The Bluest Eye Commentary
The Bluest Eye depicts the social conditions and psychology of black citizens in post-World War II United States. This excerpt, situated in the Autumn part of the book, introduces the reader to a family, the Breedloves, part of whom is the protagonist, Pecola. The point of view is omniscient, enabling the author to describe the family, their house and state of mind.
This extract has several layers of meaning : it depicts the physical, then moral conditions of the Breedloves, but also sheds light on racial inequalities in society.
Toni Morison, by describing this traumatising and traumatised family, highlights how ugliness has become an identity as well as a social function for the African Americans, and points out the state of mind of the whole society at that time.
Dick and Jane narrative : oppressive, stifling, no breathing. inverted mirror, complete opposition with the description of the family, irony of the name « Breedlove ».
This mood continues with the description of the place where the Breedloves live. A storefront, living in a shop-window, lack of self-worth (don’t seem to think they deserve a proper house), but also lack of privacy, intimacy, not a place for a family to live and love each other. Might be called a house, but not a home, the place doesn’t seem adapted to family life (no love, no warmth, impersonal, the family seems to be fake, no unity, just violence). Moreover, seem to be animals in a cage, a zoo, here to be stared at for their ugliness. Word family between two dashes : imprisonment, they are caught in their storefront, trapped. Their physical ugliness is defined, described, but their are both negative and positive terms, the narrator seems to be neutral, ugliness is therefore seen as subjective, and not as objective as society and the characters seem to think it is, it is actually the wy they are seen, not the way they are. We might think that they are normal people, who have been convinced by society of their ugliness.
This extract has several layers of meaning : it depicts the physical, then moral conditions of the Breedloves, but also sheds light on racial inequalities in society.
Toni Morison, by describing this traumatising and traumatised family, highlights how ugliness has become an identity as well as a social function for the African Americans, and points out the state of mind of the whole society at that time.
Dick and Jane narrative : oppressive, stifling, no breathing. inverted mirror, complete opposition with the description of the family, irony of the name « Breedlove ».
This mood continues with the description of the place where the Breedloves live. A storefront, living in a shop-window, lack of self-worth (don’t seem to think they deserve a proper house), but also lack of privacy, intimacy, not a place for a family to live and love each other. Might be called a house, but not a home, the place doesn’t seem adapted to family life (no love, no warmth, impersonal, the family seems to be fake, no unity, just violence). Moreover, seem to be animals in a cage, a zoo, here to be stared at for their ugliness. Word family between two dashes : imprisonment, they are caught in their storefront, trapped. Their physical ugliness is defined, described, but their are both negative and positive terms, the narrator seems to be neutral, ugliness is therefore seen as subjective, and not as objective as society and the characters seem to think it is, it is actually the wy they are seen, not the way they are. We might think that they are normal people, who have been convinced by society of their ugliness.