Oppression of Black Women in the Bluest Eye

Bachelor Thesis English (61-90)

Oppression of black women in The Bluest Eye

The interplay of race, gender and age

English 15 credits

Bollnäs 2020-06-29 Silje Vattöy HALMSTAD UNIVERSITY Abstract

The focal point of this essay is to analyze how Toni Morrison thematizes the oppression of black women in her novel The Bluest Eye. An intersectional analysis reveals how the categories of race, gender and age interplay and affect the characters’ lives. The black girls are inferior, due to the fact that they carry three positions that mark them inferior: race, gender and age. Pecola, who is victimized because of both racism and intra-racial racism, is particularly affected because of the interplay of race, gender and age. To reveal how Morrison continues to thematize the oppression of black women in her later works, two of her short stories "Recitatif" and "Sweetness" are compared to The Bluest Eye. The comparison reveals that Morrison focuses on the destinies of young, black girls in her short stories as well.

Table of Content

1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………….3

1.1 Frame for the study………………………………………………………….3 1.2 Research Focus…..………………………………………………………… 4

2. The Bluest Eye……………………………………………………………….…4

2.1 Original publication and Reception History………………………….……..5 2.2 Current Research.…………………………………………………….……...5

3. Theoretical Background…………………………………………………….…7

4. Analysis and Discussion………………………………………………….…....9

4.1 Intersecting Patterns in The Bluest Eye………………………………….….9 4.2 Literary Strategies in The Bluest Eye………………………………….…...15 4.3 "Sweetness" and "Recitatif" in Comparison to The Bluest Eye…….…..…..19

5. Conclusion………………………………………………….…………….……23

6. Works cited…………………………………………………………..…….….25

1. Introduction

In the foreword of the 2007 edition of The Bluest Eye Morrison explains her approach when writing her first novel: "I focused on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnerable member: a female" (11). Morrison’s fiction focuses on the way race and racism affect people’s lives and especially female characters are given a voice in her works. In The Bluest Eye the two dimensions race and gender play a significant role and the aim of this essay is therefore to examine and analyze how Morrison thematizes the oppression of black women in her first novel. The focus will be on the interplay between race and gender. Because the main character Pecola is a child and the main narrator is a child too, the dimension of age also plays a considerable role. Two of Morrison’s short stories "Recitatif" and "Sweetness" will be used in the last part of the analysis to explore if Morrison continues to focus on the oppression of black women and which similarities there are between the novel and the short stories regarding this topic.

1.1 Frame for the study

The theoretical approach for this essay is African-American criticism and Feminist criticism. This approach is particularly suitable because it provides a lens through which it is possible to reveal how the categories of race and gender work together and form the characters’ identity and social locations. Even though the main focus will be on these two categories, other categories such as class and age will also be considered in the analysis. The concept of intersectionality will be central for the essay to develop the analysis. The concept of intersectionality provides a useful perspective which makes it possible to analyse how the different categories of race, gender, age and class work together and affect the characters’ lives instead of treating the categories separately. The female characters will be analysed in relation to each other, using Mary Helen Washington’s women type model, which she developed after an interview with Alice Walker (Washington 22). The focus will be on how the female characters are affected by the fact that they carry positions that make them inferior and sometimes even invisible.

Firstly, the research questions that will be addressed in the essay are presented. The second chapter consists of a brief background about original publication and reception history and continues with the literature review section where relevant research will be presented. The next chapter will be on the theoretical background. This will be followed by a chapter with the analysis and discussion of the present study. Finally, the essay will end with the summing up in the conclusion section.

1.2 Research Focus

In this essay I will show that: - An intersectional analysis of The Bluest Eye reveals that race, gender and age interplay and affect the female characters lives. - In The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison uses literary strategies that are common in African American literature written by black women writers to thematise the oppression of black women. - Toni Morrison’s treatment of the oppression of black women in The Bluest Eye is similar to her treatment of the same subject in her newer short stories "Sweetness" and "Recitatif". The Bluest Eye was Morrison’s first novel and to show that Morrison still thematizes this subject in her later writing one of the theses contains a comparison study. The motivation behind this theses is to show that Morrison continues to thematize the oppression of black women years after her first publication.

2. The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison describes the life and situation of an African American family in Ohio in the 1940s. The main character is Pecola Breedlove, a 12-year-old girl who dreams about blue eyes because she is convinced that she is ugly with her brown eyes and dark skin. The reader follows the Breedlove family and a few other characters in the black community of Ohio through four seasons. The main narrator is Claudia, who tells the story

through the eyes of the 9-year-old Claudia and from the perspective of the adult Claudia, who reflects and comments on the events she experienced as a child.

2.1 Original publication and reception history

Toni Morrison was the first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Some years earlier, in 1988, she received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved. Toni Morrison’s first novel was first published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1970. Today The Bluest Eye can be seen as an American classic and as an important part of the African- American experience, but the novel did not receive much attention directly after the first publication. In november 1970, John Leonard writes about The Bluest Eye and celebrates Morrison’s writing calling it "a prose so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (The New York Times). He continues praising the novel as history, sociology, folklore, nightmare and music and states that Morrison’s "angry sadness overwhelms" (The New York Times). In a review in The Detroit Free Press the novel is described as a profoundly successful work of fiction and Newsweek notes that the story of Pecola commands attention. The reviews were positive but few in numbers. In an interview with Christopher Bollen in 2012 Morrison notes that black people hated the novel and were dismissive about it. The way the novel depicted the self loathing that racism creates provoked black people because it hurt to be reminded of being inferior (Interview Magazine, May 1 2012). The novel is controversial and has been on the American Library Association’s yearly top 10 list over the most challenging books (www.ala.org/bbooks). The reasons reported for this a that the novel has offensive language and is sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, and because it contains controversial issues. There have been several cases of parent protests because The Bluest Eye is on schools’ reading lists (Wikipedia). The reasons for the protests are similar to the ones mentioned above.

