The Role and Influences of Male Characters in The Bluest Eye

The Role and Influences of Male Characters in The Bluest Eye

There seems to be a certain part, a certain role that every male plays in this novel. Whether it be the kind, loving, hardworking father such as Mr. Macteer, or the lowdown no good evil men, like Cholly Breedlove, Soaphead Church, Mr. Henry, and the rest of the little hellion boys in the local school. In the novel, the role that most of the male characters seem to play is dark, evil, and despicable. Is there a reason for this? Is Tony Morrison sexist, biased toward women? What are the male characters' roles in the story? The answer to these questions lie in one simple statement: The function of the men in this story is to act exclusively evil, in order to produce other character's development.

From the beginning of this book, Morrison tells us of an evil act committed by a male character. "We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow" (Morrison 3). Morrison comes right out and lets us know that an act of incest with impregnation has occurred between father and daughter. Reading deeper into the story, we're introduced to the main characters, and we find out just how evil Morrison's male characters turn out to be.

Cholly Breedlove is depicted as a no good dog who burnt his house down, and therefore caused his family to be "outdoors", which in the narrator's eyes, is one of the worst, if not the worst possible thing that could happen to somebody. Later on, we get to know the present day Cholly when he and his wife have on of their "encounters". Cholly attacks his wife after she throws a dishpan full of cold water in his face, because he wouldn't get any coal to heat up the house. After some more ...

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...bright spot shining through, such as Mr. Macteer, or some heroic or humorous act that pulled this story together. Overall the book was depressing, and I thought the plot line needed some fine tuning, but Morrison executed some good character development and conflict, and that combined with some creative point of view shifts made for an interesting chronicle of human life. I think Morrison made the male characters the way she did, because she wanted to portray this story in a way as real as possible. She based the story loosely on some of her childhood experiences, and don't forget, she was around in the racist period of time that was in this country, so you can see where all this negativity comes from. So in short, Morrison essentially used male characters to stimulate character development, and to basically tell her story of someone's poor, unfortunate childhood.