The Bluest Eye is
a complex novel that explores and prods at the various challenges that are
faced by black people. Issues such as poverty, feelings of inferiority, anger,
suppression, frustration, violence—all triggered by widespread racism are put
under the microscope. Morrison does this by unravelling the upbringing and
lives of her characters. Black people have always led difficult lives, but
black women led the worst ones. Morrison wanted to portray this through her
novel.
The themes in this novel are all deep and intricate, but
the one that stood out to me most is sexual assault. It stood out to me because
it is every girl’s biggest fear and Morrison portrays it with a powerful edge.
Sexual assault has always been prevalent, especially so in impoverished black
communities that are laced with violence. Reflecting on the book, I feel in awe
of what I read. She wrote about the different types of sexual assault, as well
as the various reactions one could have towards it. Her raw and straightforward
narration gives the theme a certain inexplicable edge.
The book has various accounts of sexual violence the
characters are a victim of. One of the instances narrated is of Pauline
undergoing marital rape. It was normal to consider it to be a wife’s duty to
give in to her husband’s desires in the period the book is set in. Mr. Henry, a
guest in her own home, assaulted Freida, a girl who was yet to hit puberty. She
was too young to understand what happened and her parents decided to let her be
ignorant of it. What duty did she have towards this strange man? Soaphead
Church relieved his sexual desires by engaging in sexual acts with children.
The most horrifying of all these occasions was when Pecola was raped. She was
already portrayed as a delicate character, who went through severe mental and
domestic abuse. Her ‘ugliness’ was constantly rubbed in her face every time she
stepped out of the house and her mother further reinforced it. This young
11-year old girl was washing the dishes one night when her father entered the
kitchen drunk, raped and impregnated her. She received no support from anybody.
Her mother beat her when she discovered this, and the entire community
ostracised Pecola. She lost the baby and eventually went mad.
Morrison decided to give us an insight into why the
people who drove Pecola to insanity behaved the way they did. Cholly himself
was forced into committing a sexual act when he was a child, by white men.
Soaphead Church was a misanthrope who could not stand the idea of looking at a
face with wrinkles or crusty eyes. Children did not arouse him; they simply did
not discourage him because they had smooth, neat faces and he wanted to engage
in coitus. Sexual violence is never justified. There is never a good enough
answer to, “why did you have to?”. But Morrison decided to humanise the
monsters in this story to make the readers realise how real the situation is. I
believe she also did this so that when the readers think, “Ah. I get why.”,
they are forced to catch themselves and be horrified by this thought. The
thought is so deeply unsettling that it makes the reader want to run away from
themselves for a while. Eventually, the reader is forced to introspect, as I
was. It made me curious as to why I refuse to empathise with a rapist. They are
the indisputably the worst kind of criminal, but empathising with one does not
mean that the weight of their sin is alleviated, it does not make me less
repulsed by them and their actions and it does not make me a terrible person.
It merely makes me and them slightly more human.