2.2 Current Research

There have been numerous articles written about Toni Morrison’s novels and many of them focus on oppression and how the characters try to adapt in a racist and sexist community. Her

short stories have not received the same attention from critics hence the selection is far more limited. I have chosen to work with the works of Rambo, Bjork, Trisnawati, Ellsworth, Sande, Benjamin, Sharma and Hrzan. These works share the focus on race, gender and age in different ways and perspectives. In her article "Paying attention to ourselves: an Exploration of Black Girlhood in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Sapphire’s Push", Stephanie Rambo uses psychoanalytic and feminist theory to investigate how black girls are constrained by binary oppositions and constructions of race, gender and childhood. Because these binaries and constructs mark black girls as inferior, they are rendered invisible by dominant ideologies. Rambo states that this invisibility is perpetuated by myths that have remained constant and investigates how black girls must navigate around and combat these mythologies. Another critic who has written about the novel The Bluest Eye is Patrick Bryce Bjork. In his book The Novels of Toni Morrison: The Search for Self and Place within the Community, the critical and cultural framework is African American. Bjork uses Jean-Paul Sartre’s term "The Look" to show how the characters’ identity and reality are both confirmed and threatened by The Look of the Other, by The White Gaze. He states that the novel’s female characters try to collaborate with and internalize the desired Look of the Other in the hope of defending themselves against denial. Ririn Kurnia Trisnawati’s article "When Beauty turns out to be Hegemony" applies theory of hegemony by Gramsci as a starting point for her analysis of The Bluest Eye. Here the scholar states that the standard of beauty is based on the dominant group e.g. white people. There is the white beauty standard as a means of hegemonic practice in the American society. This phenomenon is thoughtfully depicted in The Bluest Eye. According to Trisnawati White beauty standard hegemony has led to the emergence of intra-racial discrimination within the African American society as it is reflected in The Bluest Eye due to the characters’ effort to seek for the approval of the white hegemony. White beauty standards are central in Edward L. Ellsworth’s "Blackness: arrested Development in The Bluest Eye" as well. Theoretical principles of social learning are used to explain the effects of white aesthetic standards on the black characters in The Bluest Eye, in particularly Pecola. Ellsworth states that the characters in The Bluest Eye are indoctrinated into Western standards of beauty through a system of observation and participation, and rewards and punishments that diminish their identities. Another text I will refer to is Melissa R. Sande’s article "Female Subjectivity, Sexual Violence, and the American Nation in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye". Using feminist

criticism as her theoretical framework Sande focuses on race and sexual violence in The Bluest Eye. The author claims that the way Pecola is being treated by the community after the rape is a reflection of the way the black community is discriminated by society. She argues that black women are doubly oppressed because they are both women and black. Black motherhood is the focus of Sucharita Sharma’s book But, she’s black: colonized Motherhood in The Bluest Eye. Sharma examines the characters of Pauline and Mrs MacTeer and explores the theory that mothers transmit their qualities and shadow them in their daughters’ personality. Black mothers can be traumatized by the burden of racial humiliation that destroys their identity. Shanna Greene Benjamin focuses on race in her text "The Space that Race Creates: an Interstitial Analysis of Toni Morrison’s Recitatif". Benjamin studies the effect that Morrison creates by not revealing which of the women in "Recitatif" is black and which one is white. Midpoint in Benjamin’s analysis is Maggie, the sandy-coloured kitchen woman who represents the grey zone between the races and who is remembered differently by the girls. Benjamin explores the space between the black/white binary oppositions and states that the girls’ different stories and memories of Maggie represent the master narrative and the counterpoint. Relevant for the comparison study is also Daniela Hrzan’s "Race als interdependente Katgorie: Toni Morrisons Recitatif als literarisch-kulturkritischer Beitrag zu den Debatten uber Intersektionalität und Interdependenzen". With reader response criticism as framework for her analysis, Hrazan focuses on how the reader perceives race in "Recitatif" and explores the concept of intersectionality in the short story in which the racial identity of the characters is not revealed.

3. Theoretical Background

The theoretical approach for this essay is Feminist criticism and African-American criticism because they provide a well-established framework for discussing race and gender. Since the 1940s, feminism has been a school of literary and cultural studies. From the beginning feminism focused on the question how women's lives have changed over time and it asked which differences there are between women and men regarding experience and also their writing. When academic feminism started to focus on women’s experiences as women in the early 1970s, the women in question were white. bell hooks states in "Feminism is for

