Powerlessness In The Bluest Eye

We are all enthralled by The Bluest Eye making our nose glued to the book. In particular, Morrison catches our attention by using numerous amounts of themes. One being the act of feeling powerless. Toni Morrison conveys her theme of feeling powerless in The Bluest Eye through Claudia using authorial voice and catalyst characters Pauline and Cholly. In the ending of the story, we see Claudia feeling powerless as she cannot do anything to help Pecola. In the book, Frieda and Claudia discuss saying “‘What we gone do, Frieda?’ ‘What can we do? Miss Johnson said it would be a miracle if it lived’” (Morrison 191). This helps the reader understand Claudia and Frieda’s hopelessness towards Pecola’s baby Even though they did not help Pecola, they still …show more content…
We see Cholly feeling powerless when he asks “What could he do for her—ever? What give her? What say to her? What could a burned-out black man say to the hunched back of his eleven-year-old daughter?” meaning he has nothing to give Pecola, as his father (Morrison 161). As we saw before, Cholly’s past shaped his future one being his father’s encounter. In the book, Cholly says to his father “‘I just thought… I mean, I was just wandering around, and, uh, my name is Cholly…...’ But Fuller had turned back to the game that was about to begin anew” making the reader see clearly Samson’s rejection to his son (Morrison 156). Another way Cholly feels powerless is when he is interrupted by the two men “Never did he once consider directing his hatred toward the hunters. Such an emotion would have destroyed him. They were big, white armed men. He was small, black, helpless” (Morrison 150). Morrison included Cholly feeling powerless, to show how he got to the point to where he became a molester. Consequently, Cholly’s powerless, not only did it create an antagonist, but we see a voice that we do not get to see often. Morrison wanted us to not why Cholly did what he did but how he ended up where he was. Cholly represents the people who do not have a voice and can finally communicate and tell his side of the …show more content…
She feels powerless to the point that she abandons her family and becomes closer to the fisher’s home which can be established when she says “More and more she neglected her house, her children, her man—they were like the afterthoughts one had just before sleep, the early-morning and late-evenings edges of her day, the dark edges that made the daily life with the Fishers lighter, more delicate, more lovely” (Morrison 127). She feels powerless to keep her family steady causing her to give up on it. Also we see Pauline’s powerless when she moves north “when she tried to make up her face as they did, it came off rather badly” it creates sympathy for the character and a reason why the Breedlove’s family was broken (Morrison 118). It does not mean that because of Pauline’s backstory that we have to think greatly of her, but at least we know why she felt the way she did. If Morrison had not given us a backstory to her life just like the line of “When I had the second one, a girl, I ‘member I said I’d love it no matter what it looked like. She looked like a black ball of hair” we could easily have made Polly an unloving person who hated his kids for no reason (Morrison 124). However, by including her point of view we can sympathize her

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