Morrison's Sexual Depictions Toni Morrison incorporated vulgar sexual depictions into her novel with distinct literary intentions. Although many challengers of the novel contest that these scenes contain no value, Morrison composed these depictions with specific intent and purpose. It was not for shock value or merely to be obscene, but to illustrate to her audience the damaging effect society can have on its most vulnerable members. She spoke through the silence to lobby the destruction of an innocent black girl and became the voice for suffering individuals who did not have the ability to speak. She successfully reveals that societal abuse of the African American race as a whole has grave effects on the development of specific individuals. Describing Pecola’s sexual experiences so graphically, and with such brash severity, was meant to impact the reader into inciting societal reform. Her social commentary was not intended to drive simply sympathy for the oppressed children she described, but change. In her novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison demonstrated the repercussions of rejecting a population of people through explicit descriptions of sexual abuse. The cycle of oppression that is illustrated throughout the novel is a prominent cause and result of sexual abuse. Various characters were born in purity and innocence but were degraded by societal treatment. This concept outlines Cholly’s experience in particular. As a child, he was unable to combat or resist oppression. The only reaction he could marshal to injustice was silence, depression and self contained rage. Because he developed under such damaging conditions, he was ultimately unable to love, express compassion or have virtue. Instead, he was only capab... ... middle of paper ... ...female children was an outcome of societal abuse on African American males. By incorporating such sexually graphic depictions, Morrison leaves a lasting impression with her reader and more effectively conveys her message in order to incite reform. Works Cited Lazarescu, Lisa. “Themes of The Bluest Eye.” April 3, 2005. Eastern Oregon University. http://web.cocc.edu/lisal/thebluesteye/themes.htm. 2003. Mayo, James. "Morrison's The Bluest Eye." Explicator 60.4 (2002): 231-235. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. Central Oregon Community College Lib., Bend, OR. 12 May 2003 Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York, NY: Plume-Penguin Group, 1994. Napieralski, Edmund A. "Morrison's The Bluest Eye." Explicator 53.1 (1994): 59-63. Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. Central Oregon Community College Lib., Bend, OR. 12 May 2003
On the surface, a beautiful, poisonous girl and a preacher shadowed by a black veil share no similar characteristics. However, in the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, these characters share two remarkably comparable stories. The Minister’s Black Veil and Rappaccini's Daughter both share the symbolic use of colors, yet the characters’ relation to the outside world deviates. Hawthorne expertly contrasts colors to illustrate the battle of good against evil. In The Minister’s Black Veil, Mr. Hooper’s black veil contrasts sharply against the pale-faced congregation, just as Beatrice’s likeness to the purple flowers, described as being able to, “...illuminate the garden,” contrasts the darkness of Dr Rappaccini’s black clothing. These clashes of colors
When a good salesman pushes an item, the first step is to have the audience succumb to his way of thinking. Morrison's product here is a philosophy, an idea that is the theme of her book. That idea is that physical beauty is "probably the most destructive idea in the history of human thought." She pushes this idea right through the reader's brain. It is the ruin of the black girls. If only they were pretty. If only they had pretty blue eyes.
Aside from narrative and detail, Neufeld uses color and type styles throughout the book to indicate the changing atmosphere and moods. Hartman, an expert in trauma theory describes the use of color and light in the trauma novel as “The paradigm of coming-to-knowledge, expressed often as a movement from darkness to light” (Hartman 263). At first in A.D. the colors are uniform, but they begin to degrade and mix as the storm displaces and detaches the New Orleanians amongst it. He begins the story i...
