The Bluest Black Eye: [609805]

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Jaime Feathers

The Bluest Black Eye:
Exploring the Dark Side of Double Consciousness with Pecola Breedlove
in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Racism against the African American has proven to be a particularly venomous
animal, especially wh en it sinks its teeth into African American children. The theory of
double consciousness, found poignantly expressed by W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black
Folk, is the idea that the African American must navigate the voyages of life from within a
form of “twoness” (2), because he is both man, and black man. The Souls of Black Folk was
written long after Du Bois first experienced the circumstances that would formulate this
theory, circumstances which occurred in his days as a young schoolboy, when he realized he
was “different from the others,” and he was “shut out from their world by a vast veil” (2).
That “vast ve il” of darkness descends upon an African American child at an early age. In
Prejudice and Your Child , psychologist Kenneth Clark reveals that “racial awareness is present
in Negro children as young as three years old” (19), and Clark further reveals:
As children develop an awareness of racial differences and of their racial identity, they
also develop an awareness and acceptance of the prevailing social attitudes and values
attached to race and skin color . . . the child knows that he must be identified with
something that is being rejected —and something that he himself rejects. This pattern
introduces, early in the formation of the personality of these children, a fundament al
conflict about themselves. (46)
The African American children of The Bluest Eye, Frieda and Claudia MacTeer, and poor,
pitiful Pecola Breedlove, discover that the color of their skin excludes them from the soft
eyes of favor that fall upon little girls who belong to the white world. The penalty for this

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discovery is the resulting division of their minds, through the realization that they are both
little girls, and black little girls. While the MacTeer girls prove themselves capable of
responding with a reactive action that captures the poison darts of racism and projects them
back outward —thereby protecting a strong sense of identity —Pecola Breedlove
demonstrates a passive response tha t instead absorbs the poison inward , which creates
instability within her psyche and undermines her sense of identity . It is through this action
that Morrison reveals the dark side of the effects of double consciousness on a child,
because the consequences brought on by Pecola’s dissolving sense of identity are severe —
equating to the loss of her sanity.
Before Pecola’s demise can be fully examined, it must first be established that double
consciousness is alive and well within The Bluest Eye , and that it i s affecting these African
American children. Claudia and Frieda are introduced at nine and ten years old (15), and
Pecola is eleven (35). It’s hard to say at exactly what age the girls might have become aware
of their skin color, but it isn’t difficult to see that the effects of double consciousness are
already unfolding upon them : Claudia wishes to destroy white baby dolls (20), Pecola
cherishes a Shirley Temple cup from which she “took every opportunity to drink milk out of
just to handle and see sweet Shirley’s face” (23), and Frieda is willing to give up ice cream to
avoid a possible altercation with a little mulatto girl who has informed them that she is cute
(76), while they are ugly (73). Claudia even asks the question of lit tle white girls: “What made
people look at them and say, ‘Awwwww,’ but not for me?” (22).
One of the most poignant revelations we receive of the extent of the “twoness”
existing i n these children is the jealous y Claudia experiences while watching Bojan gles dance
onscreen with Shirley Temple. It emerges from her declaration that “he was enjoying,
sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid
down under their heels” (19). For Claudia, whose socks apparent ly did slide down beneath
her heels, even articles of clothing are capable of showing a preference to white girls. This
idea is surely representative of the much larger awareness that exists within little African
American girls: the world is not the same p lace for them as it is for white girls. Add ed to this
is the insult that an African American man is “enjoying” a dance with a little white girl,

