Similarities Between The Bluest Eye And To Kill A Mockingbird

I found The Bluest Eye on an online list of books for people who enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird. I could see the similarities between the books only a few chapters in. Like Mockingbird, The Bluest Eye explains pressing social issues from (for the most part) a naïve child’s point of view. It makes the tale incredibly captivating, and the tragedies that occur all the more heartbreaking. The children don’t comprehend the extent of the situations they and their friends are put into, and don’t understand the community’s morals. They think like children, judge like children, and make decisions like children, without the impact of social norms and conditioning. However, The Bluest Eye takes a different turn. The novel is unique in that it gives insight

into the minds of all of the characters. It paints pictures of troubled people, some of whom are irredeemable villains, but all who are traumatized victims.

Though different in subject matter, The Bluest Eye and To Kill A Mockingbird both present compelling narratives on racism from sincere, child-like points of view. Although both novels are beautifully written, overall, The Bluest Eye triumphs when examined for the purpose of explaining and condemning racism.

One enormous difference between the two novels is that the narrator in Mocking Bird is white while The Bluest Eye’s narrator is black. This discrepancy displays a startling internalized self-hatred that contrasts with Mockingbird’s white vs. black litany. It shows the effect that racism has on each and every one of the characters’ lives, far beyond the more stand-alone incidents in Mockingbird. Lee’s Scout is a happy white girl in her town. Although she remains unprejudiced unlike many of her classmates and family members, she lives a fairly charmed life, playing with friends, acting in plays, and making mistakes. She faces a world-view altering moment in the incarceration of a black man. Morrison’s characters, on the other hand, are typical black children of their time. They deal with prejudice and bullying from teachers and classmates, parents, and even themselves. Their pivotal events are also centered around racism, but these children experience the consequences

directly. They face extraordinarily adult problems at very young ages, and bring rarely seen perspectives to the events (Scout in Mockingbird has this perspective as well). The Bluest Eye is especially unique because of its changing points of view. It is the sample size of an entire community. You see a girl hating Shirley Temple and baby dolls for their white idealizations, a girl, impregnated by her own father, sure that blue eyes will fix all her problems, a boy, taught to hate himself and women instead of the white men who terrorized them. You see strong characters do their best to overcome circumstances, and weak characters succumb to them. This type of narrative isn’t seen in Mockingbird, which falls more into the category of coming of age story. Morrison’s story telling style is extremely captivating. She gives backstories for each of her characters without telling you who they are. You feel pain and sympathy for the man who raped his own daughter, and are left questioning the circumstances that left him so shatteringly broken. One would instantly write off such a character as irredeemable, regardless of their backstory, as they well should, so Morrison uses an artful style to still get her point across. Most of all, her characters are shown to be human. The very best characters have moments of weakness. The very worst get down on their knees and pray to a God they’d long ago forsaken. The up close and personal accounts of racism in The Bluest Eye call to attention far deeper problems than any of the (very serious) ones discussed in Mockingbird.
The Bluest Eye is still a poignant tale today.

In an age when many love claiming that “racism doesn’t exist,” it’s important to examine the internal consequences of current and past acts of racism, of perpetuating ideals of a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl. The Bluest Eye shows the tragic consequences of girls taught to hate themselves. It shows what happens when a man is powerless to hate the white men causing him harm, and turns his anger on his own wife and family instead. Of a man, who takes the label of a crazy supernatural to make his living, demonized by white society and taking their projection and becoming the monster that they fear he is. But it also offers a bit of hope. In the direst of circumstances, it is the children, the children that make the novel so great, who have the power for change. Frieda and her sister give up their hard earned money to try and save Pecola and her baby. They don’t understand why she is so shunned; they only know of basic human love and dignity. It is Pecola, on her heart-breaking quest for the very bluest eyes, who compels Soaphead Church to write a striking letter to God. The outcasts of the outcasts, like Pecola’s prostitute friends, are willing to come together as well. Often, change works its way up from the bottom. Unfortunately, change never comes quickly enough in the life of Pecola, or in the lives of many of the other characters. The novel stays starkly honest. It didn’t get better in Frieda or Pecola’s lifetimes. But it’s

gotten better since, and it needs to continue to get better. Morrison’s novel is a persuasive force in this way.
The Bluest Eye is not just the kind of story where you fall in love with all of the characters. It’s one where you learn to hate an idea. By the end, your heart aches for each and every one of them, but you’re also left with the feeling of wanting to punch someone in the face. Maybe the men who caught Cholly in the woods, (definitely Cholly himself, but that’s beside the point), maybe Meringue Pie, maybe Shirley Temple herself. The Bluest Eye is such a heartbreaking story, with so many beautiful symbols and intricate elements woven in. For once, you should believe what you read on the Internet. Any fans of To Kill A Mockingbird will fall in love with The Bluest Eye. And everyone else should read it too.