Thesis: This Book Isn't Written for Me
In the afterward of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison states: “One problem was centering the weight of the novel’s inquiry on so delicate and vulnerable a character could smash her and lead readers into the comfort of pitying her rather than into an interrogation of themselves for the smashing.” (Morrison, 13). I was puzzled by Morrison’s words. I questioned myself: Why should I not feel sorry for Pecola? How could any reader not pity Pecola? I remember discussing the afterward the next day in class. My classmates appeared stumped as I was, as Morrison’s words about pity came up during discussion. As a class, we came to the conclusion that what Morrison is trying to convey is: We shouldn’t pity Pecola, because there exist young girls living in the same conditions as Pecola in the “Real World”. This conclusion, however, only inspired more questions within me: “What exactly does it mean to pity Pecola?” and “What does it mean to pity Pecola in the context of her condition also existing in the world outside the novel?” After careful thinking, reading, and research—I came up with a theory. Still, I was wary of dedicating my project to this theory. This is a simultaneously heavy, but delicate subject. The way I go about approaching it needs to be handled carefully as Pecola’s story has not, and never will be, my own. The Bluest Eye is not a story written for me. This topic is one that allows me to exercise my knowledge and interest in racism and its psychological impacts, but this topic also requires me to recognize that I am the audience that concerns Morrison. I cannot write from the perspective of truly “understanding” or identifying with Pecola. For this reason, I was disappointed to see that no authors of color that I could find had written anything on the specific subject of why Pecola should not be pitied by a White audience (in fact, no one seems to have written on it at all), so, I took it upon myself to learn more in an effort to both satisfy my curiosity and also seek to further my development in knowledge of intersectional feminist racial issues. Though I cannot speak of my understanding of racism, I can speak of my knowledge of others’ understanding. I argue that Toni Morrison’s Pecola is not intended for a White audience, and is not to be pitied because to pity her is to capitalize on the suffering of real world Pecola’s in which the privileged can peek into their lives and dehumanize, and “other” them while simultaneously feeling satisfaction of good fortune in comparison, a pat on the back for devoting a depthless tear for victims of racial violence, and a perverse opportunity to glimpse into this world of Pecola’s but having the privilege to exit it while Pecola and girls like Pecola never have the privilege of escape. In these writings I will examine evidence from Toni Morrison’s commentary on the subject in interview and the novel to analyze with an intersectional feminist lens.
It should be first noted: Toni Morrison does not write for White people: “I’m writing for Black people…I don’t have to apologize” (Hoby). Morrison is reacting to the idea that “Of all the mantels that have been foisted on [her] shoulders, the heaviest has to be ‘the conscious of America’” (Hoby). America hates talking about race, because White people prioritize their comfort over Black lives. As a result, we tend to distance ourselves from this discomfort when exposed to racist realities from the Black perspective. As a result, The Bluest Eye is frequently banned in classrooms, and as one racial issues blogger states: “I wonder if the deeper meaning for the ban is that The Bluest Eye makes some people uncomfortable. It says plainly what many of us refuse to admit: that our aesthetics are not entirely our own, but are at least in part a function of the racist culture in which we live. White skin, straight hair, and blue eyes are considered more beautiful and therefor more valuable than brown or black skin, curly hair, and dark eyes” (Lalami). We must be careful, though, to not limit recognition of racial issues in The Bluest Eye to beauty. This can discredit the complex, multi-faceted institutional racisms that Morrison describes, as well as painting the story as skin-deep, superficial, and even more dangerous: a Black problem of self-hatred rather than White-imposed internalized hatred. Pecola’s “ugliness” is the issue from her own, a child’s, perspective—as a child cannot begin to understand the racist institutions that deem her ugly. To interpret Morrison’s portrayal of Black struggle as an issue as simple as White beauty standards is to interpret the novel at child-level. No, Morrison’s Pecola is “ugly” because of institutions that destined her ugliness hundreds of years prior; that destined her poverty; that destined her condemnation after her abuse; that destined her abuse in the first place (Morgan). As White people, we are not subject to racist institutions and therefor can never understand Pecola. Pecola’s suffering is not meant to be “understood” by White people, however, it also is not meant to be dismissed. What White people can understand, however, is our role in Pecola’s suffering.
One poignant statement Morrison makes in an interview concerning her White audience reads: “I’m writing for Black people in the same way that Tolstoy was not writing for me, a 14-year-old Black coloured girl from Lorain, Ohio. I don’t have to apologize or consider myself limited because I don’t [write about White people]—which is not absolutely true, there are lots of White people in my books. The point is not having the White critic sit on your shoulder and approve it” (Hoby). So, Morrison doesn’t write for White people; but she does write about them. What does this mean? Morrison does not cater to White comfort. The Bluest Eye is not a comfortable novel for White people, and it was not intended to be. White people are featured in the novel and the accuracy isn’t pleasing to the White conscience. They’re racist and dismissive, because, well, that’s how it really was (and still is). Morrison states that she decided she would not try to “explain” Black life to a White audience. She would not “write from the position of outsider to her own experience” (Brockers).
Virtually every reaction of pity to Pecola is somehow perverted. Even within the characters of the novel, Claudia describes her own and other’s capitalization on Pecola’s misfortune:
“We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used—to silence our own nightmares…We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.” (Morrison, 220)
Reader’s pity is the façade for a similar capitalization, and White pity is worse. To be White and to pity Pecola is to partially remove oneself from accountability. We can reward ourselves for dedicating a few moments in time to feeling sad for Black issues, (issues that we either cause directly, indirectly, or benefit from). We replace what would be discomfort with a faux solidarity. There can never be solidarity between Pecola and the White reader, because we White readers have the privilege of removing ourselves from Pecola’s world when we close the novel.
We get our twisted thrill in reading of her misfortune, of sympathizing with her, and then immediately we can forget. That is quite perverted, isn’t it? Rather than sympathizing with Pecola; rather than pitying her Blackness and identify with her sorrow; White readers should identify instead with the White characters. “In what ways am I like them (White characters)”? as opposed to “In what ways am I like Pecola”? is more productive mindset in considering the real Pecola’s of the world.
