Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Eyes in The Bluest Eye

When I look at people, one of the first things I tend to notice is eye color. I like eyes, I think they’re pretty, and I totally understand Morrison’s slight obsession with them in the novel. Eyes are not like hair or skin, which come in a variety of colors and textures- they have more depth. People have been fascinated with eyes for centuries because it’s widely believed that the eyes hold some sort of truth.

Eyes are very important to viewing the world, how we see determines how we interpret everything around us. This becomes especially prevalent in The Bluest Eye because beauty is portrayed in such a visible way. In the novel, there is no inner beauty, only what people see you as, and they make judgments from there. The character of Geraldine didn’t even bother to hear what Pecola had to say or even ask her what happened to the cat. She took one look at Pecola and all she saw was her dirt, poverty, and self-accepted ugliness. She looked at her and saw everything that she tried so hard to distance herself from. Pecola’s very presence in her house was undermining everything she had worked so hard for. And why? Because of the color of her skin, the color of her eyes, because she was too black and too impoverished.

For Pecola, blue eyes are the ultimate symbol of whiteness and therefore of beauty. She sees them everywhere like on the Shirley Temple cup and the Mary Jane candy, and they only reaffirm her thoughts. Maureen is only half way between Pecola and Mary Jane because she has green eyes instead of the coveted blue. They show that she is stuck in the middle- not quite black, not quite white, and not quite brown eyed, but not quite blue eyed either. Maureen is able to flit between blacks and whites as she wishes because of the lightness of her skin and the color of her eyes. Skimming through the segment with Maureen, I saw that Morrison mentions her eyes about five times. For a character with such a small part in the scheme of the book a lot of emphasis is placed on her ability to move between social classes because of her looks, especially her eyes.

I think that Morrison decided to focus on eyes because they’re captivating, and they also can’t be changed without modern technology like colored contacts. Hair can be dyed or dreaded, cut long or short. It can be made to be an expression of who you want to portray yourself as to the world. Skin while very much unchangeable besides tanning, is not a new concept. It’s not hard to find literature on how difference of skin color affected young people growing up in times of racism. Eyes on the other hand are not usually the first thing that comes to mind when discussing differences of race. They are powerful. They are where a lie betrays itself, where you look when talking to people and trying to make a connection, and the first barrier for how you see the world. Seeing is believing, and Pecola only needed to see her new blue eyes to believe that they really truly exist and that she is beautiful.

1 comment:

  1. I think you bring up a very good point about the character Maureen. I never really thought about the color of her eyes being an in between color like her skin. This made it easier for her to get along with both the black and white children in her class and emphasized her ability to move from a lower class to a higher class after her family had won the law suit. She does have such a small part in the book, but her eyes are focused on just as much as her conversations with Pecola. Why?
    Eye color is a very obvious thing and many people notice it very quickly. Many girls even question the love of their partners by asking them what color their eyes are while covering their face. If the partner gets it wrong, the girl gets very upset. But why is seeing the color of someone's eyes so important? Why can't we just appreciate the eyes we have and that we can see and not worry about the color and how it can place us into different social and economic statuses?

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