American Literature

Implicit in her desire was racial self-loathing. And twenty years later I was still wondering about how one learns that. (Morrison, 1998, p. 210).
 
    In the afterword to her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shares the story of a real-life incident that partially inspired her moving narrative (Morrison, 1998, p. 209). In elementary school, Morrison had known a dark-skinned, Black girl who had shared with her the secret knowledge that she longed to have blue eyes. Shocked, Morrison had held onto this painful childhood memory and eventually decided to explore it through her work.  The Bluest Eye is a kind of exploration or literary quest to find out the answer to the question, What would make a child become so replete with racially charged self-hatred that she couldnt see her own beauty   And, the novel dares to ask the question, What is beauty, anyway  Instead of a concrete, unchangeable concept, Morrisons novel presents the idea of beauty as an ever-shifting, dynamic and subjective thing - one whose definition has been heavily corrupted by societal factors, particularly race, which have nothing to do with any true measure of beauty.   But, most thought-provoking of all, perhaps, is the extent to which the maternal influence impacts a childs definition of beauty.  This essay will address Morrisons handling of the elusive concept of beauty in The Bluest Eye, particularly as it relates to the relationship between Pecola Breedlove and her mother, Pauline.    

    While much critical focus is paid the to role that society at large plays in shaping Pecolas belief that she ugly, not nearly as much attention to what (or who)  may be the most significant influence on Pecolas  thoughts and beliefs  her mother, Pauline.  When examining The Bluest Eye in the context of many of Morrisons later works, its interesting to note how frequently she explores the nature of the mother-child relationship, especially that of mother and daughter.  In fact, her much-celebrated work, Beloved, is built around this theme,  exploring the darker side of the complex mother-daughter dynamic.  The title character in that work, Sethe, kills her baby daughter, Beloved, in an effort to spare her from suffering that she perceives to be worse than death.  The rest of the story outlines the intense pain of both mother and child, when the supernatural presence of the baby punishes the mother for her murder with a magic that Sethe describes as No more powerful than the way I loved her. (Morrison, 1991, p. 5). Clearly, for Morrison, mother love is an intense and profoundly complex thing, one that has the ability to both create and destroy.  In The Bluest Eye, the darker aspect of mother love appears once again, the side which demonstrates how destructive it can be to a young girls spirit and sense of self worth and, ultimately,  her belief in her own value and beauty.

    Pecolas mother, Pauline, holds deeply toxic ideas about beauty, ideas which ultimately boil down to this - White is pretty and Black is not. Its hard to dismiss just how much of an impact a mothers beliefs might have had on her 11 year old girl.  Just from a child-development standpoint, the core of young childs ideas and belief systems are significantly shaped by her initial contact with the world  -  her primary caregiver (Healey, 1987, p.8) . And,  the ideas about beauty which Pecola clearly inherits from her mother, Pauline, are so deeply flawed as to become spiritually contaminating.  In fact, Morrison says of Paulines ideas of physical beauty, that they were Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thoughta well-spring from which she would draw the most destructive emotions (Morrison, 1988, p.122). Paulines tainted,  internalized definition of beauty is one she has learned from her obsessive viewing of Hollywood films (Gibson, 1989, p.20), and which clearly promote  a definition of beauty consistent with a socially constructed (Sugiharti, 2007, p.1) White beauty ideal.  In a pivotal scene, Morrison shares the inner workings of Paulines mind. She writes, I member one time I went to see Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. I fixed my hair up like Id seen in a magazine.  A  part on the side, with one little curl on my forehead.  It looked just like her.  Well, almost just like.  (Morrison, 1998, p.123).  Knowing how much Paulines concept and measure of beauty comes from a White Hollywood standard is a key to understanding her reaction when she gives birth to Pecola and thinks her baby looks like a black ball of hair (Morrison 1998, p.124). Pauline, who has decided she will love her baby anyway, clearly makes a fateful aesthetic judgment upon Pecolas entry into the world, one which ultimately has dire consequences for her daughters sense of worth. After first seeing her baby daughter, Pauline muses,  But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly. (Morrison, 1998, p.126). 

    Children are highly sensitive and much more intuitive than adults often acknowledge.  It defies logic that, even if she never actually heard the words come from her mothers mouth, Pecola wouldnt have somehow felt and understood that her mother believed she was ugly. It might have been a look her mother gave her, or a song her mother sang or, perhaps the dolls she chose her child to play with.  Later, when Pecola starts to get information from the outside world implying that she is ugly,  this information only confirms something she has already learned from her mother. The taunts from other children and White beauty ideals she may see in magazines and on television merely validate the message she has already internalized from the overt and covert messages Pauline sends.

