Bluest Eye Essay

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Jenny Brown ENGL 470 4/1/02 “Certainly no memories to be cherished”: Consequences of the Migration of Rural African-American Families to Urban Areas in The Bluest Eye The Breedlove family in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye has migrated from the rural South to the urban North, participating in the Great Migration that took place from 1910 to1940 in the U.S. Separated from family, the comfort of established culture, and thrust into isolation, their intent to live a more prosperous life affords them only the knowledge of their loss. Morrison has created characters that are intimately shaped by the memories of home, which destroy the possibility of successful integration into Northern culture. The importance of establishing a community identity travels with the Breedloves. Yet their lack of familial solidarity in Lorain damages fledgling beliefs about their worthiness to a community. Only love may provide the strength for African-American families to survive in the starkness of Lorain, Ohio, but the uprooted Breedloves cannot love themselves or each other and therefore do not survive. In the novel, manifestations of love flourish in different ways depending on the household. Although there is strong belief that the family structure was adversely affected in making the journey North, the MacTeer family does not disintegrate amid the stressful changes affecting the black underclass in northern cities (Tolnay 1). Love is presented through unity only in the MacTeer household, enabling them to forge through their awareness of white racism in the North. The members of this family exist in a sharp contrast to the Breedloves because they respect one another. Love is the salient characteristic of the MacTeer house, love “as thick as Alaga syrup” was everywhere in their home, even when Mrs. MacTeer was frustrated with their poverty and the children’s sickness.
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