30 Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences ISSN : 2319-7889 Vol. 2, January 2014 Pp. 30-35 Narration of Violence: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye –Rita Garg & Pratima Singh Abstract This study has sought to look at the work of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye from the point of view of violence and the types of violence she uses to narrate the story. It interprets the severe consequences of violence inflicted upon the victim. Moreover, neither the perpetrator nor society is untouched by the violence inflicted. This takes the shapes of racial attitude. The study also shows that development of hatred is the root cause of violence in this novel and Morrison has not only created wonderful incidents of violence but also studied the deep psyche of her characters. Keywords: Violence, hatred, psychological, domestic, racial, physical, community. “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” -Mahatma Gandhi Violence can be defined in many ways. As per the definition given by World Health Organization (WHO) violence is “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation” (n.pag.). To evaluate violence properly it is important to have an understanding of different types of violence. Violence can be categorized in a number of ways. The World Health Organization has developed the following types that divide violence into three categories: Self-directed violence refers to violence in which the perpetrator and the victim are the same individual and is subdivided into self-abuse and suicide. Interpersonal violence refers to violence between individuals, and is subdivided into family and intimate partner violence and community violence. The former category includes child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and elder abuse, while the latter is broken down into acquaintance and stranger violence and includes youth violence, Narration of Violence: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye 31 assault by strangers, violence related to property crimes, and violence in workplaces and other institutions. Collective violence refers to violence committed by larger groups of individuals and can be subdivided into social, political and economic violence. Violence can result in psychological and social problems as well as physical problems, all of which are of concern to communities and place considerable burdens on society and its systems. The above mentioned definition recognizes that the outcomes of violence are wider than physical injury, death or disability and shows that violence is not only an issue of concern to the police and the justice sector, but also to the social sector as a whole. That’s why it is an important issue of concern to literature too as literature is the mirror of human actions and emotions and it always reflects human experiences along with violence, love, and other feelings. It is one of the important moral duties of a writer to writing about violence too in literature in order to show how violence can affect a person. Hence, this study is a humble attempt in the same direction to reveal the types of violence and its effects depicted in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. As per the above mentioned types of violence, the violence in the novel The Bluest Eye is interpersonal. Toni Morrison, a winner of Nobel Prize in Literature, is a novelist of extraordinary gifts. The world of Toni Morrison’s fiction is one that tries to restore the AfricanAmerican’s past from her recollections of childhood memories. The aura of violence created by Toni Morrison surpasses the writings of many writers. Here is a world surrounded by the four aspects of violence – physical, racial, domestic, and emotional. S. Balasubramaniam depicts, “Toni Morrison’s novels tell us what it means to be human, a condition not entirely determined by genetic makeup but is also comprised of conscious volition. As a result her fictional dignity and emotional sensitivity is an impersonal, alien and frequently threatening world” (145). Undoubtedly, with these types included, no corner of the novel remains without violence. One incident after another creates the more misery inflicting iota as well as whirlpools of violence. As Sunita Sinha says, “Her novel reveals the attempts of the black people to sustain their mental sanity and spiritual health, social life and political strife, in the midst of a slave holding and dominating white civilization” (46). As goes the background of the novelist, she writes in appropriation with that. The desire to get blue eyes symbolizes the belief of attaining beauty. As in the novel “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (Morrison 46). This idea is given in the novel on the basis of factual incident of her life. An African girl friend of Toni Morrison always craved for beauty by having blue eyes. The similar emotionally perturbed girl is included on the land of white Americans as the central figure of the novel, Pecola. Being a black girl, she is considered ugly and to be rid of ugliness, she wants blue eyes. As Sunita Sinha remarks, “It reveals the tragic effect of racial prejudice on the black girl, Pecola Breedlove, yearning to assert her individuality in a community which fails to recognize her identity” (47). 