“There is somethin’ in this house thatloves brassieres,”

“They are ugly. They are weeds.” Preoccupiedwith that revelation, she trips on the sidewalk crack. Angerstirs and wakes in her; it opens its mouth, and like a hot-mouthed puppy, laps up the dredges of her shame.

he shakes her head, her fingertip fixed on the spotwhich, in her view, at any rate, identifies the Mary Janes. Hecannot see her view—the angle of his vision, the slant of herfinger, makes it incomprehensible to him. His lumpy redhand plops around in the glass casing like the agitated headof a chicken outraged by the loss of its body

All things in her are flux and anticipation. Buther blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness thataccounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste inwhite eyes.

She pulls off her shoe and takes out the three pennies. Thegray head of Mr. Yacobowski looms up over the counter. Heurges his eyes out of his thoughts to encounter her. Blue eyes.Blear-dropped. Slowly, like Indian summer moving imper-ceptibly toward fall, he looks toward her. Somewherebetween retina and object, between vision and view, his eyesdraw back, hesitate, and hover. At some fixed point in timeand space he senses that he need not waste the effort of aglance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothingto see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant store-keeper with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth, hismind honed on the doe-eyed Virgin Mary, his sensibilitiesblunted by a permanent awareness of loss, see a little blackgirl? Nothing in his life even suggested that the feat was pos-sible, not to say desirable or necessary.“Yeah?”

, and flesh on unsur-prised flesh

Tacitly they had agreed not to kill each other.

omehow he could not astound. He could only beastounded. So he gave that up, to

from

Cholly was beyond redemption, of course, and redemptionwas hardly the point—Mrs. Breedlove was not interested inChrist the Redeemer, but rather Christ the Judge.)

Her voice was like an earache in thebrain.

Because it had not taken place imme-diately, the oncoming fight would lack spontaneity; it wouldbe calculated, uninspired, and deadly

Her one good foot made hard,bony sounds; the twisted one whispered on the linoleum

Dealing with it eachaccording to his way. Mrs. Breedlove handled hers as anactor does a prop: for the articulation of character, for sup-port of a role she frequently imagined was hers—martyr-dom. Sammy used his as a weapon to cause others pain. Headjusted his behavior to it, chose his companions on thebasis of it: people who could be fascinated, even intimidatedby it. And Pecola. She hid behind hers. Concealed, veiled,eclipsed—peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom,and then only to yearn for the return of her mask

You looked at them and wondered why they were sougly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Thenyou realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. Itwas as though some mysterious all-knowing master hadgiven each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had eachaccepted it without question. The master had said, “You areugly people.” They had looked about themselves and sawnothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support forit leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, everyglance. “Yes,” they had said. “You are right.” And they tookthe ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them,and went about the world with it.

She rolls down the window to tell my sister Frieda andme that we can’t come in.

RosemaryVillanucc

The only living thing in the Breedloves’ house was the coalstove, which lived independently of everything and every-one, its fire being “out,” “banked,” or “up” at its own dis-cretion, in spite of the fact that the family fed it and knew allthe details of its regimen: sprinkle, do not dump, not toomuch . . . . The fire seemed to live, go down, or die accord-ing to its own schemata. In the morning, however, it alwayssaw fit to die

ed, nerves unsettled, so a hated piece of furniture producesa fretful malaise that asserts itself throughout the house andlimits the delight of things not related to

You could hate a sofa, of course—that is, if you couldhate a sofa. But it didn’t matter. You still had to get together$4.80 a month. If you had to pay $4.80 a month for a sofathat started off split, no good, and humiliating—youcouldn’t take any joy in owning it.

nestled together in the storefront.Festering together in the debris of a realtor’s whim. Theyslipped in and out of the box of peeling gray, making no stirin the neighborhood, no sound in the labor force, and nowave in the mayor’s office. Each member of the family in hisown cell of consciousness, each making his own patchworkquilt of reality—collecting fragments of experience here,pieces of information there. From the tiny impressionsgleaned from one another, they created a sense of belongingand tried to make do with the way they found each othe

Breedlove

Mostlythey looked, their elaborate dresses, long-sleeved and long-skirted, hiding the nakedness that stood in their eye

They moved slowly, laughedslowly

here is an abandoned store on the southeast corner ofBroadway and Thirty-fifth Street in Lorain, Ohio. It doesnot recede into its background of leaden sky, nor harmonizewith the gray frame houses and black telephone polesaround it. Rather, it foists itself on the eye of the passerby ina manner that is both irritating and melancholy. Visitorswho drive to this tiny town wonder why it has not been torndown, while pedestrians, who are residents of the neighbor-hood, simply look away when they pass it

HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWHITEITHASAREDDOORITISVERYPRETTYITISVERYPRETTYPRETTYPRETTY

he water gushed, and over its gushing we could hearthe music of my mother’s laughte

“Should we beat up Rosemary?”“No. Leave her alone.”31

Rosemarywas watching us.

