How Does Morrison Use Self-Hatred In The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye, written by Toni Morrison, is a tale of family and trauma and the ways in which one’s environment affects how they view themselves and others. As the novel is set in Morrison’s hometown, she draws on her own experiences with image and poverty to create complex characters dealing with societal and familial pressures. As the story develops, the reader learns how these experiences shape each character’s self image. Throughout The Bluest Eye, Morrison uses internal monologues, dialogue, and action to emphasize how both self-hatred and external hatred affects one’s life. Morrison includes character’s thought processes in the middle of storytelling to give the reader a better idea of how their experiences change the way they view

Without his inner monologue, the reader cannot understand why Cholly began to hate Darlene instead of the intrusive men. By including Cholly’s own perspective, the power imbalance between him and the men becomes apparent in the way he reacts to their treatment of him and Darlene. He views himself as “small, black, and helpless” in contrast to their position as “big, white, armed men.” These contrasting adjectives show the ways society has ingrained racist ideas into Cholly’s own mind; the comparison of “black” and “white” adjacent to the comparison of “small” and “big” shows the qualities that Cholly associates with his own race. The ideas presented by Cholly in this stream of thought influences his decisions to not fight back and to hate Darlene instead of the people he believed had power over him. “Instead, when he grew up, Cholly turned his fury on ‘petty things and weak people’ (38), especially Pecola and other members of his own family. As these examples suggest, anger and hatred are not enough to fight racism not only because they often miss their targets, but also because they are secondary emotions, driven in turn by shame and fear” (Bump