everybody" that black feminism arrived as a reaction to white feminism because black feminists saw the need in combining gender and race to explain and fight oppression. Because of this, black feminists were accused by white feminists of being traitors by introducing race and moving focus away from gender (57). According to Lois Tyson, white mainstream feminism has had a tendency to marginalize black women but at the same time has encouraged them to prioritize gender issues over racial issues, arguing that they are oppressed more by sexism than racism. On the other hand, the black male community has had a tendency to marginalize black women because of their gender but at the same time has encouraged them to prioritize racial issues over gender issues, arguing that they are more oppressed by racism than by sexism. This double oppression forms the basis of African American feminist criticism. All women are subject to patriarchal oppression, but "...each woman's specific needs, desires and problems are greatly shaped by her race, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, educational experience, religion, and nationality" (Tyson 105). bell hooks states in "Ain't I a woman" that the social status of black and white women in America has never been the same (123). Historically, the category of black women has been looked at as less valuable than the category of white women. According to Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in "Mapping the Margins", racism and sexism seldom intersect in feminist and antiracist practices even though they do in the lives of real people. Williams Crenshaw states that the experiences of black women are often the result of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism. Because of their intersectional identity as both women and people of colour within discourses that are made to respond to one or the other, the interests of black women are often marginalized within both (93). Williams Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality is central for this essay. Intersectionality is an analytic perspective, which focuses on the relationship between inferiority and superiority that is created and maintained in interplay of for instance race, gender, and class. Black women are situated within two (if not more) subordinated groups and so black women experience racism differently than black men and sexism differently that white women. One central theme in Toni Morrison’s novels and short stories is the collective and historical violation of black women. In an interview with Mary Helen Washington, Alice Walker presented a personal view of black women throughout history. She suggests seeing the experiences of black women as a development from a woman victimized by society and by men to a growing woman whose consciousness brings her to have control over her life (Washington 22). This process and development is according to Walker both historical and psychological and is divided into three interrelated cycles: suspension, assimilation, and

emergence. Washington has developed Alice Walker’s personal construct of the history of black women and suggests three women types. These categories will be used in the essay to develop the analysis: Her terms The Suspended Woman, The Assimilated Woman and The Emergent Woman will be used to analyse the female characters. Washington refers to the woman of the first cycle as The Suspended Woman because of the massive pressure against her. The pressure is so great that she cannot move anywhere (Washington 22). Being suspended in time and place, this woman’s possibilities in life are so extremely limited that suicide and insanity are common. She is defeated one way or another because of external circumstances. The suffering of physical abuse is typical for the suspended woman, either because of male violence or because of poverty. Even the woman of the second cycle, The Assimilated Woman, is a victim, but not typically of physical violence but of psychological violence. She feels forced to separate herself from her roots and is cut off from her own people and even a part of herself. Assimilation requires total denial of one’s identity and the result is alienation from who you are. The women belonging to the third cycle, The Emergent Woman, are largely women who are influenced by the political events of the 1960’s and the changes resulting from the freedom movement (Washington 22). They are searching for their roots and traditions and are struggling to reclaim their past and to re-explore their relationship to the black community.

4. Analysis and Discussion

The first part of the analysis will focus on the interplay of race, gender and age in the novel. The concept of intersectionality will primarily be used to analyze how the concepts of race and gender intersect but even take into account the category of class. According to Williams Crenshaw "race, gender, and class are implicated together because the fact of being a woman of color correlates strongly with poverty" (94). The main character of the novel, Pecola, is a child and so is the main narrator Claudia, so the category of age will be considered as well. The aim is to show how intersecting patterns affects the characters’ lives.

4.1 Intersecting patterns in The Bluest Eye

The center of attention in The Bluest Eye is Pecola and her family. The setting is the small town Lorain in Ohio and according to the narrator Claudia the Breedloves and the MacTeers

are "being a minority in both caste and class, [they] moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate [their] weakness and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 17). Even though Claudia and Pecola have different family situations, they are both part of the black community and share the same experience of being girls of colour in a racist world and context. According to Martinez racism is and has been a "normal" part of the US society and because it is an ingrained feature it looks ordinary and natural to persons in the culture (19). This normality is not comprehensible for the girls who share the experience of being treated differently than white girls, but not understanding why. In this text passage Morrison uses the first person narrator when Claudia reflects about the difference: "to discover what eluded me: the secret of the magic they weaved on others. What made people look at them and say ’Awww’ but not for me? The eye slide of black women as they approached them on the street…" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 22). The choice of narrator and perspective gives weight to Claudia’s voice and shows a child’s experience of being less valuable, but not understanding why. Claudia’s first reaction towards the object (a white girl) seen as more valuable is hate: "…I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her. What I felt at that time was unsullied hatred” (Morrison The Bluest Eye 19). I suggest that he turning point described here is the process of internalized racism. According to Tyson internalized racism is the result of a racist society that makes people of color believe that white people are more valuable (362). The young girls in the novel are surrounded by dolls, cups and candy which tell them that whiteness is the ideal and the norm. According to Trisnawati the white beauty standard concept is considered to be the only one beauty concept (70). "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow- haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured" (Morrison 20). Rambo notes that these dolls are desirable not because they are toys but because they are white, and black girls want access to the whiteness the dolls represent (46). But Claudia does not share this desire and her reaction is to destroy the white baby dolls instead of worshipping them. This could indicate that she hates the dolls because they are seen as the ideal and at the same time represent something she is not and can never be: white. According to herself she learns to adjust to these ideals much later, realizing that the change was adjustment without improvement. Another item that represent the white beauty standard is the Shirley Temple cup. Especially Pecola is fond of drinking from the cup. Ellsworth suggests that by drinking from

