Relating to The Bluest Eye

The girls of Toni Morrison's novel are admirable in many ways.

Reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, I couldn’t help but admire the young girls, Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola.  For the most part, I admire them for their strength and ability to withstand hardship.  Moreover, I admire their kindness and compassion.  When Pecola arrives, Claudia and Frieda welcome her.  Claudia remembers, “We had fun in those few days Pecola was with us.  Frieda and I stopped fighting each other and concentrated on our guest, trying hard to keep her from feeling outdoors” (Morrison 19).  In these ways, the girls seem older.  Claudia continues to prove her maturity later when describing her ideal Christmas.  Unlike most kids, Claudia says, “I did not want to have anything to own, or to possess any object.  I wanted rather to feel something on Christmas day” (Morrison 22).

Additionally, the girls’ obsession with physical appearance is interesting.  When Frieda and Pecola gush about Shirley Temple’s cute looks, Claudia confides her hatred for “all the Shirley Temples of the world” (Morrison 19).  For Claudia, the Shirley Temples of the world represent something she can never have.  She realizes, “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (20).  Knowing this, frustration overwhelms Claudia.  She cannot understand why people value this, “What made people look at them and say, ‘Awwwww,’ but not for me” (Morrison 22).  At a young age, the girls of Morrison’s novel experience lowered self-esteem, an overall sense of inadequacy.  So much so that Pecola blames her looks for her family’s problems and prays every night for blue eyes.

Claudia's hatred for Shirley Temple stems from her own sense of inadequacy, for she lacks the blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin that every one seems to adore.

When I first read the beginning pages of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, I must admit I was shocked.  I couldn’t grasp the harsh way in which the girls are treated—how the adults respond coldly to their physical ailments.  When Claudia catches cold, her mother cries, “You must be the biggest fool in this town” (Morrison 10).  She blames Claudia for something Claudia has no control over.  I was even more shocked by the annotation scribbled by a previous reader of my used book.  Alongside this passage, I read, “I remember the guilt.”  Whoever owned this book before me, whoever wrote those words, baffled me.  Could I relate to Claudia’s situation?  Could I relate to the girls’ pain and suffering?

My used book is full of highlights and notes written by a previous reader.

After reading Professor Bump’s “Family Systems Therapy and Narrative in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye,” I have realized that I can relate to the girls’ troubles.  While my mother differs greatly from Claudia’s, “…it is important to remember that her [Claudia’s] ‘woundability’ is different in degree rather than in kind from that of many of her readers…In other words, many of Morrison’s readers of all ethnicities can identify to some extent with the family dance of The Bluest Eye” (Anthology 351).  For instance, after much thought, I found myself relating to the guilt that Claudia feels after getting sick.  As a child, whenever I would catch a cold, my mother would admonish me for not wearing my coat and would tell me to take better care of myself.  Though my mother was never harsh with me, my connection to Claudia proves that Toni Morrison’s family story is not far from any other family’s story.  After all, black families are no more dysfunctional than any other family and “it is difficult to generalize about ethnic groups” (Anthology 350).  Knowing this, I can read Toni Morrison’s novel more openly; I can read about and sympathize more with the characters of the story.