Universidade de Brasília - UnB

Departamento de Teoria Literária e Literaturas - TEL

TEL0047 - LITERATURA NORTE-AMERICANA III - NARRATIVA SÉCULO XX
Madson Calil Aleixo Gomes (190033819)

PAULINE BREEDLOVE'S LONELINESS AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PECOLA'S

DESTINY IN THE BLUEST EYE BY TONI MORRISON.

Abstract
The following paper has the intention of analyzing Pauline and Pecola Breedlove,
two of the main characters in Toni Morrison's book The Bluest Eye. The analysis is
based on the perspective of white beauty ideology as a staple of structural racism,
disrupting both individuals and groups of people, especially families. The objective is to
propose a direct relation between Pauline's circumstances and Pecola's destiny in the
story, creating a cohesive overview of the facts and their consequences.
Keywords: displacement, loneliness, beauty, girlhood, black identity, whiteness,
white oppression, visibility.

1 Introduction
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye was written during the heat of the Civil Rights and
Black Is Beautiful movements in the United States, the latter as an attempt to change
the racist concept of "black ugliness", which was widely disseminated among society as
a pillar of structural racism. Through the means of photoshoots, fashion shows and
demonstrations of counterculture, the movement was the first opportunity of the black
community to defend their own image, influencing not only public opinion but also
intellectual production.
The elements of the plot show such influence, as the concept of beauty plays a
major role in the book. Even in technicality, there is a conscious effort to demonstrate
the problem through different points of view. The narrative's pace and sequence give
the reader an opportunity to understand how beauty standards are a destructive
weapon, not only capable of isolating individuals, but affecting communities as well,
deeply disrupting family relations. And that is true even for a reader not well versed in
the social context of the United States during this period. The reader may be inclined to
feel empathy towards Pecola Breedlove. The main character is a black girl who faces
relentless hardships supposedly provoked by her "ugliness", while hiding a deep desire
to obtain blue eyes and adjust herself to a white beauty standard, and fighting her
loneliness. This feeling of empathy might occur due to a dislike towards another pivotal
character: Ms. Breedlove, with her unloving way of treating her daughter. Labeling her
as a "villain", especially in such a realistic story, goes too far. However, there is no
incentive that might spark a feeling of sympathy for her. Later on, the reader is
presented to her rough trajectory, slowly but surely solving her puzzle of suffering,
loneliness and displacement. Only after solving such a puzzle, the reader is challenged
to understand Pecola, how everything her mother endured served almost as a
cautionary tale about the cruel effects of white oppression, and how especially black
girls are vulnerable to those effects.
This said, the aim of the following paper is to describe this path’s steps, focusing
on the mirroring elements presented in the narrative of both characters, demonstrating
how one influences the other. By doing so, this analysis will provide evidence of an
oppression cycle which traps both of them during the entire novel.

2 Loneliness as a source of perpetual suffering

Morrison's technique excels at showing an uneasy but realistic lack of mercy
within the character's life story. Both Pauline and Pecola deal with blatant and cruel
displacement, and it is possible to trace the origins of it back to feelings of loneliness
and isolation at a young age. Pauline reacts to loneliness by abandoning her duties
towards her family, which in turn causes the same problem of loneliness for her
daughter. As such, analyzing the events chronologically can paint a good overview of
the circumstances and reasons behind their hardships. White beauty ideology creates
a strong need to change one's self into something idealistic, for the sake of participating
in society, being treated with respect and feeling common emotions, like love and
belonging. The unobtainable nature of such ideals is, in turn, the root of a feeling of
isolation and loneliness. Çıraklı affirms (2017, p. 2):

Pecola, the protagonist of the novel, and her mother, a representative black
woman, are the victims of their own fantasy, which in due course is manifested
through a fake conception of beauty.