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instead of an African American child such as Claudia, who feels that Bojangles should be
“my friend, my uncle, my daddy, who ought to have been soft -shoeing it and chuckling with
me” (19).
The sense of double consciousness is further revealed by the thoughts and feelings of
the MacTeer girls toward the little white girl who lives next door to them:
Rosemary Villanucci . . . sits in a 1939 Buick eating bread and butter. She rolls down
the window to tell my sister Frieda and me that we can’t come in. We stare at her,
wanting her bread, but more than that wanting to poke the arrogance out of her eyes
and smash t he pride of ownership that curls her chewing mouth. When she comes
out of the car we will beat her up, make red marks on her white skin, and she will cry
and ask us do we want her to pull her pants down. We will say no. We don’t know
what we should feel or do if she does, but whenever she asks us, we know that she is
offering us something precious and that our own pride must be asserted by refusing
to accept. (9)
First, consider the name Morrison has attributed to thi s troublesome little white girl:
“Rosem ary,” which sounds like a n aptly prim and proper name from the white world, and
“Villanucci ,” which sounds and even looks like “villain you see.” This establishes Rosemary,
and the white world in which she lives and which she represents, as the villain, which
naturally stages the opposite and counterpart black world, along with the girls who are
trapped in it, as the victims. Rosemary is fortunate enough to ride in a nice car while Claudia
and Frieda are walking, and she is quick to inform them that they “can’t come in” to that
bread and butter world of hers. What Rosemary owns has little to do with the car in which
she rides. She has no more capability to own a vehicle than Claudia o r Frieda; neither can the
possession of the bread and butter she’s eatin g be attributed to Rosemary’s ability to acquire
it. This leaves the one thing this child is capable of owning —and feeling pride and arrogance
for the possession of —her skin color. Her “chewing mouth” is curling, presumably into a
smile or a smirk, as she regards the unfortunate little black girls, and she chews not only on
that bread and butter, but upon her superiority over them.
The MacTeer girl’s response to Rosemary is striking, but not surprising. It is quite

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reactive, as the y wish to “poke the arrogance” from her eyes and destroy that “pride of
ownership” she is lucky enough to experience. They also make plans to “beat her up” when
she emerges from the car and “make red marks on her white skin.” There are two especially
though t-provoking aspects of this reaction . First, r ed is the color most often associated with
anger and even rage, and red marks appearing on the skin of any person, regardless of skin
color, are representative of injury to them. The MacTeer girls wish to proje ct their red marks
of fury onto Rosemary’s white skin, and perhaps by extension the white skin of the white
world.
This suggestion stems from the second intere sting aspect of their response ; when
Rosemary offers to “pull her pants down” while they beat he r up, it is an offer which
Claudia and Frieda refuse. Having your pants pulled down results in extreme humiliation.
Rosemary’s offer to pull her pants down —and subsequently subject herself to that kind of
disgrace at the hands of the MacTeer girls —can be e quated with the humiliation she feels
upon being yanked out of her white world and dragged into the black world —because of her
association with these black little girls. They must reject the offer of Rosemary to
condescend into this level of humiliation, o r else admit that their world is one which would
require such an action on the part of a white girl. Claudia and Frieda instinctively know that
their “pride must be asserted by refusing to accept” (9) this.
The reactive nature existing within the MacTeer girls makes them representative of
the statement Du Bois makes in The Souls of Black Folk when he defines the African
American as consisting of “two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring
ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (2).
Despite the fact that Claudia and Frieda must live and breathe double consciousn ess, their
fiery and prideful response to it proves that they possess this “dogged strength ” needed to
keep them “from being torn asunder, ” and therefore their sense of identity is never
compromised. Yet t he sam e cannot be said for every African American child, and it certainly
cannot be said for Pecola Breedlove. In regards to the disappointing reality that unfolds at
the hands of racism, Clark reveals that African American children “are forced at an early age
to develop ways of coping with these fundament al conflicts. Not every child reacts with the

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same patterns of self -protection” (64).
Unlike the MacTeer girls, Pecola’s pattern of self -protection is not reactive
projection, it is passive acceptance. When she is encircled by a group of bullies on the school
playground, she is unable to defend herself and must be rescued by Claudia and Frieda (66).
When Junior falsely accuses her of killing his mother’s cat (91), Pecola doesn’t contradict
him, not even when his mother calls her a “nasty little black bitch” (92). When she
experiences her first period, she is panic -stricken and merely makes a “whinnying” sound
(27), needing Frieda to show her what to do (30).
The difference between Pecola and the MacTeer girls is highlighted by the ir
contrasting response to the cruel treatment they experience at the hands of mulatto
classmate , Maureen Peal, when s he declares the three of them to be “[b]lack and ugly black e
mos” (73). The MacTeer girls are quick to re cover from this attack and project back a
colorful insult of their own, calling Maureen “six -finger -dog-tooth -meringue -pie” (73).
Pecola, on the other hand, responds quite differently. As Claudia describes it:
Pecola stood a little apart from us, her eyes hing ed in the direction in which Maureen
had fled. She seemed to fold into herself, like a pleated wing. Her pain antagonized
me. I wanted to open her up, crisp her edges, ram a stick down t hat hunched and
curving spine, force her to stand erect and spit th e misery out on the street s. But she
held it in where it could lap up into her eyes. (73 -74)
Despite the fact that the MacTeer girls and Pecola are insulted equally by Maureen Peal,
Pecola “stood a little apart” from the other two . The physical distance separating them is
representative of the distance that also exists between their mental aptitudes. The MacTeer
girls project their disgruntle d feelings outward in response to Maureen’s callous outburst, but
Pecola doesn’t join in their defense . Instead, she “fold[s] into herself,” retreating inward with
pain, and her “pleated wing” is foreshadowing of her dissolving identity. Naturally , this
action antagonizes Claudia , who is thicker -skinned and wishes to open Pecola up to “crisp
her edges,” so Pecola also would have thick enough skin to survive in their world.
While what is happening to Pecola is unfortunate, it is not an unknown phenomenon.
Clark states:

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As minority -group children learn the inferior status to which they are assigned and
observe that they are usually segregated and isolated from the more privileged
members of their society, they react with deep feelings of inferiority and with a sense
of personal humiliation. Many of them become confused about their own personal
worth. (63)
This is exactly what is happening to Pecola Breedlove ; her self -worth is tied up in the way
she sees the world, or rather, the way the world sees her, and her passive nature allows the
thorn -riddled paths of double consciousness to lead her straight into the dark land of self-
depreciation. Morrison illustrates this happening in Pecola through the pivotal scene at the
candy store, when “fifty -two-year-old white immigrant store -keeper” (48), Mr Yacobowski,
treats Pecola with such contempt that he even tries to keep from touching her when he takes
her money for penny candy (49). Pecola’s response:
She looks up at him and sees the vacuum where curiously ought to lodge. And
something more. The total absence of human recognition —the glazed separateness.
She does not know what keeps his glance suspended . . . Yet this vacuum is not new
to her. It has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen it
lurking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness.
All things in her a re flux and anticipation. But her blackness is static and dread. And
it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in
white eyes. (48-49)
The most poignant two lines here are: “All things in her are flux and anticipati on. But her
blackness is static and dread.” This is the embodiment of double consciousness. In her natural
state, Pecola Breedlove is just like any other little girl, white or black. Her heart and mind are
full of development and hopeful expectation and th e desire to move forward in the world.
The process by which she realizes the limitations she faces as an African American child, in
the “total absence of human recognition” in the face of this white man, is revealed here in
Pecola’s own thoughts by Morrison’s use of the word “so” to connect one idea to the next:
It is “l urking in the eyes of all white people . So. The distaste must be for her, her blackness .”
Pecola’s blackness. Pecola’s blackness. Her skin color is distasteful, and therefore she as a

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person must be distasteful. Morrison reveals, again through Pecola’s own thoughts, what
happens when Pecola has made this unjust realization:
Outside, Pecola feels the inexplicable shame ebb . . . Anger stirs and wakes in her; it
opens its mouth, and like a hot -mouthed puppy, laps up the dredges of her shame.
Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An
awareness of wor th. It is a lovely surging. Her thoughts fall back to Mr. Yacobowski’s
eyes, his phlegmy voice. The anger will not hold; the puppy is too easily surfeited. Its
thirst too quickly quenched, it sleeps. The shame wells up again, its muddy rivulets
seeping int o her eyes. What to do before the tears come. She remembers the Mary
Janes. (50)
The anger is there, and it gives the reader hope —hope that Pecola has a chance to find her
way through, to share in that “dogged strength” Claudia and Frieda possess that allo ws
them, like Pecola in this moment, to have “a sense of being” and “reality and presence.” But
Pecola’s anger is merely a “hot -mouthed puppy,” when it needs to be a snaggle -toothed
bulldog. Shame fights it off too easily . Instead of harnessing that righte ous anger and
projecting it outward, or even inward into an avenue of personal strength, Pecola takes a
wrong turn somewhere within the corridors of her mind: “What to do before the tears come.
She remembers the Mary Janes ” (50, italics mine).
Here is little Mary Jane, with her “smiling white face” on the candy wrapper and her
“[b]lond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at [Pecola] out of a world of clean
comfort” (50) . That “world of clean comfort” is clearly the white world, and it isn’t any
wonder that Pecola wishes to be a part of it. Clark states: “If society says it is better to be
white, not only white people but Negros come to believe it. And a child may try to escape
the trap of inferiority by denying the fact of his own rac e” (37). Pecola loses all sense of
personal value as an individual, she relinquishes even her inner most thoughts which are
neither white nor black, and instead wishes to “eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane.
Be Mary Jane” (50, italics mine).
Pecola’s desire for blue eyes is her undoing. Clark warns that “[c]hildren cannot be
encouraged to substitute personal wishes for social reality without severe risk to the stability

