The Bluest Eye - Pecola as a Victim of Evil
By constructing the chain of events that answer the question of how Pecola Breedlove is caste as a pariah in her community, Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye attempts to satisfy the more difficult question of why. Although, unspoken, this question obsessively hovers over Pecola throughout the novel and in her circular narrative style Morrison weaves a story that seeks to answer this question by gathering all of the forces that were instrumental in the creation of a social mishap. By using what seem like tangents in the story, we are shown examples of how forces beyond human control such as nature, an omniscient being and primarily a legacy of rejection have come together to establish the heritage of desolation that has been passed on to Pecola Breedlove.
A pattern of precedence is pieced together in the story, showing the seeds of Pecola's present barrenness to have been planted in the lives of preceding generations. By profiling the lives of Soaphead Church and Pauline Breedlove, Morrison makes a case for the validity of generational curses. Their narratives are appropriately placed in the Spring division of the novel as an indication of the characters sowing the seeds that will be reaped by Pecola. Seemingly, as an example of the ways in which the transgressions of the fathers revisit the sons, the narrator gives an extensive account of Soaphead Church's family history, constantly citing instances in which traits of the fathers (or effects of their traits) followed the sons for generations. Of his family the author says, "They transferred this Anglophilia to their six children and sixteen grandchildren" and the family is described as one entity, the accomplishments and ...
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According to the article, “Johann Sebastian Bach”, “his Lutheran faith would influence his late musical works.” A tragic event occurred as both of his parents had passed away a few years later, which prompted him to live with his brother’s family. It was there that he continued learning about music. He continued to live there for five years as he left his brother when he was 15. He soon was enrolled in a school at a place called Luneburg. He was enrolled there due to him having “a beautiful soprano singing voice.”(Johann Sebastian Bach) However, as he got older, his voice didn’t sound the way it used to be, so he quickly transitioned back to playing the violin. His first job had also to do with music as he began to work in Weimar as a musician. According to the article, “Johann Sebastian Bach”, there were various jobs he did like serve as a violinist or occasionally fill in
Bach was born in 1685 in Germany amongst the turmoil of national reconstruction. He lived a quiet life with little musical influence, until the death of his parents at age ten. After their death, Bach’s older brother, who taught the very young Bach to play clavichord and harpsichord, raised Bach. Now, his life had the musical influence that is associated with Bach’s greatness. At the age of eighteen, he joined an orchestra where he learned to play the violin and organ. During this time the musical genius of Bach began to emerge (Jackson 15).
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J. S. Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, March 21, 1685. Bach’s uncles were all professional musicians ranging from church organists and court chamber musicians to composers. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the town piper in Eisenach, a post that entailed organizing all the secular music in town as well as participating in church music at the direction of the church organist (p. 309, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. 2). Bach was the youngest son of Ambrosius Bach and probably learned the fundamentals of musical theory and how to play the violin from him (p104, The International Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians).
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Throughout Toni Morrison’s controversial debut The Bluest Eye, several characters are entangled with the extremes of human cruelty and desire. A once innocent Pecola arguably receives the most appalling treatment, as not only is she exposed to unrelenting racism and severe domestic abuse, she is also raped and impregnated by her own father, Cholly. By all accounts, Cholly should be detestable and unworthy of any kind of sympathy. However, over the course of the novel, as Cholly’s character and life are slowly brought into the light and out of the self-hatred veil, the reader comes to partially understand why Cholly did what he did and what really drives him. By painting this severely flawed yet completely human picture of Cholly, Morrison draws comparison with how Pecola was treated by both of her undesirable parents. According to literary educator Allen Alexander, even though Cholly was cripplingly flawed and often despicable, he was a more “genuine” person to Pecola than Pauline was (301). Alexander went on to claim that while Cholly raped Pecola physically, Pauline and Soaphead Church both raped her mental wellbeing (301). Alexander is saying that the awful way Pecola was treated in a routine matter had an effect just as great if not greater than Cholly’s terrible assault. The abuse that Pecola lived through was the trigger that shattered her mind. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses the characters of Cholly Breedlove and Frieda McTeer to juxtapose sexual violence and mental maltreatment in order to highlight the terrible effects of mental abuse.
In 1681, Georg Philipp Telemann was born into a family connected to the Lutheran Church. He had exceptional musical abilities, mastering the keyboard, violin, zither, and flute by the age of ten. He composed an opera “Sigismundus” at the age of twelve as well. Telemann was determined to excel in music especially with the disapproval from his parents. After finishing grade school at Hildesheim Gymnasium, he began college at Leipzig University studying language and science. That eventually changed when he created the student Colle...
Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and the brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with, and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when it concerns gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society.