Mr. Henry's Departure

About halfway through the novel, on page 99, Mr. Henry touches Frieda's breasts and is driven from the household by Claudia and Frieda's mom and dad:

"...when Daddy saw him come up on the porch, he threw our old tricycle at his head and knocked him off the porch."
"Did he die?"
"Naw. He got up and started singing 'Nearer My God to Thee.' [a well-known hymn often sung at funerals] Then Moma hit him with a broom and told him to kee the Lord's name out of his mouth, but he wouldn't stop , and Daddy was cussing, and everybody was screaming."
"Oh, shoot, I always miss stuff."

This scene is a good example of comic relief in a tragic story. "Oh, shoot, I always miss stuff" would be hilarious if we weren't aware that there was no one to drive Pecola's father away. The parallelism is clear; the mixed emotions of comic relief and pain create a complex texture that is distinctive.

Claudia

Something that immediately struck me as I re-read the first few pages of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison was Claudia's amazing level of awareness of the world around her. She uses this awareness to quickly form her own beliefs and she adheres to them strongly. One such belief is that to those older than her and her sister, she is nothing more than a child who makes mistakes and a burden. Contrary to what these adults might think, Claudia is not such a simple child. She happens to be an intelligent, though at times naive person who has her own unique opinions. For example, at only nine years old she has a very strong opposition to the ideals that others place in the beautiful dolls she absolutely despises. As she states in the story, "I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to the find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me... all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl-child treasured" (Morrison 20). Claudia is observant, and even though she has much to understand about the world, she has a certain wisdom about her that makes her quite an interesting character.

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.

Child's Perspective

The first thing that struck me about the Bluest Eye was the use of children’s perspectives in the novel. In the beginning segment before the book, it is so new and different how Morrison wrote a summery paragraph with really basic sentences and concepts and then repeated it twice with less spacing each time. I took this to represent the adult perception of how children write and think, and how they are often underestimated. As the rest of the book so far seems to be told from a child’s perspective, it seems like Morrison is out to prove the assumption wrong, which is made so interesting with Claudia as the speaker. I think the paradox of the narrator’s perspective creates this interesting. She offers incredible insight, yet admits to not fully grasping the things she’s commentating on. “The edge, the curl, the thrust of their emotions is always clear to Frieda and me. We do not, cannot, know the meaning of all their words, for we are nine and ten years old. So we watch their faces, their hands, their feet, and listen for truth in timbre.” (Morrison, 15). Claudia’s knowledge increases as she grows throughout the book, yet this paradox has remained as far as I’ve read, and it lends a very different aspect to the entire story.

Pecola

While reading the novel I noticed Pecola's resistance to growing up. She seems to want to remain a quiet child forever instead of learning to speak for herself and become a young adult. An example of this is when Frieda and Claudia's mother is complaining about the missing milk. Although Pecola did drink all the milk, it was not out of greediness or thirst; "We knew she was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every oppurtunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirley's face" (Morrison 23). Here Pecola drinks the milk so she can admire and enjoy a cup, she does not understand at the time what she is doing, in her naive frame of mind she is doing nothing wrong. In my opinion, Pecola's wrecked homelife and childhood leads to her resistence of giving up her youth. As a young child, she does not have to understand and realize the horrors from her home, instead it is acceptable for her ignore this through daydreams and play. I believe Pecola is clinging to her childish side because through acting as a child she is able to block out the reality of her life.

Interaction with Adults

I found the way that Claudia and Frieda see adults extremely interesting. They look at adults as if they are another species, one that they do not understand and cannot fully communicate with. The two girls obviously study the interactions of adults frequently, due to their analysis of how adults speak to each other, and the fact that in that time period, children were seen and not heard. Claudia also says that, "The edge, the curl, the thrust of their emotions is always clear to Frieda and me" (Morrison 15), which shows the extensive study of adults that Claudia and Frieda have completed, seeing as they can sense the emotions of adults despite what they're saying. Claudia expresses the fact that she does not understand adults when she says, "We do not, cannot, know the meanings of all their words, for we are nine and ten years old" (Morrison 15). She believes that due to her age, she cannot understand what adults are saying, simply beacuse she is not one of them yet. I think that it will be interesting to see how the relationships between Claudia and adults evolve over the course of the novel and if she begins to understand what they are saying as much as what they are feeling.