the cup Pecola hopes to become more like Shirley and therefore more acceptable in the community (8). Her favourite candy is Mary Jane, which has a white girl on the wrapper. The candy could function in the same way as drinking from the Shirley Temple cup: by eating the candy Pecola will become more like the white girls and be accepted and loved. Washington notes that in almost every novel written by a black woman, there is a dark- skinned girl who wishes to have either white skin or "good" hair (21). Pecola dreams about another feature of white beauty: blue eyes. Her biggest desire is to possess blue eyes and she believes that if she had blue eyes her life would be different: "It had occured to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes were different…that is to say beautiful, she herself would be different. If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs Breedlove too. Maybe that’d say, ’Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those eyes" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 46). Trisnawati states that the hegemony of white beauty is the underlying factor behind Pecola’s desire to have blue eyes (70). Pecola is not the only female character in the novel who wishes to blend in the white society to be accepted and treated differently. It is likely that Pecola’s thoughts about beauty have been handed down by her mother Pauline. To escape from her destructive life with her husband she goes to the cinema and watches films starring successful, and beautiful white people like Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. "Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another – physical beauty, Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in unsecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self- contempt by the heap" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 122). According to Trisnawati, Pauline develops the dream of being a white lady (82). Similar to Pecola who consumes candy and drinks from a certain cup to achieve whiteness and acceptance, Pauline consumes the films with hopes to become white and accepted. Unfortunately the only thing achieved is self- hatred and the feeling of worthlessness. Pauline becomes Polly in order to be accepted. When she is working for a white family, they call her Polly and she is surrounded by "beauty, order, cleanliness, and praise" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 127). In the role as Polly she lives the (white) life she thinks she deserves and stops trying to keep her own house. She neglects her house and her children. As a mother she is absent and there are almost no interactions between her and her children. The reader could get the impression that she is not capable of being a mother. Her tender mothering of the little Fischer girl proves differently. When Pecola comes to the Fischer house to collect the laundry, she accidently gets hot juice all over herself. Instead of comforting Pecola who burned herself painfully, Pauline knocks her to the

floor and starts comforting the Fischer girl. When Pecola leaves she can hear the girl asking who Pecola was and Pauline answers "Don’t worry none, baby" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 109). Pauline chooses the white girl instead of her own daughter. She treats Pecola as an intruder. Sande states that she actively chooses the white girl because she matches her ideal of the white beauty standard better than her own children (43). Sharma notes that "it is a common observation that an appropriate show of strengths and weaknesses in human relationships is possible only under adversely affecting circumstances. Be it the relationship of husband or wife or mother and child, each relation reveals its powers and flaws in facing hostile situations" (51). Pauline is a victim of racism and this burden is too heavy to bear. It makes her incapable of being a good mother. According to Rambo, black motherhood is problematic because black mothers have to raise their children in a racist society. Because whiteness is seen as a natural feature, white mothers do not have to teach their children that their whiteness is not inherent or natural (13). Pauline’s lacks in her mother role affects Pecola significantly. She has no value as a daughter. The Breedlove family’s position in the community is extremely low and they are being discriminated by the black community because of their dark skin. They are described as ugly and the description of their looks is significantly detailed: "Their ugliness was unique …The eyes, the small eyes set closely together under narrow foreheads. The low irregular hairlines…heavy eyebrows which nearly met…keen but crooked noses…They had high cheekbones and their ears turned forward. You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 38). They are seen as ugly because of their black skin. Blackness equals ugliness in their community and their skin is darker than the others. According to Trisnawati, African- Americans compete with each other to come closer to the white beauty standard (71). This will lead to intra-racial discrimination since the competition trigger the conflict between them. Bjork notes that the Breedloves have fully internalized their ugliness (37). Especially Pecola is harrassed because of her skin colour. When she is harassed by some boys the narrator explains and comments: "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 65). The self-hatred makes the boys oppress someone like themselves. Maureen Peale on the contrary is not being picked on. Even though she has African American roots, her skin is lighter and because of this she enjoys greater social status. Ellsworth notes that both Maureen Peale, Mr Henry and Soaphead Church bear distinct Caucasian features and therefore rank higher in the hierarchy (15).

Pecola experiences intra-racial racism as well as out-group-racism from white people, even though it is subtly wrapped. One example is when she buys candy in Mr Yacobowski’s store: "at some fixed point in time and space [Mr Yacobowski] senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper…see a little black girl? …The total absence of human recognition" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 48). He does not see her because he is white and she is black. To him she is invisible because of his white gaze. This is no new situation for Pecola: "She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 49). His white gaze marks her invisible and inferior. Pecola is invisible in this situation because she carries three positions that mark her inferior: she is a black young girl. Rambo notes that "because the black girl stands not just in opposition to white girls, but in opposition to white men and women and black men and boys she is overshadowed because she stand opposite everyone. To occupy three spaces which are structured as inferior complicates black girlhood and childhood and leaves the black girl invisible" (19). The black middle class woman Geraldine feels superior to other black women and families because of her lighter skin. She tells her son not to play with "niggers" and she explains the difference between niggers and coloured people: "colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 84). Because of her wish to be accepted by society she gives up her African American roots. Like the "sugarbrown Mobile girls" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 82), Geraldine has got rid of "the dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the range of human emotions" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 83) and because of this loss she is seems to be pretending in her role as a woman. She is cold both as a mother and a wife and shows affection only for her cat. By oppressing her real self, she has lost contact with her emotions and identity. She shows her disgust for her own blackness when she calls Pecola "nasty little black bitch" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 93). According to Bjork, Geraldine longs and strives for white beauty, white living and white freedom (52). Despite her desperate trying and the price she is paying, she can never achieve any of it. Pecola social vulnerability is shown when she is raped by her father Cholly. The children listen to adults talking about the rape and how they blame Pecola: "she carries some of the blame … how come she didn’t fight him " (Morrison The Bluest Eye 189). The community reacts by blaming and questioning Pecola. Morrison uses a child’s perspective,