Don’t nobody never want nothing till they see me atthe sink. Then everybody got to drink water

“That’s ministratin

Misery colored by the greens and blues in mymother’s voice took all of the grief out of the words andleft me with a conviction that pain was not onlyendurable, it was sweet.

onnecting one offense to another until all of the thingsthat chagrined her were spewed out. Then, having toldeverybody and everything off, she would burst into songand sing the rest of the day. But it was such a long timebefore the singing part came. In the meantime, ourstomachs jellying and our necks burning, we listened,avoided each other’s eyes, and picked toe jam orwhateve

Ashamed of the insults that were being heaped on ourfriend, we just sat there: I picked toe jam, Frieda cleanedher fingernails with her teeth, and Pecola finger-tracedsome scars on her knee—her head cocked to one side. Mymother’s fussing soliloquies always irritated anddepressed us.

The best hiding place was love. Thus the conversion frompristine sadism to fabricated hatred, to fraudulent love. Itwas a small step to Shirley Temple. I learned much laterto worship her, just as I learned to delight in cleanliness,knowing, even as I learned, that the change wasadjustment without improvement

The indifference withwhich I could have axed them was shaken only by mydesire to do so. To discover what eluded me: the secret ofthe magic they weaved on others. What made peoplelook at them and say, “Awwwww,” but not for me? Theeye slide of black women as they approached them on theThe Bluest Eye

The truly horrifying thing was the transference of thesame impulses to little white girls

I destroyed white baby dolls.

“Dear Claudia, what experience would youlike on Christmas?” I could have spoken up, “I want tosit on the low stool in Big Mama’s kitchen with my lapfull of lilacs and listen to Big Papa play his violin for mealone.” The lowness of the stool made for my body, thesecurity and warmth of Big Mama’s kitchen, the smell ofthe lilacs, the sound of the music, and, since it would begood to have all of my senses engaged, the taste of apeach, perhaps, afterward

Christmas day

Grown people frowned and fussed: “You-don’t-know-how-to-take-care-of-nothing. I-never-had-a-baby-doll-in-my-whole-life-and-used-to-cry-my-eyes-out-for-them.Now-you-got-one-a-beautiful-one-and-you-tear-it-up-what’s-the-matter-with-you?

Here,” they said, “this is beautiful, and if you are onthis day ‘worthy’ you may have it.” I fingered the face,wondering at the single-stroke eyebrows; picked at thepearly teeth stuck like two piano keys between redbowline lips. Traced the turned-up nose, poked the glassyblue eyeballs, twisted the yellow hair. I could not love it.But I could examine it to see what it was that all theworld said was lovable. Break off the tiny fingers, bendthe flat feet, loosen the hair,

The starched gauze or lace on thecotton dress irritated any embrace. I had only one desire:to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discoverthe dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that hadescaped me, but apparently only me. Adults, older girls,shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all theworld had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired,pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.The Bluest Eye

If, in sleep, I turned, the bone-cold headcollided with my own. It was a most uncomfortable,patently aggressive sleeping companion.

When I took it to bed, its hard unyielding limbs resistedmy flesh—the tapered fingertips on those dimpled handsscratched

Motherhood was old age, and other remote possibilities.I learned quickly, however, what I was expected to dowith the doll: rock it, fabricate storied situations aroundit, even sleep with it. Picture books were full of little girlssleeping with their dolls

I was physically revoltedby and secretly frightened of those round moronic eyes,the pancake face, and orangeworms hair.

was bemused with the thing itself, and theway it looked. What was I supposed to do with it?Pretend I was its mother? I had no interest in babies orthe concept of motherhood.

big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll. From the clucking sounds of adults Iknew that the doll represented what they thought was myfondest wish.