2.1 Pauline's Background on Loneliness and Inferiority Complex

Pauline's life is defined by loneliness from a very young age, as she suffers an
injury in her foot, crippling her ability to walk (p.110). Recordedly, it is the first time she
deals with isolation, receiving no recognition from her family. Trying to understand why,
Pauline reaches the conclusion that she is separated from the rest of her family
because of her disability. This is a child's attempt to understand neglect, and the only
reason she can see is the most self destructive one:

Slight as it was, this deformity explained for her many things that would have
been otherwise incomprehensible; why she is alone of all the children had no
nickname; why there were no funny jokes and anecdotes about funny things that
she had done... (Morrison, 2007, p. 111)

Neglect being incomprehensible is expected of a child, especially when such

neglect comes from the ones responsible for a proper explanation. Her appearance,
dictated by the disability, becomes a burden. This is the main reason for the
development of her inferiority complex, as noted by Ribka (2020, p. 36), and it only
changes when the character Cholly Breedlove appears in her life, not only recognizing
her as an individual, but making Pauline perceive her disability as an asset (Morrison,
2007, p.116). The beginning of their relationship serves as a period of rest in Pauline’s
life, in which she can finally feel love and acceptance.
This period comes to a close when the married couple moves to Ohio, where
Cholly finds a job and leaves Pauline alone for most of the day. As an attempt to fit in
with the new neighborhood, she gets isolated, even from the back women living there.
Engaging in the search for a job in order to buy clothes and feel accepted, she only
finds more isolation (MORRISON, 2007, p.118):

Money became the focus of all their discussions, hers for clothes, his for drink.
The sad thing was that Pauline did not really care for clothes and makeup. She
merely wanted other women to cast favorable glances her way.

A turning point would come shortly after, not for the best, but as a direct
consequence of the hardships involving loneliness.

2.2 Pauline's surrender to white standards, and her superiority complex

As someone cornered by white beauty ideology and by an inferiority complex
born from this ideology, Pauline naturally develops an emotional countermeasure, in the
form of an antithetical superiority complex, as stated by Ribka (2020, p.41): "Pauline
Breedlove becomes a person with the superiority complex in order to escape from her
loneliness and rejection from her society". This path starts when Pauline gets a job at a
white family's household (p.118). Pauline finds, in their unkind treatment towards her,
more fuel for loneliness and depression, awakening old dreams about love and
acceptance. Those dreams elevate with her experiences watching certain movies,
which involved the ways of white folks and their perfect relationships, distorting the way
she looks at her own life. Such an illusion is only broken when, after trying to do her hair
like the white actress Jean Harlow, Pauline loses one tooth while biting a piece of candy
(p.123). Forced to face the untrue reality of her ugliness by comparing herself to a white
woman, she gives up on trying to imitate Harlow. When her second child, Pecola, is
born, the white beauty ideology had already changed Pauline, and even though she has
the task of being a mother, the first thing she thinks about is: I knowed she was ugly.
Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly (Morrison, 2007, p. 126).
After some time, while Pecola is still very young, Pauline finds a permanent job with the
Fischers, a white family that treated her with condescending kindness, to the extent of
calling her the ideal servant (p.127). Surrounded by luxury and belonging, a dangerous
contrast grows between her life with the Fischers and with her own family. With time, it
finally reaches the point of neglect, directly affecting Pecola further on:
 "More and more she neglected her house, her children, her man-they were like
the afterthoughts one has just before sleep, the early-morning and late-evening
edges of her day, the dark edges that made the daily life with the Fishers lighter,
more delicate, more lovely." (Morrison, 2007, p. 127)

"Power, praise, and luxury were hers in this household. They even gave her what
she had never had a nickname-Polly." (Morrison, 2007, p. 128)

This is the form her superiority complex takes, as a hardworking black

woman surrounded by the luxuries of white people, feeling like she belongs with them.
The fact she was given a nickname is of great importance, since it was a level of
intimacy that lacked during her childhood, something she deeply wished for. The
Fischer family gave Pauline something she only had once, with Cholly: visibility. Such
"gift", although born from prejudice, is enough to seduce someone so hurt by years of
loneliness.

2.3 Pecola's background of loneliness and the search for Blue Eyes
Pecola Breedlove's childhood can also be defined by isolation, a shared feature
with her mother's childhood which is evidence enough of a critique on structural racism.
After all, it is already established that the narrative was influenced by the Civil Rights
movement, which demanded structural changes to race relations in the United States.
At the same time, her loneliness also stems from another circumstance: the lack of
support and care from her family. Pecola comes from a broken household, in which her
father, usually drunk, and her mother, usually discontent for reasons already explained,
fight violently on a regular basis. By the time Pecola is old enough to begin a search for
answers, structural racism has another debilitated individual to plant white beauty
ideology on. As such, Pecola reaches the same conclusion as her mother: she is not
worthy of love due to her supposed ugliness, which comes from the fact that she is a
black girl. She notices evidence of it as white girls received love, even from her unloving
mother, as demonstrated during Pecola’s visit to the Fischer household (MORRISON,
2007, p.109):
 "The little girl in pink started to cry. Mrs. Breedlove turned to her. “Hush, baby, hush.
Come here. Oh, Lord, look at your dress. Don’t cry no more. Polly will change it.” She
went to the sink and turned tap water on a fresh towel. Over her shoulder she spit out
words to us like rotten pieces of apple. “Pick up that wash and get on out of here, so I can
get this mess cleaned up.” Pecola picked up the laundry bag, heavy with wet clothes, and
we stepped hurriedly out the door. As Pecola put the laundry bag in the wagon, we could
hear Mrs. Breedlove hushing and soothing the tears of the little pink-and-yellow girl."
(Morisson, 2007, p.109)