Claudia is the narrator in this part of the text, to show the absurdity in the adults’ reactions. "But we listened for the one who would say ’poor little girl’ or ’poor baby’ but there was only head-wagging where those words should have been. We looked for eyes creased with concern, but saw only veils" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 190). Seen through children’s eyes the adults’ reactions seem inappropriate. Williams Crenshaw states that there is a generalized ethic against public intervention in the black community. The result is the desire to create a safe haven from the indignities in the racist society. This desire to protect the home as a safe haven could make it more difficult for black women to seek help from assaults from within the home (99). During the rape, Cholly is the point of view character. This strengthens the impression that Pecola is completely powerless. Her voice is absent. Cholly’s rape of Pecola should be seen in context with the situation from his youth when two white men witnessed him having sex with Darlene. They humiliate him calling him "nigger" and make him continue having sex with Darlene while they are watching. Instead of turning his hate towards the white men who humiliate him, he blames Darlene: "he hated her … he hated her so much… Cholly wanted to strangle her" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 149). Cholly hates Darlene because of how he is treated by the white men. Ellsworth suggests that Cholly’s rape should be understood in context with his own sexual emasculation and dysfunctional upbringing (24). According to Williams Crenshaw racism contributes to the cycle of violence against black women, given the stress that black men experience in society. It is therefore reasonable to explore the connection between racism and domestic violence (100). It is likely that Cholly’s treatment of his daughter and his abusive way with Pauline is a result of the racism he has experienced. The only ones inferior to him are the females in his life; his daughter and his wife. They are the only ones he can dominate. hooks states in Ain’t I a Woman that "sexism fosters, condones, and supports male violence against women … In patriarchal society, men are encourage to channel frustrated aggression in the direction of those without power = women and children" (105). Even though Cholly’s rape is by far the most serious crime commited, he is not the only male character who exploits the girls sexually. Soaphead Church and Henry Washington touch the girls in inappropriate ways. This gives the reader the impression that it is a common phenomenon and something Morrison wants to thematize. While Claudia and Frieda’s parents react and take action when they hear that Henry Washington has touched their child, Pauline’s reaction is to blame Pecola. Pecola is let down by everyone, even by her own mother. The black women in the novel are being oppressed by several categories of people because of their race and gender: "Everybody in the world was in a position to give them

orders. White women said, ’Do this.’ White children said, ’Give me that.’ White men said, ’Come here.’ Black men said, ’Lay down.’ The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 138). The only category that is inferior is the marker child. The black girls in the novel have to deal with carrying three positions that mark them as inferior. Pecola, being a young girl, is inferior because of her gender, race and age. She is invisible and voiceless. She is a victim of racism and intra-racial racism and gets further vicitmized after being raped by Cholly. In addition to that she is also badly affected by Pauline’s failed motherhood. Inherited misfortune and internalized racism results in her suspension. She is suspended and in no position to influence her own life.

4.2 Literary strategies in The Bluest Eye

In this part of the essay The Bluest Eye will be set in relation to the African American literature. The focus will be on the literary strategies that are common in the African American literature written by female authors. The question "which African American literary devices are used in The Bluest Eye to thematize the oppression of black women" will be addressed and answered. To support the analysis, Washington’s concept of three women types are used to explore the female characters. The women types are common in African American literature and as a part of the analysis they can show the ways in which black women are oppressed in the novel. Morrison states in Playing in the Dark that "blacks are not given full stature as agents of their own fictional destinies" (62) and especially African American women have been reduced to stereotypes and one-dimensional characters in literary works by white authors and black male authors (Tyson 389). As a reaction to this, one of the main preoccupations of the black woman writer has been the black woman herself, her aspirations, her conflicts, her relationship with men and children, her creativity (Washington 20). In The Bluest Eye the oppression of black women is thematized. Morrison does this using her voice as an African American female and writer. Many Critical Race Theorists state that minority writers are more capable of writing and speaking about race because of their own experience of racism. This position is called voice of color (Tyson 377). According to the voice of color concept, Morrison is in a better position to thematize the oppression of black women because of her own socially acquired experiences as a black woman. Morrison gives The Bluest Eye a personal touch when she uses her hometown Lorain, Ohio as the setting for the novel and in

the foreword she writes that an old school friend’s dream of blue eyes gave her the inspiration to write the story about Pecola (Morrison The Bluest Eye x). In the novel Morrison uses her voice to question and challenge the majoritarian story and master narrative. She wants to move the focus to the black women’s suffering in a racist and sexist world and she uses a set of literary strategies to achieve this. These strategies are recurring in the poetic tradition of African American women writers. The collection of characters in The Bluest Eye consists to a large extent of black women of different ages living in the same community. What they have in common is the need to deal with racism and sexism and they do this in various ways. This dealing process is more challenging for some of the characters because of their standing within the community. Their possibility to be agents in their own lives are limited for those with the lowest standing and status. Not only are they victims of internalized discrimination and racism from the white society, but they are even victims of intra-racial racism from within the black society. Washington’s personal classification of black women characters in the literature of black women writers can be useful to analyze and contrast the female characters in The Bluest Eye. The suspended woman is according to Washington a woman who carries a heavy burden put upon her by society and her family. She is a victim of both racial and sexual oppression (22). Both Pauline and Pecola are suspended women. Pauline is stuck in an abusive marriage with Cholly. She is portrayed as a victim and a martyr: "holding Cholly as a model of sin and failure, she bore him like a crown of thorns, and her children like a cross" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 126). She is a victim because of her life situation, her skin colour, and her socioeconomic class. Williams Crenshaw states that the experiences of black women are often the product of intersecting patterns (93). Because of her sex she is additionally victimized in her marriage. The pressure against her is so great that she cannot move anywhere. Her life choices are so limited that she is in no position to change her circumstances. In her role as Polly she receives the appreciation she does not receive as Pauline and she seems to be a more harmonic human. This underlines the fact that her behaviour and mood would be different if her life situation was better. Sharma notes that instead of finding comfort in her own home, she finds a refuge in the Fisher family’s kitchen (71). Pecola is a suspended woman too, despite her young age. She is already defeated and destroyed by severe oppression and sexual violence. Her life choices are so limited that she retreat into insanity: "She, however, stepped over into madness, a madness which protected her from us simply because it bore dust in the end" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 206). She is let