Jane Withers

Not because she wascute, but because she danced with Bojangles, who wasmy friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to havebeen soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me. Instead hewas enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing withone of those little white girls whose socks never sliddown under their heels.

and gazed fondly atthe silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face

Shirley Templ

She laughed when I clownedfor her, and smiled and accepted gracefully the food giftsmy sister gave her

Frieda and I stopped fighting

Pecola was to stay with us

Cholly Breedlov

Renting blacks cast furtive glancesat these owned yards and porches, and made firmercommitments to buy themselves “some nice little oldplace.” In the meantime, they saved, and scratched, andpiled away what they could in the rented hovels, lookingforward to the day of property

Propertiedblack people spent all their energies, all their love, on theirnests. Like frenzied, desperate birds, they overdecoratedeverything; fussed and fidgeted over their hard-wonhomes; canned, jellied, and preserved all summer to fill thecupboards and shelves; they painted, picked, and poked atevery corner of their houses. And these houses loomedlike hothouse sunflowers among the rows of weeds thatwere the rented houses.

Dead doesn’t change, and outdoors is here tostay

Being aminority in both caste and class

Outdoors was the end ofsomething, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining andcomplementing our metaphysical condition.

Outdoors

Mama had told us two days earlier that a “case” wascoming—a girl who had no place to go. The county hadplaced her in our house for a few days until they coulddecide what to do, or, more precisely, until the familywas reunited. We were to be nice to her and not fight.Mama didn’t know “what got into people,” but that oldThe Bluest Eye

Breedlove

Frieda

Even after what came later, there wasno bitterness in our memory of him

Daddy was smiling, andMama’s eyes went soft as they followed our handswandering over Mr. Henry’s body.

Our shock was laced with delight.

Greta Garbo, and you mustbe Ginger Rogers

e smiled a lot, showing small even teeth with afriendly gap in the middle. Frieda and I were notintroduced to him—merely pointed out. Like, here is thebathroom; the clothes closet is here; and these are mykids, Frieda and Claudia; watch out for this window; itdon’t open all the way

heart made of jelly.

Their conversation is like a gently wicked dance: soundmeets sound, curtsies, shimmies, and retires.

. We do not heartheir words, but with grown-ups we listen to and watchout for their voices

So when I think ofautumn, I think of somebody with hands who does notwant me to die

fructifying

hen we catch colds, they shaketheir heads in disgust at our lack of consideration. How,they ask us, do you expect anybody to get anything doneif you all are sick? We cannot answer them. Our illness istreated with contempt, foul Black Draught, and castor oilthat blunts our minds.

Our house is old, cold, and green. At night a kerosenelamp lights one large room. The others are braced indarkness, peopled by roaches and mice.

When she comes out of the carwe will beat her up, make red marks on her white skin,and she will cry and ask us do we want her to pull herpants down. We will say no. We don’t know what weshould feel or do if she does, but whenever she asks us,we know she is offering us something precious and thatour own pride must be asserted by refusing to accept.

and drunken men and sobereyes sing in the lobby of the Greek hotel.

Nuns go by as quiet as lust,

There is really nothing more to say—except why. Butsince why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.The Bluest Eye

Cholly Breedlove isdead; our innocence too.

had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirtjust as Pecola’s father had dropped his seeds in his own plotof black dirt.

It was a long time before my sister and I admitted toourselves that no green was going to spring from our seeds.Once we knew, our guilt was relieved only by fights andmutual accusations about who was to blame. For years Ithought my sister was right: it was my fault. I had plantedthem too far down in the earth. It never occurred to eitherof us that the earth itself might have been unyielding.

if weplanted the seeds, and said the right words over them, theywould blossom, and everything would be all right

Pecolawas having her father’s baby

marigolds

with jane they will play a good game play jane playHereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisveryprettyhereisthefamilymotherfatherdickandjaneliveinthegreenandwhitehousetheyareveryhappyseejaneshehasareddressshewantstoplaywhowillplaywithjaneseethecatitgoesmeowmeowcomeandplaycomeplaywithjanethekittenwillnotplayseemothermotherisverynicemotherwillyouplaywithjanemotherlaughslaughmotherlaughseefatherheisbigandstrongfatherwillyouplaywithjanefatherissmilingsmilefathersmileseethedogbowwowgoesthedogdoyouwanttoplaydoyouwanttoplaywithjaneseethedogrunrundogrunlooklookherecomesafriendthefriendwillplaywithjanetheywillplayagoodgameplayjaneplayThe Bluest Eye

. Smile, Father, smil

Laugh, Mother, laugh.