The character’s reaction to the untrue reason for her hardships is to recognize
symbols of white beauty ideology as ideals to achieve, and a way to eventually escape
the isolation and receive love. Two of those symbols are very important: Shirley
Temple’s character and blue eyes. Pecola, as well as other children, worshiped Shirley
Temple as an example of a cute white girl, and in an attempt of internalizing white
beauty, Pecola drinks large quantities of milk (p.23). In contrast, Claudia, another main
character of the novel, hates Shirley Temple and white dolls like her, since they are
worthy of love while she is not (p.19). As for blue eyes, a metaphor that extends to the
book's title, not only relates to the desire of acquiring white features, but goes even
beyond.
The blue eyes are directly related to vision; to what Pecola has seen and how
she wants to be seen. She witnessed huge amounts of violence in her home, and
racism towards herself. In a way, substituting her eyes for blue ones would not only
change her perceived state of ugliness, but also erase the images of segregation and
violence, enabling her to see the world like white people do. This is why, in an attempt
to disappear, her eyes are the only things impossible to erase, since they contain
everything (MORRISON, 2007, p. 45):

Try as she might, she could never get her eyes to disappear. So what was the
point? They were everything. Everything was there, in them. All of those pictures,
all of those faces.

By the end of the story, her desire for blue eyes distorts her own experiences.
A charlatan named Soaphead Church – also victim of the white beauty ideology – tricks
Pecola into killing a dog, assuring her that a miracle will happen and God will grant her
blue eyes, if the dog acts "strangely" (p.175). This way, she falls completely into the
delusions of having pretty blue eyes, supposedly becoming insane. The tragic outcome
is the uttermost consequence of the obsession with white beauty.

3 Conclusion
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison explores a multitude of topics involving black
girlhood and the struggles of the back community in general. By analyzing the story of
both Pauline and Pecola, tracing parallels, it is possible to see the intricate parts of one
of those topics, which are the destructive effects of white beauty ideology, and how it
can create a cycle capable of disrupting family relations within the black community.
In the analysis, Pauline's neglected childhood leads to isolation, which then leads
to vulnerability in face of structural racism (represented by white beauty ideology). In
this vulnerable state, she is inclined to normalize the rejection of her black roots and
divides her life in two situations: her "black" home, in which she finds discomfort and
burden, and her "white" home, where she finds acceptance, power and happiness. This
hurtful experience influences Pecola's path directly. In normal circumstances, Pecola
would already face difficulties regarding her race, but combined with the neglect she
suffers from both her parents, she finds herself in the same vulnerable situation her
mother endured years prior.
The destabilization of a family core is one of the most cruel effects of structural
racism, destroying one of the best options for support as a black child. It is not possible
to blame Pauline's Breedlove when her circumstances are analyzed. The root of the
problem is irredeemably structural, preceding any choice made by any of the characters
involved.

4 References
ADESINA, Precious. The birth of the Black is Beautiful movement. BBC Style.
Available on:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200730-the-birth-of-the-black-is-beautiful-movem
ent. August 30th 2020.

ÇIRAKLI, Mustafa Zaki, Disabled Vision and Schizophrenia in Toni Morrison’s The
Bluest Eye, 2017, Karadeniz Technical University.

MORRISON, Toni. The Bluest Eye. First International Vintage Edition, New York, May
2007.

POWERS, Jacob. "The Bluest Eye Chapter 3." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 21 Dec 2013.
Web. 18 Sep 2022.

POWERS, Jacob. "The Bluest Eye Chapter 7." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 21 Dec 2013.
Web. 18 Sep 2022.

RIBKA. The Influence of Pauline Breedlove's Inferiority Complex Toward her

Superiority Complex in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. 2020. Universitas Sanata
Dharma Yogyakarta.