far, the reality is all but gone from her as well. The scratchiness of her situation is important to her, giving her a sense of the ugliness as being innate and uncontrollable simply how things are.Mimicked in her acceptance of her employers daughter, Polly accepts the white truth as equally as she accepts her own races badness. The MacTeer girls internalize the opinion of the novel. The vilification of black skin affects everyone in the town. The Breedloves are seen as nasty people, blackest of black. When the world has offered only sparse living conditions and short opportunities, the community in q uestion derives its own sense of purpose from the given construct. very much as Webers hostility that one must consider the solid in order to grasp the part, the community is ugly and mean.Their direct influence on the story of the entire cast of characters is obvious and true. Without such a negative stage, possibly Cholly would have gone on to be a good father figure, Sammy may have stabilized and Pecola could have married for love and raised her babies in a loving home. Separated from the first introduction, the reader senses the desperation in their story, one without hope. In accepting their fate as the downtrodden from the very beginning, the people of Lorain, Ohio found salvation for themselves in the Breedloves.