See Jane

The Bluest EyeLThis book has been optimized for viewing at a monitorsetting of 1024 × 768 pixels.

hinking back now on the problems expressive languagepresented to me, I am amazed by their currency, their tenac-ity. Hearing “civilized” languages debase humans, watchingcultural exorcisms debase literature, seeing oneself preservedin the amber of disqualifying metaphors—I can say that mynarrative project is as difficult today as it was then.xiii

My choices of language (speakerly, aural, colloquial), myreliance for full comprehension on codes embedded in blackculture, my effort to effect immediate coconspiracy and inti-macy (without any distancing, explanatory fabric), as well asmy attempt to shape a silence while breaking it are attemptsto transfigure the complexity and wealth of Black Americanculture into a language worthy of the culture.

speakerly, aural, colloquial

The other problem, of course, was language. Holding thedespising glance while sabotaging it was difficult. The noveltried to hit the raw nerve of racial self-contempt, expose it,then soothe it not with narcotics but with language thatreplicated the agency I discovered in my first experience ofbeauty. Because that moment was so racially infused (myrevulsion at what my school friend wanted: very blue eyes ina very black skin; the harm she was doing to my concept ofthe beautiful), the struggle was for writing that was indis-putably black. I don’t yet know quite what that is, but nei-ther that nor the attempts to disqualify an effort to find outkeeps me from trying to pursue it.Foreword

My solution—break the narrative into parts that had to bereassembled by the reader—seemed to me a good idea, theexecution of which does not satisfy me now. Besides, it didn’twork: many readers remain touched but not moved

One problem was centering the weight of the novel’sinquiry on so delicate and vulnerable a character could smashher and lead readers into the comfort of pitying her ratherthan into an interrogation of themselves for the smashing

In exploringthe social and domestic aggression that could cause a childto literally fall apart, I mounted a series of rejections, someroutine, some exceptional, some monstrous, all the whiletrying hard to avoid complicity in the demonization processPecola was subjected to. That is, I did not want to dehuman-ize the characters who trashed Pecola and contributed to hercollapse.

I believed some aspects ofher woundability were lodged in all young girls

situation, not a representative one

Ifocused, therefore, on how something as grotesque as thedemonization of an entire race could take root inside themost delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnera-ble member: a female.

The assertion ofracial beauty was not a reaction to the self-mocking, humor-ous critique of cultural/racial foibles common in all groups,but against the damaging internalization of assumptionsof immutable inferiority originating in an outside gaze.

Why, although reviled by others, could this beautynot be taken for granted within the community? Why did itneed wide public articulation to exist? T

their identity; melt into a structure that delivers the strongpersona they lack. Most others, however, grow beyond it.But there are some who collapse, silently, anonymously, withno voice to express or acknowledge it. They are invisible. Thedeath of self-esteem can occur quickly, easily in children,before their ego has “legs,” so to speak. Couple the vulnera-bility of youth with indifferent parents, dismissive adults, anda world, which, in its language, laws, and images, re-enforcesdespair, and the journey to destruction is sealed

Who made her feel that it was better to be a freak thanwhat she was? Who had looked at her and found her sowanting, so small a weight on the beauty scale?

“beautiful,” I had never experienced its shock—the force ofwhich was equaled by the knowledge that no one recognizedit, not even, or especially, the one who possessed it.Foreword

The origin of the novel lay in a conversation I had with achildhood friend. We had just started elementary school. Shesaid she wanted blue eyes. I looked around to picture herwith them and was violently repelled by what I imagined shewould look like if she had her wish. The sorrow in her voiceseemed to call for sympathy, and I faked it for her, but,astonished by the desecration she proposed, I “got mad” ather instead

When I began writing The Bluest Eye, I was interestedin something else. Not resistance to the contempt of oth-ers, ways to deflect it, but the far more tragic and disablingconsequences of accepting rejection as legitimate, as self-evident.

hated for things we have no control over and cannot change.

To the two who gave me lifeand the one who made me free

B L U E S T

In1993 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“Toni Morrison has made herself into the D. H. Lawrence ofthe black psyche, transforming individuals into forces, idio-syncrasy into inevitability.

may be the last classic American writer,squarely in the tradition of Poe, Melville, Twain and Faulkner.”

MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,

Mrs. Jervis says, my master and her ladyship talking of me, she told him she thought me the prettiest wench she ever saw in her life; and that I was too pretty to live in a bachelor’s house; since no lady he might marry would care to continue me with her.

IV

which was overflowing with gratitude for my master’s goodness, suspicious and fearful: and yet I hope I shall never find him to act unworthy of his character;

PAMELA ANDREWS.

Your most dutiful DAUGHTER

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