Akbar 1

Synopsis:
The African-Americans have been transferred from their land and transplanted in a society where their very existence is questioned by the Eurocentric ideologies set by the social and psychological systems of subjugation. In an attempt to annihilate themselves of their blackness, they internalize the ways of the whites to become a part of their society. This unnatural assimilation into a foreign culture de-roots them from their own history making them lose their sense of belonging. The fears of being the Others make them isolate themselves from their own community, and associate with the oppressors by adopting their oppression. Placing Pecola in such a community, Morrison shows how a community can accelerate its destruction (n.pag). She is as alien to her surroundings as the African-Americans are to the American society. Her tragedy brought about by her own family stresses on the threats to the blacks from their intra-racial prejudice. The paper focuses on how Pecola has been treated by the familial, societal and psychological systems of oppression, in an attempt to explore why the black community is antagonizing its own heritage.

Akbar 2

Introduction:
The world of The Bluest Eye is differentiated along the lines of skin color, caste and class. The African-American mind being pre-occupied with the monomania of grounding its roots in the American culture is losing its connection with its own heritage. This obsession, unfulfilled injects a criminality in their mind, which to them is a peculiarity of their oppressors mind. I have publicized how the institutions of family, parenthood, community and religion, as well as the ideologies being propagated in the victimized conscious and sub-conscious bring about Pecolas abandonment and psychosis.

Research Methodology:
For this paper, discourse analysis has been employed, and an ethnographic study of the African culture has been made to enable a more comprehensive contextualized analysis of the ideas illustrated by the author. Inter-textual as well as cross references of the text have been made to substantiate the research.

Akbar 3

Literature Review:
The unnatural cohesion of African culture with the American culture, results in a psychic of the blacks, Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks illustrates how the subalterns are pushed to wear the mask of the dominant Other, that reduces them into being as an abject subject. (47) This pushing is done directly and indirectly through the replacements of the Classics of African American intellectual traditions by American ideologies. (Greenwood, n.pag) These ideologies are imbued in their psychology through various ways, like the cinematic negation of the black appearance and the myopic black female body in cinema (Joy Wills, n.pag), the unsafe and unhealthy school environment (Merrell-James, n.pag) and American literature with Autonomy, authority and absolute power.. as thematic concerns (Morrison, 84) , culturally decimated the black youth by the adoption of crime-causative role of inner city black families(Wilson, n.pag.) Chicago Tribune writer Paul Weingarten states: The dilemma is the explosive rise of an alienated black underclass whose rootlessness, violence and debased values dominate the ghetto?(n.pag) Morrison questions the most well-known of Americas iconic symbols the melting pot by interrogating their very intentions (Web, n.pag). Morrison extends the concept of Frederick Douglasss party of freedom (Web, n.pag) saying, "Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another (Web, n.pag) Pecolas tragedy compels the blacks to develop their sense of identity, so as to produce an emotionally and psychologically stable generation unlike those mentioned by Ntozake Shange in his saying that, When I die, I will not

Akbar 4

be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves. (Web, n.pag)

Akbar 5

Data Analysis:
He would cry out on life, that what it wants Is not its own love back in copy speech, But counter-love, original response. And nothing ever came of what he cried... Robert Frost "The Most of It"( Bly, 85) In a marginalized society, where women were a victim of the aversion of the white as well as th black men, the tragic mania of Pecolas life presents the most vulnerable of the victims- the Afro-American female child (Morrison, n.pag). Despised, disgusted and discarded by her parents and surroundings, Pecola trades her sanity in exchange of blue eyes. Morrison uses the bluest eye as a metaphor to show the longing for white beauty that came with a promise of white life. Various societal and psychological canons in the novel show how deeply these standards have imbued in the Afro-American psychology of the young and the old. Richard Wright in Black Boy says: At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering."

