The Bluest Eye
'Passing' (for white) is a cultural phenomenon that has captivated writers throughout American letters (the list includes names as diverse as Charles Chesnutt, Sinclair Lewis, Nella Larsen, Mark Twain, William Faulkner). Today this American trope seeems as far removed from the American literary conscience as the Ice Age.
In each of her seven novels and in her sole short story, Toni Morrison invokes the passing myth, sometimes in only one or two paragraphs, often done indirectly.
The Bluest Eye features a dark-skinned child who cannot possibly pass for white, yet Pecola Breedlove ignores biology and becomes (if only to herself) a blue-eyed Shirley Temple. Although some might consider Pecola's delusion a weak (or perhaps specious) representation of passing for white, The Bluest Eye artfully reinforces its interest in racial passing by alluding to Peola, the passing figure in Imitation of Life. This intertextual play effectively evokes the myth without actually representing the phenomenon of passing, and in this way Morrison decenters and deforms the traditional passing figure. In your opinion, why is this an important strating point for the novelist?
posted by belag @ Wednesday, October 10, 2007
13 Comments:
What are the effects of misagenation or eugenics on the characters in the novel? Why a girl's voice for a narrator?
Just looking at the comments "For example black people want to have white skin." If anything this should switch you to alarm klaxon mode...Sure it's out of context, but it shows just how dangerous these topics get (more than the occasional reporter has lost his or her job for a poor turn of phrase).
true, but this is also a free forum where people are pouring in their ideas, sometimes in the crude, however never invalid...no lingual witch-hunt...
You'd be surprised what construes a lingual witchhunt on an open forum...especially if you spend a lot of time on forums (I do). Endless quotes, quibbles over spelling and far lesser things than the above notation.
This novel must have faced some seriously bad critique in its time of publication, fairly "shocking" twist and one has to wonder if it has ever been done in literature before... (Has it?)
Although today 'passing for white' is something even unknown to us; the encounter with it in literature sure made an impact on me.
Pecola is one of the strongest examples(in my opinion) for wanting to pass for white. She desperately wants blue eyes, and in the end, she gets them. Although the passing myth is not directly explained, we can see through Pecola the wish of passing for white and the 'elements' of being white. It acctually shows the reader the real side of 'passing', making it personal and presenting it through the character of a broken little girl; instead of just writing it out and explaining it to the reader. By doing this Morrison creates a better effect of the narative, which makes this book so powerful.
good keep it on
Why is it important? Simply because it emphasizes Morrison's amazing style of writing. When you say something explicitly, it's not much a big of a deal. I could do it by myself. I could say one is passing for white and that's it. However, the point (which distinguishes a good novelist from a crappy literature writer) is to say things in such a way that even when the meaning is implicit, it is as clear as it would have been if it were explicit. Morrison does not say it out loud that one is passing for white. Yet, she describes the situation in an awesome fashion; even though she never mentions a term even close to "passing for white", the readers know that that's what she is trying to convey.
In this case, it is achieved partially by intertextuality. The blue-eyed Shirley Temple thing is something that most of the readers can understand. But the indirect allusion to Imitation of Life is something that only a limited number of people would notice; not many contemporary (as: of today) readers have seen this 1930s film.
Albeit Morrison's language is not that hard, the content is. That's why I think of her as an author who appears to be reader-friendly, but actually isn't. And that isn't a bad thing at all.
At least she does not make use of a Hegelian sentence.
indeed; no self-respecting editor would do that.
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Morrison unveils the passing for white phenomenon at several points in the narrative. Actually, the novel itself follows a few character types, male and female, who each in their own way try to pass for white.
Geraldine is the perfect "clean", light-skin coloured, housewife, conformist. Soaphead Church is a mulatto trying desperately to attain the power of whiteness. Pecola wishes to become cute and white like Shirley Temple and Mary Jane, and in the end asks for blue eyes.
The way I see it is that these people have two choices; to hide themselves behind a mask, a cloak (of ugliness), as means of protection from whiteness, or to try to pass for white and become the whiteness themselves. Morrison does not plainly state the fact that most of her characters try to pass for white, rather she does this through intertext and metaphor, hence the reader is free to contemplate on the multiple implications each sentence offers.
I like how Morrison builds on the passing for white myth utilizing the multi-layeredness of the narration. The first time we see Pecola’s fascination with Shirley Temples, we see it through the perspective of young Claudia. Even Claudia is confused by this, but she quickly turns our attention on her inherent rage against pink-skinned, blue-eyed, blond-haired dolls and girls. Later, the omniscient narrator builds on this aspect introducing Pecola’s perspective. We get to know that she wants blue eyes, indirectly getting to know that she wishes to pass for white.
Also the pointing out of Geraldine (and women similar to her) is done first from the perspective of the narrator as a social critic and than through the perspective of Geraldine’s kid Louis Junior and Pecola. The description of the “brown women” as a social concept provides just a distant, bleak, monotonous image in the reader’s mind but when we see how Geraldine treats Pecola and what a devil of a boy her values and habits have produced, we can almost taste the misery.
What makes Morrison a good novelist is her ability to decide exactly when to guide the reader and when to leave him feel around the events and the atmosphere. The camera eye technique used during the rape scene creates zoomed up snapshots which we try to figure out and arrange like pieces of a puzzle. The reader’s search for coherence between all the human perspectives in the novel makes for an engaging read.
Throughout the novel there are several direct and indirect cases concerning the idea of "passing for white".
An example of a direct case would be the women from Aiken, Mobile, etc., more specifically Geraldine. She does indeed try to pass for white in that she, first, is of a lighter skin(brown), and second, she is open to the idea of patriarchy and the expectations it has of its women. She does what is expected of her as white women also do. Thus in a sense she is passing for white and this is directly shown to us.
Pecola, also, tries to "pass for white", but her way of doing this is more intricate than the case with Geraldine. This case is one that is presented indirectly by the author; Morrison doesn't state that this little girl, Pecola, wants to pass for white, rather she implies that Pecola has the desire for blue eyes like the little white girls, such as Shirley Temple. In the end, Pecola passes for white, however only in her own eyes; she actually goes insane after the acquirement of the "blue eyes" she so passionately desired.
I acually think that this novel is more about the perseption of beauty then about blackness vs whiteness. However, since the perseption of beauty involves light skin and all the main characters are black there are inevidably going to be black vs white moments. However, Pecola was not trying to "pass for white" when she asked for blue eyes, she just wanted to no longer be ugly.
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