Bluest Eye Part 2

There are two incredibly striking aspects of this second section of the Bluest Eye: the idea that hate becomes cyclical, and that emotional detachment from one's children can have extraordinarily detrimental affects on the child. These two ideas are very much connected, as it is this very cycle of hatred that leads to the parent's emotional coldness. For example, Geraldine's detachment from her son Junior, stems from her subconscious hatred of her "perfect" situation, her having been taught her entire life what happiness looked like, but not what it felt like. In turn she lacks the capacity to feel real emotional attachment to her son, and only fulfills those most basic needs that he requires. The treatment is cold and calculated, and leads in turn to the son taking pleasure in causing others pain, as he is never taught real empathy. This nearly psychopathic behavior is particularly directed toward females, and the only true object of his mother's affection, the cat. "As he grew older, he learned how to direct  his hatred of his mother to the cat, and spent some happy moments watching it suffer. . . More and more Junior enjoyed bullying girls. It was easy making them scream and run." (Morrison, 84-86) This nearly psychopathic behavior that Junior develops stems directly from his mother's lack of empathy, her inability to love other human beings. Indeed, when Geraldine sees so obviously that her son has tormented both their cat and Pecola, she only sees her prejudice and hatred, rather than her own error as a mother. She has the perfect life, and Pecola must have hurt the cat, as she is a lesser being. "Get out. . . You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house." (Morrison, 90) She and her son both lack real empathetic emotion, and the cycle of hatred continues.

Another example of this detachment from one's children, caused by cyclical hatred and prejudice, is shown in the story of Pecola's mother, Pauline. "Polly" deveops a near hatred for her children, specifically Pecola, because she sees in them what she also lacks in herself. Pauline becomes obsessed with beauty, and begins to define everything in her life by deciding whether or not the thing in question is beautiful. She does so because she does not deem herself beautiful, and in her own eye's in unworthy of anything. To Pauline, Pecola is ugly, and therefore also worth nothing. She beats this ideal into Pecola on a regular basis. "I knowed she was ugly. . . into her daughter she beat a fear. . . of life." (Morrison, 126) She forced her children to take on he fears, biases, and in Pecola, the same self-image that she had. I hating and neglecting herself and her life, she hated and neglected her own children. The cycle Continues.

In this novel, Toni Morrison pours masterful emotional understanding and extrapolation, allowing us to "learn how to occupy the subject position of the other. . . to feel like 'the other'". . . which is "a prerequisite of morality." (Anthology, 596) In emotionally engulfing her audience into these stories, we develop a desire to in our own lives do the opposite. We become determined to break the cycles of hatred. And in doing so, Morrison aids in her own way the development of a greater, more empathetic world.