down be everybody, both her family and the community. She is one of those who go "blindly through their lives … abused and mutilated in body, unaware of the richness of their gifts but nonetheless suffering as their gifts are denied" (Washington 22). It is no coincidence that both Pauline and Pecola are suspended women. Their mother-daughter relationship is one important reason for Pecola’s development of self-hatred. Instead of being a safe refuge for her child, Pauline ignores Pecola. According to Sharma, Pauline’s own childhood memories of unworthiness and ignorance, make it impossible for her to raise and nurture her children in a positive way (65). Sharma states that "the vicious cycle of this failed mothering travels from Pauline’s mother and climaxes in the final demise of Pecola’s personality" (77). The self-controlled Geraldine is an assimilated woman, who has alienated herself from her roots completely. She is obsessed with her hair, which she straightens and she does not cover her entire mouth with lipstick for fear that her lips should look too thick. She denies her african roots and wants to be one of the "colored people [who] were neat and quiet" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 87) and not one of the "niggers [who] were dirty and loud" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 87). The denial of her roots is a never-ending fight: "Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle all the way to the grave" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 83). The motivation behind this fight that makes Geraldine loose contact with her emotions and true self, is the desire to fit in and be worthy in white society. According to Washington, assimilated women are common in literature treating the decades of the 40’s and 50’s, because it was a time when black people wanted to be part of mainstream American life (22). This fits well with the setting of The Bluest Eye, Ohio in the 40’s. Rambo notes that African American women have been judged by a standard of womanhood decided by black and white men, and even white women. According to the standard of womanhood, the white woman signifies purity and delicacy. The opposite position, that of the black woman, signifies in that case impurity and taintedness (1). The black woman, like Geraldine, chases whiteness to achieve these virtues. The third salient woman type is the emergent woman. Among the female characters in The Bluest Eye there is no obvious emergent woman character. According to Ellsworth, Claudia possesses a racial awareness which the other children in the novel do not. Morrison uses Claudia to emphasize the racial contradictions and as "a revolutionary against the erosion of the black self image" (10). The child Claudia is not an emergent woman, but the adult narrator Claudia who thinks of her childhood and comments on what happened to Pecola and

herself seems to be searching for meaning in her roots and is challenging and trying to reclaim her past. She seems to be one of the women who are "coming just to the edge of a new awareness and making the first tentative steps into an uncharted region" (Washington 23). The adult Claudia’s voice seems to be associated with the voice and experience of the author Morrison who was a woman who made the room larger for others to move into when it came to racial awareness and black women’s rights. Regarding narrators African American women writers tend to use a black female character as narrators in novels or short stories. Tyson notes that this choice of narrator gives black women the authority as the tellers of their own stories (391). As mentioned above, Claudia is one of the female narrators in the novel and one of the focalisers. To see the story through the eyes of a child and at the same time "hear" the adult Claudia reflect and comment on the story and the characters’ fates serves the reader different perspectives and the possibility to understand and perceive what Morrison wants to say. The many black female voices in the novel strenghtens the impression that the women’s stories and fates matter. The only one who does not have a voice is Pecola. In the foreword of The Bluest Eye, Morrison writes "…there are some who collapse, silently, anonymously, with no voice to express or acknowledge it. They are invisible. The death of self-esteem can occur quickly, easily in children, before their ego has ’legs’, so to speak" (Morrison The Bluest Eye x). By not giving Pecola a voice in the novel, Morrison shows how powerless Pecola is. Pecola’s story is told without using her voice. A characteristic feature of African American literature is orality, or the spoken quality of its language. Tyson notes that this gives the reader the impression of hearing a human voice. The part of the text where Pauline is the first person narrator is written in italics. This strenghtens the impression that the reader hears her human voice and gives impact to her words. Another audible voice is Mrs MacTeer’s. Her long monologues can according to Claudia last for hours: "She would go on like that for hours, connecting one offense to another until all of the things that chagrined her were spewed out. Then, having told everybody and everything off, she would burst into song and sing for the rest of the day" (Morrison The Bluest Eye 24). As Sharma notes, Mrs MacTeer’s voice is not silenced, she speaks and sings out her pain (84). Morrison uses female characters of all ages to give black females of all ages a voice in her novel. Using different generations makes it possible to show how the process of internalization and how self-hatred is inherited from generation to generation.

4.3 ”Sweetness” and ”Recitatif” in comparison to The Bluest Eye

In this final part of the analysis the two short stories "Sweetness" and "Recitatif" will be compared to The Bluest Eye. Morrison wrote "Recitatif" in 1983 and "Sweetness" in 2015. A comparison can reveal if Morrison still continues to thematize the oppression of black women in the same way as in her first novel. The focus will be on the interplay of race, gender and age in the short stories. Like the novel the two short stories are dominated by female characters and voices so it is suitable to use Washington’s women types to analyse the characters. In "Sweetness" the first person narrator whose name is not revealed except for the name she gives herself as a mother, Sweetness, tells the story about her black daughter Lula Ann. Sweetness is now 63 and lives in a nursing home, but looks back to the time when her daughter was born. She seems to feel the need to justify both her feelings towards her daughter and the way she brought her up, admitting being to strict and harsh, but at the same time still find it a necessary approach because Lula-Ann needed to be prepared for racist society. Twyla is the point of view focaliser in ”Recitatif”, one of two girls who meet at the shelter St Bonny’s because their mothers are not able to take care of them. They spend some months together in the shelter and become friends and are described as salt and pepper because of their contrasting skin colours. During the story they meet again three more times later in life. Like in The Bluest Eye, Morrison uses female characters of different colours in both "Sweetness" and "Recitatif". In the former of the two, the point of view focaliser is Sweetness, who describes her own appearance as "light skinned, with good hair, what we call high yellow" (Morrison ”Sweetness” 1). When she gives birth to her daughter and recognizes that she is "so black that she scared [her]. Midnight black, Sudanese black" (Morrison "Sweetness" 1) her world breaks apart. She is so devastated by her daughter’s dark skin colour that she shortly after the birth for a minute holds a blanket over the baby girl’s face and presses. Lula Ann’s father’s skin colour is also described as "high-yellow" so the birth of the dark skinned girl leads to a major conflict between the couple. Neither of them want to admit that they have "negro blood hiding in their veins" (Morrison "Sweetness" 1) and when Sweetness is accused of cheating she tells her husband Lois that the blackness has to be from his family. This accusation makes him leave her. Sweetness’ life as an abondoned wife is not easy and she blames Lula Ann for being a heavy burden, all because of her dark skin colour.

