Blog Post #4: Feminism in The Bluest Eye

Taken from "Feminism is an Un-African Concept "by Sukoluhle Hadebe

            Wow. It's been quite the journey with this novel, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. It has been an emotional experience reading this book, especially for the purpose of analysis, but I must contend that it was the feminist theory that gave me the most insight. 

            The most obvious reason for this is the book was written by a woman and about women. This led me to believe that it was also written for women.  As I read, as a young Black woman myself,  I could identify with the feelings of inferiority when compared to my "white" counterparts. It also caused me to respond emotionally because the entire book was essentially about how women need to empower themselves so they can empower each other. Feminism is about women being seen as equal with men, but it's also about women having leadership roles and breaking free from submissive stereotypes. In the text, Morrison explores this in the juxtaposition of Pauline: the perfect servant (more on that here) and the three prostitutes Miss Marie, Miss China and Miss Poland: the women who make their own rules and make the men in their lives serve them. 

          Along with this juxtaposition, Morrison's conclusion of the novel brings this entire idea home, i.e., the idea of women uplifting themselves and subsequently uplifting each other. After Pecola was raped by her father, impregnated and suffered a miscarriage, she had a psychotic breakdown. Claudia comments on how, after that, the community was ashamed of what they had allowed to happen. 

"We tried to see her without looking at her...because we had failed her." (Morrison 204-205)

Morrison then goes back to how the novel began, Freida and Claudia planting flowers for Pecola's baby that refused to grow. In the beginning, they blamed themselves for planting the seeds too deeply, but at the end of the novel, that idea changes to not blaming themselves, but blaming the soil. To me, this represents the fact that because they were already broken, sad, and did not love themselves, they didn't know how to love and uplift Pecola. 

"This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers," Claudia says. "Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear..." (Morrison, 206) 

        Through the feminist theory, I saw the importance of this novel for today's Black woman. Even though society has made many strides in combatting the idea of racism and stereotypical gender roles, there are still so many women, TOO many women, who feel like they are less than others, who hate themselves and hurt themselves because they think they deserve it. By craving that "bluest eye" like Pecola, by wanting to change themselves into what society wants, they end up hurting themselves. Feminist theory denounces this idea and challenges this narrative. It highlights the dangers of following this narrative (Pauline's family got destroyed because she was too focused on serving others and not uplifting herself); Claudia was too sickened by self-hate to help her friend. 

Overall, I enjoyed this perspective for what it forced me to see about myself and our society and reading this book has definitely changed my life.