Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Root of All Evil

With Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison does not present the reader with pain neatly wrapped up and tied with a bow. No, Morrison slams in our faces a pain that is unraveling and trailing shreds of paper and rotting string. The forces of racism, poverty, and violence intersect all the intersecting lives of Frieda, Claudia, Pecola, Cholly, and Polly. The rape of young Pecola does not appear out of the blue, there is a societal build up that connects feelings of shame to sexuality and tightly ties violence to family. The penetration of Pecola is a manifestation of racism and violence’s perpetual penetration into the black society, constantly breaking down any sense of pride in self or race.

Shame and desire are tightly looped in the brain and loin of Cholly. His first sexual awakening occurs and is corrupted under the gaze of two white men. His pleasure is transformed into panic and pain. The fact that the two men hold long guns and allow the flashlight to worm “its way into his guts” initiate connections to this as a rape scene with Cholly at the center and the gun and flashlight standing as potent phallic symbols (148). The phallic symbols either represent the possibility of violent penetration or show the assertion of the white penis over the black. Cholly’s rape experience sets the precedent for his future rape of his own daughter; the power that is taken away from him as a youth can only be regained by asserting his power over another. Cholly’s first sexual experience is also significant because it exposes the emasculating effects of white society on black men. Initially, Cholly was able to be in control of the sexual activities occurring between him and Darlene. The introduction of the voyeuristic white’s transfers control over both Cholly and Darlene into their hands.

Going further with this idea of the emasculation of black men, we can see that it plays a large role in the novel. There are no strong male characters; instead women dominate the pages and power roles. Why this lack? Is it isolated within the novel or does it speak to larger cultural conditions? My feeling is that the appearance of so few positive male characters is a reflection of how the dominant white culture maintains a racial hierarchy through the disempowerment of black men. This is of course clearly seen in the section I mentioned previously, but also noticeable due to the fact that the black men in the novel are sexually drawn to children. Why the prevalence of pedophilia? In previous studies I learned of three negative stereotypes attached to black women: the Mammy, the Jezebel, and the Sapphire. For my purposes I want to connect how the Sapphire (a strong African American woman who’s presence serves to undermine the masculinity of the African American male) could be a reason for the sexual drive towards children. Because the Sapphire figure exerts control over them, the black male is more likely to find sexual desire over children because he can dominate them. The novel gives us three such encounters:

1. The attempts of Mr. Henry to touch Frieda.

2. Soaphead Church’s inappropriate groping

3. Cholly’s rape of Pecola.

The fact that all these men are attracted to—or at least to the sense of domination over— children seems to hint at a systemic problem and my guess is that white culture’s emasculation attempts (claiming black women for themselves, creating the Sapphire stereotype) are at the root of it.

So let us return to the root of the novel’s violence: the heinous act Cholly performs is rooted in not only a perverse desire but in a cultural pattern as well. His main desire appears not to be limited to his daughter but centered in his desire for a return to a sense of power. “Guilt and impotence rose in a bilious duet” (161). His cultural circumstances have left him floundering and confused as he is inundated by conflicting emotions and conflicting power roles. “He wanted to break her neck—but tenderly” (161). “He wanted to fuck her—tenderly” (162-3). Morrison seems to be using this convolution of emotion to express the displacement of an entire racialized sex. The overwhelming forces of racism have forced black men to connect violence with love, because it has become their only method of rehearsing power in a white man’ society.

1 comment:

  1. You bring up a good point, I think it's important to recognize that not only is Toni Morrison trying to get a point across by portraying the black male characters in the book as violent but that all of the victims are young girls. Little black girls are some of the most helpless within the black community and yet violence gets played out on their bodies. I think its important to recognize while all of this is happening no one, not even the black women from the neighborhood try and save/help/prevent or even reach out to Pecola after she is raped by her father. Instead the women gossip and even place blame on Pecola, "they were disgusted, amused, shocked, outraged, or even excited by the story" (190). Pecola's own mother beats her and blames her. While black men are learning to love violently, racism is simultaneously teaching women something. What is being reinforced that allows for fragmentation of black women?

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