Similar to The Bluest Eye, "Sweetness" contains both racism and intra-racial racism. According to Trisnawati white beauty hegemony leads to intraracial discrimination (67). African Americans are internalized to believe that their blackness equals ugliness. The result is a desire to live up to the white beauty standard. In this search of privileges of whiteness and in order to blend in the white society, intraracial discrimination emerges. When Sweetness gives birth to a black baby girl, she cannot bond with her daughter. She describes that the girl has "too thick lips" and "funny-colored eyes, crow black with a blue tint – something witchy about them" (Morrison "Sweetness" 2). Similar to how Rambo states that the Breedloves’ ugliness becomes a disease, Lula Ann’s ugliness is contagious. According to Washington, the subject of black women’s physical beauty occurs so frequently in the literary works of black women that it indicates that they have been discriminated because of their skin colour and texture of their hair (21). When Sweetness pushes her in the baby carriage "people would lean down and peek in to say something nice and then give a start or jump back before frowning" (Morrison "Sweetness" 2). It is no coincidence that Sweetness does not want to be associated with her black baby girl and her blackness. Lula-Ann is a victim of her mother’s experiences of intra-racial racism. Sweetness experiences and her mother’s and grandmother’s experiences have shown her that it is necessary to blend in white society to avoid racism and discrimination: "some of you probably think it’s a bad thing to group ourselves according to skin color – the lighter the better … But how else can we avoid being spit on in a drugstore, elbowed at the bus stop, having to walk in the gutter to let whites have the whole sidewalk, being charged a nickel at the grocer’s for a paper bag that’s free to white shoppers" (Morrison "Sweetness" 1). To avoid these experiences Sweetness’ light-skinned grandmother who passed for white, married a white man and never said a word to any one of her children about her being black. It was more important to blend in than to stay in touch with her own family. Both Sweetness and her grandmother chose assimilation to fit in the white society. According to Washington’s classification of black women in literature they are assimilated women. This type of black woman is a victim of psychic violence that alienates her from her roots. Assimilation aquires total denial of one’s ethnicity (Washington 24). Sweetness ambition to blend in is threatened by her black daughter. This fact leads to her distancing from Lula Ann. She does not want to be associated with her daughter’s blackness. Sharma states that Pauline punishes everyone who intrudes into her white world, including Pecola (61). This is also the case for Sweetness in relation to her daughter Lula Ann. Even though the reader never gets to hear Lula Ann’s point of view, Sweetness’ description of her indicates that she is satisfied with her blackness and she seems to be what

Tyson calls the liberated woman (390). She seems to be woman who has discovered her abilities and herself and like what she has discovered. Despite her mother’s harsh and racist parenting she seems to have become a confident black woman who is proud of her skin colour: "Last two times I saw her she was, well, striking. Kind of bold and confident. Each time she came to see me, I forgot how black she really was because she was using it to her advantage in beautiful white clothes" (Morrison "Sweetness" 3). Unlike Pecola, Lula Ann does not break, but despite her black skin finds confidence in herself and seems to be satisfied with who she is and how she looks. In "Recitatif" the reader is left in the dark by Morrison regarding which of the girls is black and which one is white. There are clues in the text and it can be assumed that Morrison gives these contradictory clues to challenge the reader and her prejudices. The girls seem suspicious towards each other in the beginning. At least Twyla has inherited prejudices towards Roberta and sees as a girl from a whole other race: "Every now and then [Twyla’s mother] would stop dancing long enough to tell me something important and one of the things she said was that they never washed their hair and they smelled funny" (Morrison "Recitatif" 1). When they meet again much later in life, Roberta has changed her looks. From having such big and wild hair that you could hardly see her face, her hair was now sleek and she had expensive clothes. This could indicate that Roberta is the black woman, because of the hair that seems African American. When Twyla questions why Roberta behaved unpleasantly when they met some years earlier she says "Oh, Twyla, you know how it was in those days: black-white. You know how everything was" (Morrison "Recitatif" 13). But from Twyla’s perspective it was quite different: "I thought it was just the opposite. Busloads of blacks and white came into Howard Johnson’s together. They roamed together then: students, musicians, lovers, protesters. You got to see everything at Howard Johnson’s and blacks were very friendly with whites in those days" (Morrison "Recitatif" 13). The difference in how they perceive race could have something to do with their own skin colours. Martinez states that assumptions of white superiority are so ingrained in political, legal, and educational structures that they are almost unrecognizable and are easily overlooked by its beneficiares (19). Black women have different experiences than white women and because of that they are more often aware of race issues than white women. By putting the white girl and the black girl next to each other in the short story, Morrison shows how different the perception of race can be depending on which skin colour you have. Martinez states that color blind racism is a way for whites to establish and maintain their position of dominance: "Ignoring racial differences

