Innocence In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

In The Bluest Eye a main theme that appears everywhere in the story is innocence, and how it is lost. Pecola is the definition of innocence; she strives to have blue eyes, which she believes will stop her family from fighting. The reasoning for wanting blue eyes goes to the white popular culture which African American girls are surrounded by in that time, blue eyed white baby dolls and Shirley Temple for example. Pecola’s life was far from a little white girl’s innocent care-free life but she still prayed and hoped she would have blue eyes to live a life like this one day. During the first chapter of the novel, Pecola starts her first period, which is when we see the beginning of Pecola symbolically growing out of her innocence. Though …show more content…
An innocent African American girl planted like a seed in a hostile and dangerous world. Her parent’s personal history contributes to the extremes of her life at home; her mother is a product of desire and hatred, and her father who was abandoned by his mother, does not have a sense of fatherhood. The Breedlove family is faced with Classism and Racism everyday of their lives and for the first time the white standard of beauty “Although their poverty was traditional and stultifying, it was not unique. But their ugliness was unique” (Morrison 38). Mrs. Breedlove would make constant visits to the theater to watch the home life of a normal white family she strives to have, but never will. She then comes home to see her drunk husband, her tiny house, and disappointment. Although the Breedlove couple would fight constantly they needed each other equally. Mrs. Breedlove needed a man who was just crazy enough for her to say she was going to help him to redemption. “The lower he sank, the wilder and more irresponsible he became, the more splendid she and her task became. In the name of Jesus” (Morrison 42). Since being abandoned by his mother as a baby, Cholly Breedlove has had major problems with women. When losing his virginity Cholly does not blame the white men who watch and make lewd comments, but Darlene who is socially lower down in this society as a African American girl. Going …show more content…
Cholly’s father abandoned his mother after learning she was pregnant and soon after he was born she tried to leave him to die in the trash. Even though elderly Aunt Jimmy cared for him he could never see her as a real parent. “when she made him sleep with her for warmth in winter and he could see her old wrinkled breasts sagging in her nightgown ---then he wondered whether it would have been just as well to have died” (Morrison 132). In this quote we see that Cholly is uncomfortable sharing a bed with his guardian, normally children enjoy sharing a bed with their parent, but in this case Cholly does not view Aunt Jimmy as a parent. Cholly is bothered by the fact that both his parents abandoned him and chooses not to ask anymore questions about them. Since Cholly was never around a good solid father figure he did not know how to react around his children. Cholly’s rape of his daughter doesn’t necessarily mean he did it out of “Cholly’s disgust for the female body” (Morrison 195), but out of a center of hate for his past. Cholly has never had a good example of how to love your children and when he sees Pecola washes dishes he does what affection feels most natural to him. This feeling to him unfortunately, translates as sexual desires. “Again the hatred mixed with tenderness. The hatred would not let him pick her up, the tenderness forced him to cover her” (Morrison

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