Sibling Conflicts Between Claudia and Freida

Claudia and Freida represent the stereotypical sibling rivalry in the novel The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. The sisters are the only children of the family and are constantly with each other. Naturally, their adjacent lifestyles often causes tension between the girls. Freida is the older sister who takes the role as the braver, more experienced sibling. She attempts to control the actions of her little sister, who is aware of Freida's bossiness. Claudia refers to Freida as, "All authority and zest" (Morrison 28). Freida assumes the role of the leader of the two and expects Claudia to follow her commands. Freida patronizes Claudia and attempts to lower the latter's self-esteem: "You don't have to, dummy. Look" (Morrison 28). Freida is the typical American older sister and commits the conventional actions regularly. Although the daughters do not have the strongest relationship, they are willing to come together during necessary times. For example, when Pecola stays with their family, the girls do not bicker and put all their effort into pleasing Pecola: "Freida and I had stopped fighting with each other and concentrated on our guest" (Morrison 18-19). Their sudden unionship indicates that the girls have the potential of becoming great allies in difficult times. I predict that they will come together to support each other during conflicts later in the novel.

Growth and Development

The theme of growth and development is evident throughout the beginning of the novel so far. The second chapter begins with comparing Pecola's development as a mother with the marigolds growing that year: " We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow," (Morrison 5). Along with this growth for Pecula, on page 27 she devolops into a woman. Although I believe the story will center aroung Claudia's development, Pecola's will be very important. She is the girl who begins the fascination of the perfect blonde hair blue eyed girl: "Freida and she had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was," (Morrison 19). As the novel begins ot unfold, the obsession of the Shirley Temple-like girl will most likely grow and cause conflict among the characters Pecola, Freida, and Claudia since they do not yet see their beauty.

Symbolism?

Thanks to the fact that I have the chronic tendency to judge books by their covers, some of what struck me about the prologue of the book was the fact that there is no actual description of Jane in the opening passage, only “She has a red dress. She wants to play;” it is never actually stated that Jane is white, but this fact is implied by the context (Morrison 5). On the cover of my edition, there is a picture of Claudia—wearing a red dress. Although I am not sure what the world thought of such things as Dick and Jane stories and “blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll(s),” in the 1970s when this book was published, in the 2000s these are symbols for the stiff subjugation of women and minorities in the United States between the 1900s and the 1960s (Morrison 20). Also, if "Jane" is supposed to represent Claudia in this story, then perhaps "Dick" could be Frieda, "Mother" could be Mrs. MacTeer, and "Father" might be Mr. Henry or someone that hasn't been introduced yet.

I noticed that someone said they thought this would be an archetypical journey of self-discovery for Claudia, and I agree. “Outdoors was the end of something, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining and complimenting our metaphysical condition,” Claudia says; to me this suggests a threshold into the world around her from the safe little world of the home that she has known, and her growing awareness of the journey she must take into the unknown (Morrison 17). Through the first few pages, there is a sense of anticipation, or waiting for something to begin. They are waiting for the arrival of Mr. Henry, Claudia and Frieda are waiting to grow up, and there is a distinct sense of foreboding in the line, “Even after what came later, there was no bitterness in our memory of him” (Morrison 16).

What Caught My Eye

I am particularly interested to discover how Claudia's relationship with adults, especially wer mother, affects her character development. Their relationship is similar to the one I have with my mother: somewhat abusive and degrading in the open, but secretly compassionate and loving. I will definately be keeping my eye open for parallels between Claudia and myself. ALso, Claudia's comment on page 12, "But was it really like that? As painful as i remember?" struck me. I often have pondered this question on sleepless nights, and I am begining to wonder if this question arose from Claudia's relationship with her mother. It is interesting that a character would note such a fact, as usally the narrator's word is absolute truth. In Claudia's case, she is questioning her memories and undermining her reliability as a narrator.