maintains and perpetuates the status quo with all its deeply institutionalized injustices to racial minorities" (17). When their mothers meet, Roberta’s mother, with a bible in her hand and a big cross on her chest, refuses to take Mary’s hand. This could indicate racism if Roberta and her mother are white. Daniela Hrzan states however that Roberta’s mother’s treatment of the situation could be a reaction to the racism that black people are victims of (220). Another race aspect that Morrison leaves open in "Recitatif" is the skin colour of "the kitchen woman with legs like parentheses" (Morrison "Recitatif" 2). The mute Maggie, who is the size of a child is described as a sandy-coloured woman by Twyla, but Roberta remembers her as black. Again, the way they perceive Maggie’s skin colour could have something to do with their own skin colour. Maggie’s skin colour is not the only thing the girls do not agree on when they meet years later. Roberta argues that Maggie was knocked down by some of the older girls and that Roberta and Twyla kicked her after she was knocked down. Twyla has no memory of this, only of how they called her mean names. Maggie is inferior to the girls because she is old, mute and a person of colour. The girls who are used to being inferior to everyone, seem to enjoy the power of being superior to someone and join in the mocking of Maggie. Maggie’s final destiny is not revealed, but the way she is described could indicate that she is a suspended woman because of her social vulnerability. She is a disabled, old and black woman who is physically and mentally abused by the children in the shelter. Most suspended women suffer severe physical abuse. Maggie lacks the ability to tell her story, she is mute like Pecola. The reason for their divergent memories could be that they have repressed what happened. Green Benjamin stated that as an allegory for black and white relations, their conflicting versions of the Maggie incident represents the racialized perspectives from America’s slave past (89). She states further that by letting Twyla be the one who recalls the Maggie incident, her recollection becomes a master narrative. Roberta’s version comes from the other end of the racial spectrum and works as an oppositional narrative (94). Twyla’s version is challenged by Roberta’s version. In both "Sweetness" and "Recitatif" girlhood and motherhood is central, similar to The Bluest Eye. Roberta and Twyla are not orphans like the children "with beautiful parents in the sky" (Morrison "Recitatif" 2) but have mothers who are unable to take care of them. Twyla’s mother ”just likes to dance all night” (Morrison "Recitatif" 1) and Roberta’s mother is sick. This fact makes the other children ignore them: "We didn’t like each other all that much at first, but nobody else wanted to play with us because we weren’t real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were dumped. Even the New York City Puerto Ricans and the upstate Indians ignored us" (Morrison "Recitatif" 2). Because of the absence of the mothers,

they end up in an exposed position in the shelter. Lula Ann is raised by a mother who is not able to accept her daughter because of how she looks. Her black skin and her distinct African American features make her unloveable in her mother’s eyes. The mothers in both "Sweetness" and "Recitatif" play a significant role in the children’s lives. The fathers are completely absent in the girls’ lives so the role of the mother is even more significant. While Sweetness seems to raise Lula Ann in a harsh and loveless way with the intention to prepare her for a life being a victim of racism, Twyla’s mother does not have any intentions and seems to be unable of mothering. Both Twyla and Lula Ann call their mothers something else instead of "mother". Instead of being safe refuges for their children, Mary, Sweetness and Pauline Breedlove are unable to support, love and raise their daughters. According to Sharma, before being a mother, each woman is a part of that large socio-cultural framework which defines and describes her periphery action (52). Because of their experiences before motherhood they fail to love and respect themselves and this makes them incapable of bestowing the same feelings to their daughters and other family members. The analysis of the novel and the short stories reveals that Morrison focuses on black women in her writing and especially the ones who carry one more category that makes them even more inferior: young girls. They are set in a context that shows that they are affected not only by racism from white people, but also from intra-racial racism and internalized racism that is inherited. Black motherhood is a recurrent theme and displays the devastating consequences for the daughters when the mother is incapable because of her own experiences and self-image.

5. Conclusion

The aim of this essay is to explore the categories of race, gender and age and how they interplay and affect the characters’ lives. The way Morrison thematizes the oppression of black women in The Bluest Eye was compared to how she thematizes the same subject in two of her short stories "Sweetness" and "Recitatif". Morrison’s collection of characters in The Bluest Eye contains several black women who react in different ways when they experience not only racism but even intra-racial racism. It seems that women are more affected by the white beauty standard than men, and the pressure to come closest to this standard and to blend in, leads to intra-racial racism within black community. While Geraldine gets rid of her funkiness and blackness in the process of assimilation to blend in, the Breedloves with their much darker skin cannot hide their

blackness, which equals ugliness in their community. The dysfunctional family is at the bottom of the social ladder due to their blackness. Pauline’s and Cholly’s experiences of racism and loveless childhood make them incapable of being loving and caring parents. Pecola, who carries three positions that mark her inferior, is both a victim of racism and intra- racial racism. Because of her parents’ bad parenthood and the rape and she is additionally victimized. Morrison’s usage of black female characters of different ages is a characteristic feature of the literature written by African American women writers. Morrison uses her voice of color to give black females of all ages a voice in her novel. Using different generations makes it possible to show how the process of internalization and how self-hatred is inherited from generation to generation. The choice of narrator in the novel also harmonize with the tradition of African American literature written by women. Morrison makes the black girls the tellers of their own story. Intra-racial racism, failed motherhood and abandoned young girls are central themes in "Sweetness" and "Recitatif" as well. The short stories like the novel are dominated by female characters of different ages. The comparison shows that Morrison continues to thematize the oppression of black women, and especially black girls. Black girls carry three positions that make them inferior: race, gender and age.

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