32 Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal The Bluest Eye is concerned primarily with hatred, which is at the centre and causes violence. Primarily the violence is thrust onto a community and then to a particular girl. This hatred is of two types – first, that the black community is hated by the Whites, and second is the hatred developed by this self-loathing community for itself. First type of hatred gives rise to racial violence, which is one of the main themes of the novel. Through the various incidents of violence being inflicted on the blacks, Toni Morrison creates a sea of sadness. The reader is forced to think of the plight as of a non-entity. This misbehaviour goes down to the level of children. This is also expressive of the fact that such an imbalance cannot subdue easily. The change is not close by and even if conditions change, that is going to take many generations. Pecola in childhood faces racial violence at the hands of a young American boy who suffers deeply from racial superiority. The worst aspect of this racial violence is that nowhere, does the novelist show any sign of improvement, affection or intermingling of the two races. Domestic violence which goes side by side with the racial violence is based on the hatred developed by the race under complex. Pecola’s parents have a rough relationship and that reflects on the children often. Cholly’s rough and violent treatment towards his wife and children is well reflected in the words of omniscient narrator Claudia: “Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love, the loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye” (Morrison 206). As a representation of racial and domestic violence, the child abuse is created in the novel. Emotional insecurity and lack of conservation becomes the root of emotional violence. The novel presents the psychological and social effects of a black girl trying to live according to the white standard. In order to get rid of her unworthiness, she prays each night with a haunting passion for the blue eyed beauty of Shirley Temple- so that she will also be beautiful, so that people will look at her so that her world will be different” (Sinha 48). All these are practiced at internal and external levels. Internally the violence is devouring psychologically and emotionally individuals as well as society and externally it hits the whole social structure severely and destroying the innocent human beings physically. The deep-delved trench of racial violence emits racialism, hatred, emotional juxtaposition, self inflicted disgust, humiliation and many more vices to run on a deadend road. Violence terminates growth, talent of society as well as an individual. The ultimate is being thrown into a fathomless black hole. Thus, the extremities of violence, spread with the reactions, jeopardize entire bio in the surrounding area to its futurity. The invigoration of a society under suppression of violence has negligible chances and deformities in association are bound to deteriorate further. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison, projects racial complexes as a causative factor of domestic, emotional and psychological violence. Narration of Violence: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye 33 Domestic violence is raised in the novel on the basis of hatred, which has been learnt by a race under complex. They feel disgusted for each other. This feeling of disgust is deep rooted in Cholly. The story of Cholly’s childhood, without a father, living with his aunt Jimmy, who is his savior, as his mentally disturbed mother had “placed him on a junk heap by the railroad” (Morrison 103). Cholly, first time, develops desires for a girl, Darlene on her behest only. This is an incident which is to bear long lasting impact on his psyche. The two go to a forest and their love-making is disturbed by two white hunters who flash torch light on them and also force to complete the intercourse. This he does but as a befooled person. Since this relationship was from a woman’s corner, he somehow develops a dislike for this. The impact reflects when he marries Pauline. He is, also, unable to develop affection in case of Pauline for the mental deformity as caused by those hunters: “Cholly moving faster looked at Darlene. He hated her. He almost wished he could do it- hard long and painfully, he hated her so much” (Morrison 116). Soon his dislike for her takes the place of hatred and violence. He becomes violent to his wife as well as children. The lack of any change as is possible in married life drives him to despair and freeze his imagination. The hatred and neglect Pauline receives from her husband make her a chronic moviegoer and she takes a job in a house of the Whites. After that she starts neglecting her own children and household. As Lata and Sharma say, “Pecola is rejected by Pauline who embraces the blond haired child of her white employers. Pecola internalizes the notion that the black is not beautiful. Pauline, though she is also black, wishes to sweep out all the things which are not beautiful as she rushes to embrace the rich white child” (198). She starts taking pleasure in her job. There she builds a small world of her imagination. Consequently, her relationship with her husband becomes fierce and severe. In the house of Breedloves, i.e. Cholly and Pauline, hatred and violence run parallel. The struggles between them torment the children. Pecola, the daughter prays for her own invisibility: “Please God….Please make me disappear” (Morrison 33), and Sammy, the son becomes violent after seeing the struggle between his parents and screams to his mother: “Kill him! Kill him!” (Morrison 33). There is another side of communal hatred for itself. A group of boys which also belongs to African-American community but teases Pecola: “Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepnekked. Black e mo black e mo ya dadd sleeps nekked. Black e mo…..” (Morrison 50). This verse is inspired from two humiliating experiences. First, her black skin and second, the above mentioned sleeping habit of adults of AfricanAmerican community and this incident shows that they have developed self-hatred. Pecola an innocent girl becomes the victim of that group of boys and they tease her for the matters, which they would have also faced sometimes. This puts