The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Tony Morrison and published in 1970. It is a story of high dramatic tension which arises a number of questions regarding the social construction of race and gender, the individual quest of each person to find and define the unique characteristics of his/her traits and maintain them without being disorientated, the way a multicultural society works or is supposed to work so that no inequalities exist and respect towards everybody is achieved. The aim of this essay is to present you with the aspects of this story in such a way that the connections it holds with the book ‘Black Skin, White masks’ written in 2008 by Frantz Fanon are explored. The essay will shed light to the story’s main narrative devices and meaning in such a way that its resemblance to the ideas of Frantz Fanon as expressed in the 6th unit of his book titled ‘The Negro and Psychopathology; will come to light. Furthermore, conclusions will be drawn upon the foundation of a prosperous society in nowadays world and the border line between what is supposed to be generally acceptable and what is or may be against ethical human values and/or beliefs.
The main leading figure in the story ‘The Bluest Eye’ is Pecola, a very young girl who is brought up within the constrained and conservative social environment of her neighborhood in the small town of Lorain in Ohio. Pecola is portrayed as the young girl who has no hope of finding light at the end of the tunnel. She is the only child of a very problematic and troubling family environment within which she has experienced lack of love and tenderness and has fallen victim of her father’s sexual harassment. Pecola is the way through which the writer brings her readers face to face with the reality of the existing violence near their homes or even behind their doors. There is violence and cruelty. And the reasons for these phenomena of social pathogenesis are lying in people themselves. The reasons are the unsolved problems of societies who are too weak or too resistant towards the struggle which is necessary to be performed so that social equality and respect are established for every single member of a community.
There is a family whose children Claudia being nine years old and Frieda MacTeer being ten years old, seem to be concerned about Pecola and try to help her by becoming her friends and providing her with shelter at their home. But this pair of these two sisters is actually another narrative technique of Toni Morrison who wishes to emphasize that one’s or two’s persons’ actions are not enough in order to change the established status –quo. And the established status –quo which is described in The Bluest Eye is the one which allows people to be treated according to special characteristics as far as their social class, gender and origin are concerned. there is an indirect criticism towards these social structures on behalf of the writer and a number of questions are raised waiting to be answered by their readers. There seems to be a well-established ideology within societies according to which black people are the receivers of the greatest internalized racism. And there seems to be this message put across to the readers of this story. No matter how many years may pass by, social beliefs and status-quo are really difficult to change. Witnessing Pecola and her way of dealing with her fate and dramatic sequence of events in her life, one certainly wonders how she manages to keep on living. But the most surprising of all is probably the fact that Pecola seems to be considering herself responsible for whatever is happening to her. It is this aspect of internalized racism which Morrison highlights and emphasizes on. Racism is not a one-sided coin. There is racism as imposed on behalf of people and there is racism as experienced on behalf of its victims. So Pecola is the double –sided mirror through which readers look into both sides of racism. Readers experience the racism as imposed on behalf of the constrained, limited close society and at the same time they experience the racism itself through Pecola’s insanity. Pecola has come to believe that the real reason for her being treated so badly and living such a miserable life is the color of her eyes. If she had blue eyes she would not have had such a fate. This is what Pecola believes. This is the point of the story which could be argued that it is the base of the connection between this story and the book of Frantz Fanon. Whiteness and colors similar or close enough to white are the synonyms of beauty in contrast to the black color which has been identified by the majority of people as the color or symbol of evil and satanic powers. Black brings to one’s mind darkness, lack of light, lack of hope and optimism. Like Fanon writes in his book there are more than one single expression ‘for the black man to be considered the equivalent of sin’. Fanon characteristically mentions in his book ‘In Europe, whether concretely or symbolically, the black man stands for the bad side of the character. As long as one cannot understand this fact, one is doomed to talk in circles about the “black problem.” Blackness, darkness, shadow, shades, night, the labyrinths of the earth, abysmal depths, blacken someone’s reputation; and, on the other side, the bright look of innocence, the white dove of peace, magical, heavenly light.’’(Fanon, 2008).
In other words Frantz Fanon supports that internalized racism is something deeply rooted in people’s mentalities. There are a number of elements in people’s lives which drive them to be staying hung up to old-fashioned and narrow minded beliefs which may result in turning them to the worst members of their society, imprisoned by feelings and attitudes of racism towards those members of the society who are automatically the most vulnerable due to their differentiation from what has come to be accepted as the social norm. Since Pecola is black what else could she expect from her life? This is what Pecola believes and this is the most tragic element of the whole story. Even the victim of the internalized racism is one of those who impose racism on herself. Pecola does not love herself. She is a poor existence who believes that racism is the physical result for her since she has not managed to get blue eyes. The blue color is the only ticket Pecola has in order to escape her bad everyday reality. But till the end of her life she does not manage to get blue eyes so she dies in despair. Claudia one of the girls who had tried to provide her with a shelter appears to have reached the conclusion that Pecola was used by the whole society they lived in as the scape goat so that they would manage to feel pretty and happy themselves.
The Bluest Eye shows how beauty is closely bonded in people’s minds to one’s origin. Social stereotypes are expected to be existing within any period of time but the arising question is whether everybody has really and deeply thought the impact of such stereotypes on our lives. Racial and gender stereotypes are the ones who seem to draw more demand for attention compared to others. People are falling in the trap of being treated differently or of being categorized according to their social status. Gaps in social classes keep increasing and it is time that societies started dealing with such issues effectively with the help of education.
Works Cited
FANON FRANTZ, bLACK sKIN, WHITE mASKS, 2008, retrieved from http:// edivers.ro /makno/images /stories/documents/articles/fanon_-_black _skin_ white _ masks_2008. pdf
PETERSON, NANCY J.,ed. Toni Morrison: Critical and Theoretical Approaches.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1997.
RICE, HERBERT WILLIAM. Toni Morrison and the American Tradition: A Rhetorical Reading. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.