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of their personalities” (6). There is no room in Pecola’s reality for blue eyes, or the pretty
white face she longs for while eating the Mary Janes (50), or the fond gazes she sends in the
direction of Shirley Temple (19). Reality for Pecola Breedlove is found only within her black
world, through which she travels with dark skin and through which she sees with dark eyes,
and where she finds people like the white man behind the candy counter who “does not see
her, because for him there is nothing to see” (48). Disillusioned Pecola prays “fervently” (46)
for blue eyes because she b elieves that “if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say,
beautiful, she herself would be different” (46). This is the dark side of double consciousness,
and it t akes Pecola by the hand and draw s her gently into madness, complete with “bird -like
gestures” (205) and imaginary friends (193 -204).
It must be acknowledged that Pecola’s loss of sanity cannot be attributed to double
consciousness alone. Her ruin is most certainly also related to the deplorable treatment she
experiences in her home life, particularly at the hands of her father who rapes her not once,
but twice (201). From a horror such as this, Pecola doesn’t even have a comforting mother
to turn to, because Mrs. Breedlove prefers the rich little white girl she cares for to Pecola
(127). Yet even these appalling aspects of Pecola’s life are intricately related to dou ble
consciousness, because of Pecola’s belief that if she had blue eyes, everything would be
different:
It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes tha t held the
pictures, and knew the sights . . . If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly
would be different and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they’d say, “Why, look at pretty –
eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes. (46)
When Pecola wishes to disappear from a world that is overwhelmingly full of “bad things”
for her, she imagines that she is able to make every part of her body become invisible —
except her eyes (45). Her eyes hold those “pictures” and the “sights,” which are ima ges that
have become a part of her memory and therefore cannot be removed. Since she cannot
remove them, and since she lacks the mental aptitude to view herself in the world as
anything other than ugly (45), she in turn equates all negative circumstances w ith the color of
her eyes. Even in the midst of psychosis, such life altering events like the rape s and the

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subsequent dire end to a pregnancy (204) seem to be afterthoughts —the driving force is
instead generated by double consciousness —it is Pecola’s paralyzing fear that someone out
there may have bluer eyes than the ones she falsely comes to believe (193) she has:
Please. If there is somebody with bluer eyes than mine, then maybe there is
somebody with the bluest eyes. The bluest eyes in the whole world.
That’s just too bad, isn’t it?
Please help me look.
No.
But suppose my eyes aren’t blue enough?
Blue enough for what?
Blue enough for . . . I don’t know. (203)
Even from within the internal, imaginary world she’s dissolved into, Pecola still can’t answer
this question . She doesn’t know what waits for her on the other side of this crippling desire
for blue eyes, because there is no “blue enou gh.” Pecola’s blue eyes don’t exist —they can’t
exist—therefore Pecola ceases to exist , and therein lies the seriousness of the problem. It is
the dark side of double consciousness, and i t arises from the fact that a little African
American girl cannot ever become whi te. She can’t even accomplish this in her thought life,
without losing that which is most precious to her soundness of mind: her identity.
In the forward to The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison reveals the focus of the novel to be
on “how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root in its
most delicate member of society, a child; the most vulnerable member: a female” (11). What
happens to Pecola Breedlove at the hands of racism -induced double consciousness is indeed
a result of her delicate nat ure both as a female and a child, but it happens because she allow s
this “demonization of an entire race ” to take root within her. Her passive nature is equally at
fault.
Double consciousness is assuredly at work at various levels within the psyches of all
black children, when they find themselves thrown in and for ced to swim through the ocean
world of whiteness, and where their dark skin stands out like a black ship on a white
horizon. While the MacTeer girls are fortunate enough to have an arsenal of reactive pride to

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keep them safely afloat while they wade throug h the riptides of the white world, Pecola is a
child who proves unable to keep her head above water, white water, and it is through Pecola
that Morrison is able to reveal that the dark side of double consciousness is capable of
inflicting devastating results on a child .

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Works Cited
Clark, Kenneth B. Prejudice and Your Child. Connecticut: Wesleyan UP, 1988. Print.
Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Dover Thrift Ed. New York: Dover, 1994. Print.
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Vintage, 2007. Print.