She chose to narrate the rape from Cholly’s perspective, which makes it somewhat less nauseating to the reader than if Pecola or the third person narrator was explaining the event. The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedloe, a black girl who prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be.Morrison’s method of telling the horrible climax of the story was interesting. Pecola equates beauty and social acceptance with whiteness, so she longs to have ‘the bluest eye.’The bluest eye. Set in Morrison’s hometown of Lorain, Ohio, in 194041, the novel tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl from an abusive home. The Bluest Eye (1970), the first novel by Toni Morrison.

She reveals more about human suffering, and human experience, in drawing back this aspect, and as Maddie pointed out, we see the root of Cholly’s misguided issues in the flash back.The Bluest Eye is a coming-of-age narrative that tells the parallel, but very different stories, of its protagonists, Pecola Breedlove and Claudia Mac- Teer, two African-American young girls faced with a world that disregards their existence and undermines their sense of self-worth during the adolescent years that are central to healthy. Morrison was trying to raise awareness about the desolation which young African American girls felt during that time in history, as she states in the afterward: “I focused, therefore on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take route inside the most delicate member of society-In trying to dramatize the devastation that even casual racial contempt can cause, I chose a unique situation” (210).What I liked was that she brings this point home completely in her novel, but does not go too far in describing the horror of the rape. While the reader of course sympathizes with Pecola, and is disturbed by Cholly’s act, Morrison does not make it too hard for the reader. What could he do for her-ever? What give her? What say to her?”(161) His emotions, which were clouded at the time by how drunk he was, make for a far less cruel depiction that if Pecola’s emotional state was visited during the event. “Guilt and impotence rose in a bilious duet.

Another cruel twist is added to the story when he makes Pecola give the dog a poisoned piece of meet in order to kill it. He admits to himself that she is ugly, but that makes the need to get rid of her problem more urgent. The reason being that he was the only person throughout the whole story who looked at Pecola for the first time and instantly felt the need to help this little girl. But in a way, his character seems oddly redeemable. He plays the part of a false psychic and a man of God, not to mention his 'affections' towards little girls. Elihue Micah Whitcomb is a man who is corrupt in many ways.

The general store clerk feels that Pecola is not worthy of his respect or even acknowledgement since not only is she a young girl, but Pecola is a young, ugly, black girl.“Slowly… he looks at her. An excellent example is found on page 48. As the story progresses, Pecola believes that because her eyes are ugly, people can only see her as ugly and worthless. Pecola believes that because she has ugly eyes, she can only see ugly things. She simply does not want to be anywhere near any sort of malice. Morrison adds another level of depth to the story and forces you to ask yourself what you think is right and wrong in a situation like this.When Pecola’s parents fight, she wishes to be invisible.

When she first arrives at MacTeer's house, they notice that she will do absolutely anything to drink out of this Shirley Temple cup, wishing to somehow gain Shirley Temple's beauty by drinking out of that cup. By changing her view on life, Pecola loses herself and her connection with reality.Pecola's obsession with blue eyes is evident from the start of the novel. At the end of the novel, Pecola does gain a new perspective however, she loses the essence that is Pecola. In order to gain her new perspective, Pecola must lose her current perspective on the world.

Only her tight, tight eyes were left. Unfortunately for her, she does not disappear, 'Almost done, almost. When Pauline and Sammy attack Cholly, Pecola wishes to disappear and squeezes her eyes shut, slowly feeling her body disappearing. Throughout the novel Pecola's own desire to have blue eyes becomes increasingly obvious when the Breedlove family is introduced.

It's particularly interesting because throughout the whole novel up to that point, the reader (or I at least) had viewed Cholly as some awful, odious drunkard who did such inexcusably horrible and sick things, i.e. She feels that if she has blue eyes her life will completely change and that everytone will see her in a different light.I liked Morrison's use of flashbacks from the lives of Pecola's parents, particularly Cholly. To her, the fact that she can never get her eyes to disappear is a complete disappointment, especially since she does not see the point in disappearing the rest of her body, but not her eyes because 'they were everything' (45).

I liked this chapter because it gave me a perspective on why Cholly is the way he is. For me, it was a mix of pity and compassion, when earlier on in the novel I couldn't imagine feeling anything but disgust for him. The first humiliating instance, and then the pitiful anticlimax, change the reader's attitude toward Cholly. Yet, this chapter presents a different image: that of young, insecure, ashamed Cholly who is humiliated and degraded by white police officers while he is having sex for the first time, and rejected by his father, after having embarked on a journey to find him.

Similarly, the influence of his lonely childhood and lack of stable family, or family at all, is described: 'Had he not been alone in the world since he was thirteen, knowing only a dying old woman who felt responsible for him, but whose age, sex, and interests were so remote from his own, he might have felt a stable connection between himself and the children.' That is not to say that his actions- beating his wife, setting the house on fire, raping his daughter, and being a horrible father and husband in general- are justified by his childhood experiences, but just that it's evident that events and aspects of his life have contributed to his disfunctional, warped conception of family and duty. (This is similar to Claudia's inability to hate white girls- her hatred was translated into love and adoration) This disgust and hatred toward women, especially those helpless and pitiful, is evident, in a way, when he rapes Pecola.