    When the new girl in town, Maureen, arrives at school sporting long, straight-ish hair and light skin, she clearly embodies the  White beauty norm. Pecola and her classmates witness the preferential  treatment  of Maureen.  Morrison writes

She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didnt trip her in the halls white boys didnt stone her, white girls didnt suck their teeth when she was assigned to their work partners black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls toilets, and their eyes genuflected under sliding lids (Morrison, 1998, p. 74).

    Such incidents would have not only confirmed to Pecola that she wasnt perceived as beautiful, they would also have taught her another important lesson  that the definition of beauty also meant value and worth.  So, it wasnt just that Pecola believed that she was ugly which was harmful, it was more so the idea that being ugly meant a person wasnt valuable or loved.  And, if we double back, for a moment, to reexamine the influence Paulines beliefs may have on Pecola, and we accept that Pecola intuitively knows her mother believes she is ugly, then she would also believe that her mother doesnt value her. Indeed, she would have to believe her mother doesnt love her.  Beyond the hurtful rejection from society and her school mates, one can only imagine what a devastating effect the lack of belief in a mothers love would have on a child.
    
    Other details in Morrisons narrative hint at the connection between a childs sense of self-worth and the beliefs of adults and authority figures.  At one point, Claudia, a school friend and neighbor of Pecolas, reveals the pain of similar experiences.  It is particularly revealing when Claudia thinks, Dolls we could destroy, but we could not destroy the honey voices of parents and aunts(Morrison, 1998, p. 57). Even more heartbreaking and informative, Claudia notices that black women, presumably some of these same mothers and aunts, openly favor little White girls, validate their beauty.  Referring to little white girls, Claudia wonders, What make people look at them and say, Awwwww, but not at me The eye slide of black women as they approached them on the street, and the possessive gentleness of their touch as they handled them (Morrison, 1998, p.15). What makes these passages so remarkable is that they point to the messages that are coming, not from society in general, but specifically from the adult black women. And further, that the adult black women mentioned were not only judging little black girls to be less beautiful than their white counterparts, but also less loveable.  Claudias experience, as hurtful though it may be, only give a hint to the pain that Pecola must have internalized getting these same messages from her mother.  Like the anonymous black women of Claudias passage, Pauline was explicitly teaching Pecola, through her behavior, that she valued and loved little white girls more than her own daughter.   We see this most clearly, in a heart-breaking scene which occurs at Paulines place of work (she works as a domestic for a wealthy White family).  After a pan of freshly-baked cobbler drops to the floor, its piping hot juices burning Pecolas legs, we wait for Pauline to exhibit motherly concern. But, instead of coming to her childs aid, Mrs. Breedlove yanked her up by the arm, slapped her again, and in a voice thin with anger, abused Pecola directly (Morrison, 1998, p.109). Moments later, the little White girl (a blonde, spoiled child of the wealthy White family Pauline works for) bursts into crocodile tears.  This time, Paulines reaction shows the loving, motherly concern the reader wants so badly for Pecola.  Pauline caresses the white child, hushes her and consoles her with sweet whispers and the honey in her words. (Morrison, 1998, p.109). It is a striking contrast to the treatment Pecola has received at her mothers hands and the fact that it all occurs directly in front of Pecola reinforces the assumption that this child must feel very unloved and make the connection between the lack of love and her physical appearance know that she is not loved.   

    There is no happy ending for Pecola. And, the  fact that society  perceives her and treats her as less than beautiful, though  deeply hurtful, may ultimately be subordinate to the fact that her own mother also believes her to be unattractive and, by extension, less valuable and less loveable than others. But, what is most curious with a close reading of the text, is how little is actually said about Pecolas actual physical appearance. The few details that are shared, in an objective sense, dont really lead the contemporary reader to an assessment of Pecola lacking any true physical attractiveness.  Ultimately, an understanding begins to emerge - that Pecolas physical appearance (i.e. whether she is beautiful or ugly)  is irrelevant.  It is merely a Rorschach Test (Exner, 1980) upon which all the characters in Morrisons The Bluest Eye play out their own aesthetic neuroses which have been shaped by so many layers of complex and interwoven factors from their own personal histories.