A Forlorn Reality of the Bluest Eye

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A Forlorn Reality of the Bluest Eye Analyze this: Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, once said, ‘Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned’. Toni Morrison, does an exemplary job in explaining this quote through her fictitious novel, The Bluest eye. The author criticizes Cholly, Polly, Claudia, Soaphead and Pecola because they wrongly place their anger on themselves, their own race, their family or even God, instead of being angry at those they should have been angry at: the whites. The author explains that some people direct their anger, caused by their own failure on innocent beings. We can see this in the lives of Pecola’s parents, Pauline (Polly) and Charles (Cholly) Breedlove. As a result of having deformed foot, Polly had always had a feeling of unworthiness and separateness. With her own children, “sometimes, I’d catch myself hollering at them and beating them, but I couldn’t seem to stop” (124). She stopped taking care of her own children and her home. She found praise, love and acceptance with the Fisher family, and it was for these reasons that she stayed with them. Polly “held Cholly as a model of sin and failure, she bore him like a crown of thorns, and her children like a cross” (126). When Pecola’s Father, Cholly was caught as a teenager in a field with Darlene by two white men, “never did he once consider directing his hatred toward the hunters” (150), rather he directed his hatred towards the girl because he was powerless against the white men and was unable to protect Darlene from them as well. Also, Cholly felt that any misery his daughter suffered was his fault, and looking into Pecola’s loving eyes angered him because he wondered, “What could he do for her – ever? What giver her? What say to her?” (161). Cholly’s failures led him to hate those

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