a question mark as to know the reason of the development of selfhatred. It is the hatred that leads them to self-destruction. The answer of the question is given by the writer in the novel. She shows the effect of western ideas of physical beauty and romantic love not only on the black woman, but also on the black community and perceives its worth in general. As Lata and Sharma define: “Beauty is a deeply problematic concept in Morrison’s works. In fact the omniscient narrator of The 34 Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal Bluest Eye succumbs that physical beauty and romantic love are probably the most destructive ideas in the human thoughts.” (200) As the hatred for black community gives the way to the racial violence in the novel, a little innocent girl, Pecola is being the victim of racism many a times in the novel. She is considered the ugliest girl in her school too, so whenever any girl wants to insult some boy, she says: “Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove! Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove!”(Morrison 34). All this torments her internally and she starts craving for beauty. She always learns from the society that the blue eyes, blond hair and fair complexion are the standard of beauty and that’s why she wants blue eyes. Thomas March defines this: “Pecola’s mother is a primary source, in addition to Shirley Temple milk mugs and the startling beauty of pretty girls like Maureen Peal, of the ideology of beauty that torments Pecola” (42). She thinks that everybody will love her if she becomes beautiful; and this leads a little girl to the destruction of her mental health. Apart from racial and domestic violence, there are a number of incidents of physical violence with little innocent girls. First of all Pecola is physically harassed by her own father. Secondly Frieda is in the same way assaulted by Mr. Henry and then there is a character named Sophead Church who insults and humiliates physically the young girls. The irony lies in the fact that Sophead Church is a self-proclaiming religious man who can fulfill the unfulfilled dreams of man and Pecola appeals to him for blue eyes. On this March comments: “Pecola’s wish for eyes is granted by a reluctant prophet only when he sees the opportunity to use Pecola to get rid of his landlady’s dog. It is an exchange of expedience, on both parts. And she does not live happily ever after; she gives birth to her father’s child.” (43) As mentioned above, child abuse also takes place in the novel frequently. Pecola, the central figure of the novel faces it many a times. In an incident an American white boy calls Pecola to his house just for his amusement and locks her with the cat in a room and kills the cat. His mother comes and rebukes Pecola and abuses her. She says: “Get out….You nasty little black bitch, Get out of my house” (Morrison 72). This incident of the novel consists of two types of violence. First, she shows racial superiority by calling Pecola black and second, she abuses the little innocent girl. All the mistakes are committed by that white boy. For being a black and poor girl she is blamed for mishap at the house of the white American. This incident proves the condemnation of the blacks and the poor. Every chapter and each character is somehow connected to Pecola in the novel. She is the actual victim of emotional violence and her emotional insecurity takes her steps towards her ruin, partly due to the behavior of her parents and partly, as said above, because of the racism. She has been completely destroyed by the violence inflicted. As the omniscient narrator of the novel, Claudia clarifies: “A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfilment” (Morrison 162). At the end of the novel she says she has got the bluest eyes but everyone knows except Pecola that her wish cannot be achieved. She started to live in a fantasy world and it was her painful existence that dragged her into that world. Her miserable existence was the result of Narration of Violence: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye 35 all kinds of violence she faced because of the social norms she was surrounded by. “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window sign - all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.’Here,’ they said, ‘this is beautiful, and if you are on this day “worthy” you may have it” (Morrison 20-21). To conclude, the most dominating factor of this classic on violence is not a surface level work but sprouts suffocation and consequential self inflicts and hopelessness because of surroundings. It can also be said that Morrison has created actions and incidents rather than characters in this novel yet she has not neglected characters altogether in portraying incidents for violence. Her characters have been portrayed with deep psychology and subtlety of human instincts. Works Cited • Balasubramaniam, S. “Toni Morrison’s Eruptions of Funk”, American Literature and Culture. Ed. Laxmi Parsuram. New Delhi: Prestige, 1995. Print. • Lata, Suman and Arvind Kumar Sharma. “The Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, Explorations in Aesthetics. Ed. Alka Rastogi. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons. 2012. Print. • March, Thomas. “Filling the Gaps: The Fictional World of Toni Morrison”. Bloom’s Biocritiques Toni Morrison. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2002. Print. • Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye, 1970, rpt. London: Vintage, 1999. Print. • Sinha, Sunita. “Toni Morrison’s Love - An Epic of Enslavement and Liberation”, Post Colonial Women Writers. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008. Print. • WHO. Definition and typology of violence. 2013. Web. 26 may 2013. <http://www.who.int/violenceprevention/approach/definition/en/> qqq