Evil of Fulfillment in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye :: Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye

Evil of Fulfillment   The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, tells the sordid story of Pecola, a young colored girl, as she struggles to attain peach tree, desperately praying for blue eyes. Depicting the fallacies in the storybook family, Morrison weaves the histories of the many colored town folk into the true definition of a family. Through intense metaphor and emotion, the ugliness of racial tension overcomes the search for beauty and in turn the search for love. Pecola, a twelve year gray-headed from a broken home, is first introduced when she is sent to live with Claudia (the narrator) and her family. Her father, Cholly Breedlove, a drunk, has burnt down the familys home and is now in jail. Here we see Pecolas want for beauty and her obsession with Shirley Temple and blonde haired, blue-eyed baby dolls as a common desire of young black females. This want for beauty is really a yearning for love, the love and adoration they see attri plainlyed to the living dolls. I wanted t o discover what eluded me the secret of the magic they weaved on opposites. What made people look at them and say Awwwww, but not for me? The eye slide of black women as they passed them on the street, and the possessive gentleness of their touch as they handled them (15). The children, so used to being beaten or whipped, imbibe memories only of this treatment. They have never felt the warmth or love that they believe the white children receive. This pain turns them to believe that it is because of their color, their dark skin, dark eyes, and confounded hair, that they are not seen as being beautiful, and from these thoughts they begin to hate the beauty of the white children. Living in fear of her parents, Pecola becomes introverted and learns as many of the other children to deal with the pain. Mamas song left me with the conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet (18). An undertone of sexual fantasies and discovery is present throughout the novel, as many of t he characters have been products of loveless relationships. The men especially seek passion in the young girls, leading eventually to the confrontation between Pecola and Cholly, during which he rapes and impregnates her still developing body. It is later this immoral act that Pecola seeks Soaphead Church for the answer to her prayers.