Akbar 6

Though the Afro-Americans in The Bluest Eye are no longer enslaved, but the definite inferiority complex makes them what Morrison calls the cannon fodder (Morrison, 132). This is the class to which the Breedloves belong. The communitys rejection of the family makes them live alone with their unique ugliness to the point of monomania. Chollys abandonment by his mother and rejection by his father leaves him absolutely stranded, his encounter with the white hunters results in his loss of tenderness. He practically denies his relationship with his daughter. Cholly rapes her because he does not know how to show love to her as he had no models of a father. Pauline transfers her disgust of her own ugliness onto Pecola. Her fascination to the Dreamland Theatre leads Pauline to leave behind those who do not measure upto her set standard. She injects fear of being clumsy in her daughter connecting it to the fear of not being love by God. (Morrison, 106) She relieves herself of this ugliness by being the Polly of the Fishers while to Pecola, she spits out words "like rotten pieces of apple" (109). A community that wishes death for a baby on terms of its physical appearance fails to provide any sense of connection to Pecola because of its profoundly permeated racist, sexist and classist approach. As novel traces the environment that produces this crisis in Pecolas life, we come to find out that trauma is constituted by a dialectic between the two discrete cultures that ultimately deferred act of understanding and interpretation making the people distant from their true selves, families, race and heritage. (Orteg, n.pag) A pattern of preference is presented in the story, showing how the seeds of Pecola's neurosis have been planted in the lives of preceding generations. People like Maureen Peal, Soaphead and Geraldine represent the hierarchy of the classes struggling to wash away their blackness. Maureen Peal befriends Pecola for a short time, only to dismiss her later as black e mo. For Geraldine, Pecola is not a human being, but a class, a type that she hates; they were

Akbar 7

everywhere...Like flies they hovered, like flies they settled.(Morrison, 72) their hatred for her emerges from their fear of being associated to the Others and results in their adoption of the white mask of which Fanon talks about. The McTeers in the novel, though comfortable in their skin color, treats her as a case. The women are an important yet unnamed character in the novel who seem to be Morrisons personification of the community, they gossip, judge and comment but never get involved in the action of the novel. Only the prostitutes treated her like any other little girl. Morrison shows how opposite the black community has become to the actual Afriacn heritage where the role of community was of primal importance. (Web, n.pag)

What dismantles the connection in the blacks to their identity is the popular and canonical representation of American life. Coupling prevalence of intra racial subjugation and emergence of inter racial oppression, Morrison shows how a racist social system wears down the minds people, the dominant images of white heroes and heroines with blue eyes, and the wonderful lives shown to the young black children make them believe that to be white means to be successful and happy, and then they look around at their own lives of poverty and oppression and learn to hate their black heritage for keeping them from the white life of comfort, dignity and identity.(Morris, n.pag)

This sense of loss makes them forget what their theology offers, Cholly imagination of God as "a nice old white man, with long white hair, flowing white beard, and little blue eyes" (Morrison,134) is juxtaposed with his fascination with the strong, black devilblotting out the sun,(134). Paulines association to the Church and Geraldines Bible lying in the table fail to

Akbar 8

remove the blots of white ideologies. This very well justifies why Jesus looks at the misery of Pecola with unsurprised eyes.

Morrison challenges the myth of American Meritocracy by depicting a world full of prejudices in The Bluest Eye to a world that calls itself right and moral. She does not solve these problems; she only alarms the blacks of the consequences of derootedness. Pecolas desire to exchange her eyes with the bluest eye is a metaphor to show the Afro-American communitys aspiration for getting rid of their heritage and planting themselves in the Anglo-American culture so as to get rid of all of those pictures. All of those faces that Pecolas eyes and the African history behold. (Morrison, 38) As she continues to live after losing her sanity, Pecolas wandering reminds the community of the ugliness and hatred that they have tried to repress, and warns about its recurrence, as spring, winter, summer and autumn. (Bharti, 42)

Conclusion:
The inter-racial discrimination and intra-racial de-rootedness traumatize Pecolas as well as the black communitys search for self-identity. The phantom of post-colonial tyranny gives rise to a race which in no way depicts its heritage. The demand of the time and the tragic circumstances is to arise from the state of self-denial and re-incarnate the true African heritage in individual selfhood as well as the communal and theological institutions.

