Claudia

I found Claudia’s mature awareness of being powerless interesting in the beginning of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Although she is immature and naïve about some things, she is smart enough to recognize that she has no say in adult matters. She knows she is just a child and adults do not care about her opinion; “Had any adult with the power to fulfill my desires taken me seriously, they would have known that I did not want to have anything to own, or to possess any object. I wanted rather to feel on Christmas day” (Morrison 21). This is a very grown-up thought process that some people never reach. Claudia’s maturity is also seen in her knowledge of being put “outdoors”; “There is a difference between being put out and being put outdoors. If you are put out, you go somewhere else; if you are outdoors, there is no place to go” (Morrison 17). This is a very complex idea for a child to understand. Claudia is definitely a regular kid in many ways, but she is conscious of her place in society not only as a child, but as a young black female.