I decided to explore the effect that a white male audience has on the tone of a writer who primarily caters to a non-white audience when the speaker, subject, and context remain the same. I questioned how audience and purpose affect a text’s structure and content and found that by changing the audience, I was forced to go into descriptive detail to explain the oppression imposed upon African Americans to white men. By writing a speech, Toni Morrison’s serious and passionate tone towards both race and gender equity are not erased. I refer to the audience as “you” and bring up that they’re in a position of power to force a separation between Toni, an African American woman, and the audience, white men, because the point is not to establish a
Smith, Nicole. "Literary Analysis of “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison : History and Slavery." Article Myriad. N.p., 15 Jan. 2012. Web. 4 June 2014.
Although Morrison's, The Bluest Eye, was an incredible book in many respects, I must ultimately disagree strongly with her views on what art should be and the responsibility of the artist. To adopt Morrison's ideals would be to disvalue entire artistic movements and many important works and artists, without regard to their other merits.
Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye", is a very important novel in literature, because of the many boundaries that were crosses and the painful, serious topics that were brought into light, including racism, gender issues, Black female Subjectivity, and child abuse of many forms. This set of annotated bibliographies are scholarly works of literature that centre around the hot topic of racism in the novel, "The Bluest Eye", and the low self-esteem faced by young African American women, due to white culture. My research was guided by these ideas of racism and loss of self, suffered in the novel, by the main character Pecola Breedlove. This text generates many racial and social-cultural problems, dealing with the lost identity of a young African American women, due to her obsession with the white way of life, and her wish to have blue eyes, leading to her complete transgression into insanity.
Morrison’s The Bluest Eye appears to be a commentary that discusses how past history is living present in a political, social, racial and personal sense. The novel was published in 1970, with a setting of Midwest America post The Great Depression, inferring that although many years had passed Morrison still feels that the same issues of society live on. The past oppression of racial discrimination and domestic issues appear to be present in the novel, affecting characters fates and initial choices. These issues surround the novel, taking part in the plot and ultimate downfall of the main characters.
This book discusses the viewpoints of many expert critics through extracts of their critical essays on the novel “The Bluest Eye”. Harold Bloom states Michael Woods narrative is the best he has seen of the book, “Each member of the family interprets and acts out of his or her ugliness, but none of them understands that the all-knowing master is not God but only history and habit; the projection of their own numbed collusion w...
Portales, Marco. "Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye: Shirley Temple and Cholly." The Centennial Review Fall (1986): 496-506.
Cleckley, Hervey M. Introduction. The Mask of Sanity. New York: New American Library, 1982. N. pag. Web.
...fluence of African- American folklore is all over the novels The Bluest Eye and Sula. With Morrison demanding participatory reading just like an oral tale to the evil and strangeness in some of her characters, Morrison tells stories rich with African- American folklore. Her settings, characters, and the issues she explores, tell of the history of the Black race in America. The oral tradition of African- American folklore is a way for Morrison to educate and analyze what the black race is all about.
Upon reading The Bluest Eye a second time, I noticed something about the nature of Morrison's prose. The term that I have heard to describe the book most frequently is beautiful. The first chapters strike me as both incredibly realistic, and unbelievably beautiful. The fact that Morrison can give a scene where Claudia is actually throwing up on herself a rosy colored, nostalgic tint, and still manage to convey a sense of realism is a testament to Morrison's skill with words. The language certainly is beautiful, a sort of sensual prose, almost bordering on poetry. I also believe that the style of Morrison's descriptions is a key to understanding the major underlying theme of the novel, which is the association of rac...
...iological imagination” in 1959; a theory that is basically the scientific way of saying “walk a mile in someone else's shoes.” Chollys actions can never be excused; it would not be fair to his victims to do so. It’s difficult to anybody to understand why someone would do such a thing, in a novel or in real life. The situations only leaves people asking why. Morrison states in an interview that the Breedlove’s are a “little nuclear family that doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for white people or for black people.” Dominance, whether racial, gender or class based, over anyone is destructive to all societal dynamics. Morrison says “you need a whole community, everybody, to raise a child.” An idea suggested by the rejection by the community of Pecola and Cholly. The why is never to clear, “since the why is too difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.”(Morrison)
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.