By​: Rodrigo Mota

Prompt​: Discuss the ways that the writer has presented characters that feel alienated from their society in the
work you have studied.

Toni Morrison was an African American novelist, editor, and professor. She was the

first African American woman who received the Nobel Prize in Literature back in 1993. Her

work has been considered by many to be one of, if not the best, of her generation and time,

not only for the great quality of her writing and unmistakable style but also for addressing the

problems of Black Americans, especially Black Women, in the United States, in an unfair

society, where sexism, racism, and alienation are constant.

Her first novel, ​The Bluest Eye​, published back in 1970, is set in the 1940s in her town

of origin, Lorain, Ohio. The novel portrays the experiences lived by Black migrants from the

South in the middle of the 20th century, when they traveled up North looking for new

opportunities and another quality of life, but which unfortunately were not well succeeded.

The Bluest Eye tells the sad story of Pecola Breedlove, an African American girl who

is mistreated by her parents and marginalized by the society that she belongs because of her

color. Pecola struggles to be accepted in her society and for that reason, she is obsessed with

having blue eyes like most white girls. Pecola’s story is told through different narrators, but

Morrison chose Claudia Macteer, a friend of Pecola to be the main narrator, using Claudia’s

point of view during her childhood and as an adult. ​The Bluest Eye portrays the disastrous

effects of alienation on the Breedloves family, where everyone sofer from alienation. Parents

who suffer from alienation due to abuse, disrespect, and lacking affection from their parents,

will raise alienated children, and this is what is going on in this family. Moreover, alienation

is further motivated by the society where they are a part of, built upon socio-economic,

cultural, gender, and racial inequalities.

 Cholly Breedlove is one of the male characters in Morrison's ​The Bluest Eye.​ His life

was negatively affected by his complicated childhood (or lack thereof). As a young child,

Cholly was “abandoned in a junk heap by his mother” and “rejected for a crap game by his

father” (Morrison, 158). He was raised by his Great Aunt Jimmy, who died while he was a

teenager, where he ended up being alone. For that reason, he grew up stunned by the idea of

​having been rejected by both parents and lacking an identity. His father even refused to admit

that he was his son. Therefore, Cholly was abused by two White men who had forced him to

rape a girl when he was a teenager after threatening him with a gun. With this tragic past,

where he was deprived of the care and protection of parents and racially abused, he transfers

all his anger towards his daughter and wife, whom he physically harasses and ends up raping

his daughter on two occasions. “The sum of all his inarticulate fury poured over her"

(Morrison, 40) He wants to alienate himself and all those around him. Cholly lives isolated

with an inability to connect with his family and his community that is filled with White and

Black people resulting in a desire for freedom. He thinks that being free means being allowed

to do everything and anything he wants, without the added responsibility of someone, not

even with himself. In other words, “Cholly was free. Dangerously free” (Morrison, 157).

As a result, Pauline Breedlove, Cholly’s wife, feels detached from her husband.

Pauline often talks about alienation in her relationship with her husband. Her marriage was

destroyed by violent fights and physical abuse, where she described it to be "the lonesomest

time of my life" (Morrison, 115). “Their marriage was shredded with quarrels" (Morrison,

116) as Pauline never received the comfort or love she wanted from her husband. On the

contrary, “Cholly commenced to getting meaner and meaner and wanted to fight me all of the

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time" (Morrison, 116) "But the loneliness in those two rooms had not gone away" (Morrison,

119). As a Black woman beaten by her husband, Pauline is considered a woman of no value

in her society and has no strength, not even the authority to change her situation signifying

that she is also alienated from her society. Pauline’s anger against the world and

disagreements filled their household. Their hatred gets transcended towards their kids forcing

them to try and escape the madness. This is seen when Sammy is neglected for most of the

story and even screams at Pauline to "kill him! kill him!" (Morrison, 42). Moreover, Pecola’s

birth further detaches her from society because Pauline sees her newborn child as an ugly

Black little girl, the same way everyone else in their neighborhood does. This pregnancy

forces Pauline to quit her job, making her even more dependent on Cholly and increasing her

depression. She realizes all the anger she felt and directed at her children but claims that she

feels sorry despite not being able to stop.

Therefore, Pecola suffers the most from self-alienation, which originated from the

segregation she receives from the people around her, especially from her father and mother.

She feels alone, unloved, and unprotected by her parents. Both parents mistreated her

violently. She was raped by her father and her mother Pauline does not give love and

affection to her but to her White employer’s daughter "Her calling Mrs. Breedlove Polly

when even Pecola called her mother Mrs. Breedlove" (Morrison, 106). All of this creates a

deep sadness in Pecola. She starts to hate herself and, subsequently, self-alienate. When

Pecola happens to drop a pan of blueberry pie accidentally on the floor, Pauline immediately

takes the side of the employer's daughter "hushing and soothing the tears of the little

pink-and-yellow girl" (Morrison, 107) instead of caring for her daughter. In school, she gets

bullied by her peers because she is Black and "ugly". Her strong emotions towards her

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ugliness create a self-obsession in her to have blue eyes. She does anything in her power to

have blue eyes, as they symbolize the beauty and happiness of the white girls. The “blue

eyes” hence the name of the book, are the leading factors to her character’s collapse. Her

strong desire to have something she will never possess displays how much hate has been

directed at her whilst being cut off by everyone around her as seen when Claudia says, "We

avoided Pecola Breedlove—forever." (Morrison, 203). In many ways, Pecola can be said to

be stuck in this recurring dream that she is not able to escape.

To summarize, Toni Morrison’s ​The Bluest Eye t​ ries to expose all the social and

psychological factors that lead to the alienation of the Black Americans from the 1940s.

Through Pecola Breedlove's tragic life, Morrison demonstrated how racism, sexism, social

and cultural injustices may alienate people from their society and themselves, whilst the

consequences can pass through different generations.