The Bluest Eye Foreword - Autumn (I)
Foreword
Toni Morrison describes a meeting with a conversation that she had with an African American friend about beauty. The girl’s desire for blue eyes caused the author to experience revulsion, and years later led to him questioning society’s standards of beauty and their impact on young black girls. She goes on to elaborate on the challenge of humanizing the characters that knowingly or unknowingly bring harm to the protagonist of the novel, Pecola Breedlove.
Prologue
The prologue is an excerpt from the Dick and Janes Books that were used as reading primers in the American school system. The excerpts describe the pleasant living conditions of the white children and the positive relationship they share with their parents. The excerpt is repeated, without any punctuation to mark the end of a sentence, and then repeated once again without any spaces between the words.
Claudia MacTeer remembers that no marigolds bloomed in their hometown of Lorrain, Ohio in the autumn of 1941. She and her sister were distracted by the fate of their schoolmate, Pecola, the 11-year-old girl who had been impregnated by her father. She now understands that the Marigold seeds were incapable of producing life just like the seed that Pecola’s father had implanted in her womb.
Autumn (I)
Claudia was the youngest daughter of the MacTeer family and spent most of her time with her older sister, Frieda. Claudia recalls beating her neighbor, Rosemary, the daughter of the wealthy cafe owner, because she had been teasing them with ice cream. Claudia’s family was struggling to make ends meet, and she recalls falling sick with a cold during that season. Her parents were frustrated with her for being sick, and she remembers being scolded for not caring for herself well enough. She recalls throwing up on her clothes, and the anger of her mother. That was also the season Mr. Henry came to live with them as a tenant, and both of the girls were quite fond of him Despite their poor conditions, the MacTeer girls realized that they were privileged enough to not be outdoors, and they realized the true meaning of this privilege when Pecola was sent to live with them by the county. Pecola’s father, Cholly Breedlove, had been thrown into prison for setting his house on fire and for beating his wife.
The MacTeers reluctantly took in another mouth to feed as Pecola’s family tried to get back on their feet. Claudia and Frieda were unsure about Pecola at first, but they got on well with her since she was quite amenable to their games and ideas. Pecola and Frieda were both older than Claudia, and they were quite enamored with Shirley Temple, but Claudia did not share the same feelings for the young white actress. Claudia was averse to all things that resembled young white girls and grew quite violent with the doll that resembled a white child when she was given one as a present. The older Claudia confesses that her attitude changed quite a bit later in her life, as her behavior was adjusted to match society’s expectations. The MacTeers struggled to make ends meet, and Percola’s arrival further tightened their economic ability. Claudia recalls the day Percola drank all of the milk in the house, because of her fondness for using the Shirley Temple set. Their mother was quite upset and she could be heard berating Pecola’s parents loudly in the house. All three of the girls decide to go out of the house to find a means of entertaining themselves and they end up on the house porch. Pecola begins to menstruate while they are deciding what to do, but she doesn’t quite understand what is happening to her. Frieda understands what’s happening, and takes charge of the situation as she orders Claudia to clean the porch while she guides Pecola into the bushes. The girls are discovered there by their mother, who begins to beat them with a switch because the neighbor had told her that they were doing nasty things. She eventually discovers that Frieda was only trying to help Pecola, who was quite scared of menstruating. She leads Pecola into the house and helps her clean up properly. At night, the three girls lie in bed and Frieda tells them that Pecola can now have a baby, which would be possible if she loved a man. However, neither one of them is quite certain about the meaning of love yet.
Analysis
The reading primer excerpts at the beginning of the novel present an idyllic description of childhood, and these descriptions are painfully juxtaposed against the reality of childhood for the African American children growing up in Lorrain. The excerpts that serve as the prologue are repeated without spaces and punctuation as the author attempts to break down the idealized notions that the primers propagate. In these initial chapters, we begin to understand childhood through the experience of Claudia MacTeer and Peocla Breedlove. The description of Claudia’s childhood is contrasted against the idealized setting of Dick and Jane, but her problems begin to seem insignificant in comparison to the conditions of Pecola’s childhood. The MacTeer family is certainly poor, but the presence of two stable parents allows them to create a safe environment for the children to develop. They have their share of problems, but they can overcome them together throughout the course of the novel.
Claudia and Pecola are both beginning to realize the importance of physical appearance, but they differ in how they perceive the beauty standards of their world. Claudia is outrightly violent to the white dolls that seem to be so valued by her parents, and takes pleasure in beating Rosemary. Contrarily, Pecola treasures the images of young white girls like those that are found on candy wrappers and tea sets.