Akbar 9

List of the Works Consulted:

Print: Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove, 1967. Print. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume, 1970. Print. ----, Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature. Toni Morrison. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publisher, 1990. Print. -----. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992. Print

Web Articles: Bly, Robert. News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness. Google Book Search. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Dora. Inspiration, Idolatry and Insanity: the search for and loss of self in The Bluest Eye. Chasing Rainbows: A black girl's search for Inspiration and Identity. Angelfire.com. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Gibson, Donald B. "The Evil of Fulfillment": Scapegoating and Narration in The Bluest Eye. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. 1995. 85

Akbar 10

Jasminen."Imitation of Life" (1934): Black Female Spectatorship and the Oppositional Gaze.2 Dec. 2008. PennTags. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Lombardi, Esther. Black Boy Quotes: Richard Wright's Famous Novel. Brainy Quotes. N.pag. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Merrell-James, Rose. Intra- Racial Bullying: An Issue of Multicultural 647. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Wills, James. Genealogy of Rejection in Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Counseling.

Luminarium.org. Web. 19 Nov. 2011

Journals: Bharati, Megha. Race, Class and Gender Bias as Reflected in Toni Morrisons First Novel The Bluest Eye. Journal of Literature, Culture and Media (2009): n.pag. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Greenwood, Emily. Re-rooting the classical tradition: new directions in black classicism. Classical Receptions Journal (2009): 87-103. Web. 19 Nov. Wilson,David. Constructing a 'Black-on-Black' Violence: The 2011. Studies.

Conservative

Discourse. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies. 35-54. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Dissertations:

Akbar 11

Ortega, Gema. Writing Hybridity: Identity, Dialogics, and Women Narratives in the American Contemporary Novels. Diss. Urbana Champaign, 2011. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.

Park,Yong-Nam. The Melting Pot where Nothing Melted: The Politics of Subjectivity in the Plays of Suzan-Lori Parks, Wendy Wasserstein, Tony Kushner. Diss. Pennsylvania. N.dat. 1 254. Web. 19 and Nov. 2011.

Newspaper: Weingarten, Paul. Mean Streets: In this West Side Story, the Violence IS Very 1982. Chicago Tribune 9 Sept. 1982. Natl. ed. :p. 1. Print. Real.

Bibliography:
Print:

Leys, Ruth. Trauma: A Genealogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Print. Web Articles: Becker, Elizabeth. The Bluest Eye: A Call to Action. N.pag. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Bourn, Bryan D. "Portrait of a Victim: Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye'" Aninja's Toni Morrisons Web Page. Web. 19 Nov. 2011 Kaminiar, Dmitri. The Bluest Eye As Diaspora Fiction. Web. 19 Nov.2011.

Akbar 12

Journal: Balestra, Alisa A. Racial and Cultural Rootedness: The Effect of Intraracial Oppression in The Bluest Eye. Journal of north American studies. (2008): n.pag. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Hyra,Derek S. Racial Uplift? Intra-Racial Class Conflict and theEconomic Revitalization of Harlem and Bronzeville. City & Community 5.1 (2006): 71-93. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Schieble, Melissa B. The Critical English Educator: Teaching The Bluest Eye. Wisconsin English Journal 52 (2010): n.pag. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Stack , George J. , Robert W. Plant. The Phenomenon of "The Look". and Philosophy

Phenomenological Research 42.3 (1982): 359-373. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.

Yuh-chuan, Shao. The Double Consciousness of Cultural PariahsFantasy, Trauma and Black Identity in Toni Morrisons Tar Baby. EURAMERICA 36.4 (2006): 551 590. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.

Dissertation: Hwangb, Kyeong. Trauma, Narrative, and the Marginal Self in Selected Contemporary American Novels. Diss. Florida, 2004. Web. 19 Nov. 2011. Werrlein, Debra T. Infant Nation: Childhood Innocence and the Politics of

Race

in Contemporary American Fiction. Diss. N. p, 2004. Web. 19 Nov. 2011 .

Akbar 13

Newspaper:

Morrison, Toni. Predicting the Past. By Susanna Rustin. The Guardian. 1 Nov. 2008. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.

Video: Hungerford, Amy. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. 2008. Yalescouses. Academicearth. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.