Cholly's Rape In The Bluest Eye

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Should we be “Taking Refuge in “How:” Dissecting the Motives Behind Cholly’s Rape in The Bluest Eye”. Rebecca Andrews talks about the actions of Cholly is The Bluest Eye are unacceptable but understandable. In the The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Cholly, one of the main character rapes his daughter Pecola. Now in this article by Rebecca Andrews, she talks about how the events in the past of Cholly are the reasons why he raped his daughter. The actions that happen in the past are do not explain what will we do in the future; it may impact the choices we make but in the end it comes down to our choices. Cholly described by Rebecca Andrews’s interpretation of Toni Morrison as a young man who “understands from an young age that a parent, child …show more content…
But those are not the only forms of love. Rebecca Andrews states, “From this experience, cholly learns that there is another emotions that can be expressed through sex: anger.” This means he used sex as his one and only outlets. He used it to show joy and happiness, but also anger. When he first saw his daughter standing over the sink washing dishes, he first felt uncomfortable. This is the important part of his emotions, because it sets off the later emotions he experiences such as “pleasure, revulsion, guilt, pity, then love.” He later on speaks about how it was impossible for someone, Pecola, to love him because he didn’t deserve many of that love. At that moment he felt his manhood go away because he didn’t feel he provided the necessary means to deserve that love. He felt hated her for loving him. And then he did what we all call rape. He expressed his emotions through sex and one of those was anger. He wasn’t angry at Pecola but at himself because he could find a way to love his daughter. He felt his manhood drift away and did what he believed was best to regain it. That being said, his action of raping his daughter was from pure selfishness, not from a desire to love his daughter, but from a desire to feel manly again; and if having sex with her was going to help him do that then he was prepared to do …show more content…
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison stated “Pauline and Cholly loved each other.” This is significant because even if that love was ephemeral, it was love none the less. This shows that at some point of his life, Cholly knew and felt true love. It is unwise to say that he acted the way he did because he never had anyone to show or love him. Through that, he also learned how to love because he was able to make others feel love. “Four the first time Pauline felt her bad foot was an asset.” This shows that he helped Pauline accept herself and that shows that he did in fact know how to love. This takes us back to him raping his daughter. He did not do so because he didn’t know how to love her but because he need to feel his manhood like how he regained it after his father rejected him and he seeked for it with the three women “they give him back his manhood, which he takes aimlessly”. Cholly decided that he was less of an man because he couldn’t offer his daughter anything, so to gain back his manhood, he has sex with
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