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Stephen Hogan

Professor Gregory

ENGL 112 - DFE

December 4, 2018

Sins of Thy Father:

An analysis of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

There is much depiction of sin in the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The people

of Lorain, Ohio pursue actions of lust, wrath, pride, and envy. These actions burn their souls in a

way no small repentance could fix. Each person has their own demons to conquer, and

sometimes they lose. This is most evident through the inner-struggles of Claudia, Geraldine,

Junior, Pauline, Cholly, and Pecola. Each of them has both victories and failures against these

sins, some with larger consequences than others, but all intertwined in one way or another. The

sins of one person rarely only effect that one person. What happens when these sins collide with

one another? Disaster ensues and, like a chain of dominos, whoever is at the end gets crushed

under the weight.

Topic Sentence: Our first domino in the chain is Claudia, being toppled by demons of

envy and wrath.

A. When Frieda and Pecola have an “adoring conversation” about Shirley Temple,

Claudia refuses to partake due to her “[hating] Shirley Temple” (Morrison 19).

Claudia goes on to state how Shirley Temple has a friend that was “[her] friend,

[her] uncle, [her] daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and

chuckling with [her]” (Morrison 19). This is the first demon to tap into the latent

evil and longing that resided in Claudia. It was the first to bring itself out in her to
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such a fully developed state; the first where Claudia expressed herself in such a

manner as to express direct hate towards one person for something she believes

should be hers.

B. The next of the sins to touch the soul and tip over Claudia’s domino is that of

wrath. The sin presents itself throughout the life of Claudia but is in the forefront

of her consciousness during a specific holiday: “Christmas and the gift of dolls.”

(Morrison 20). This time of year Claudia was presented with the same gift,

consistently and each time she felt an enraged hatred towards the thing and had

but “one desire: to dismember it” (Morrison 20). The sounds and plastic

membrane around the doll turning Claudia off to whatever other found so

loveable about it.

C. Claudia talks of “[removing] the cold and stupid eyeball… [taking] off the head…

[cracking] the back against the bed rail” (Morrison 21), and how it would still

make a noise reminiscent like “[her] icebox door opening on rusty hinges in July”

(Morrison 20). This aggression is the forefront of her anger, her wrath, that comes

out during Christmas while she examines the dolls that she holds so much

contempt for.

a. Claudia must beware the consequences or “[c]ursed [will] be [her] anger,

for it [is] fierce; and [her] wrath, for it [is] cruel” (King James Version,

Gen. 49.7). This sin of wrath is as vile as any but more dangerous than

most, for it harnesses the anger within a person. And that anger inevitably

affects those around the person.

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Topic Sentence: Geraldine is the second domino to be toppled by her sins and continue the

chain of the destruction.

A. Geraldine has a more egregious sin on her hands: “[s]he will fondle that soft hill of fur

and let the warmth of the animal’s body seep over and into the deeply private areas of her

lap” (Morrison 85). This is a projection of her longing for something more than she has.

It is an allusion to her longing to be with anyone but her husband. On top of this it is a

reference to a lustful thought that breaks the laws of relations, “[w]hoever lieth with a

beast shall surely be put to death” (Exodus 22.19).

B. Her lust was in such great priority that her pride was nearly a shattered shell around her,

for she had none left. She did not love her husband, and while she tried to appease her

son “[she] did not talk to him, coo to him, or indulge him in kissing bouts” (Morrison 86).

She was only able to meet his physical needs because she had no connection to him. She

was a piece of her, but a piece that she wish she could forget. Geraldine holds the cat in

the highest regard, and her husband and son as distractions. Her beastial lust destroyed

her pride and left her craving what she could never have, truly, and what she would lose

in the near future.

C. Geraldine’s son, Junior, destroyed the small piece of pride that coated her heart. He was

“swing[ing] [the cat] around his head in a circle” (Morrison 91). The cat in the end went

flying across the room and died. Geraldine returned home to see her son, a black girl with

a ripped dress, and her now dead cat. She immediately went into a rage as this last bit of

her pride shattered into her face and the one thing she loved and left this world without

her. She no longer lusted for the love she could never have, but for the end of the person

who took that away from her.

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Topic Sentence: The lack of pride and comfort from his parents played a large part in the

domino of Junior toppling in this chain of despair.

A. Junior was a child deprived of love, deprived of attention, and deprived of a childhood.

All he wanted was to “play with the black boys” (Morrison 87). He longed to be seen as

normal, though his mother “did not like him playing with [black kids]” (Morrison 87). He

was deprived of the childhood rambunctiousness that being out and playing with whoever

allowed children. This made him angry. Angry that his mother would stop him from

being a child and angry that everyone else could be one.

B. Junior lived a life at home filled with an apathetic father, one who was there enough to

mention in passing but had no real relationship with his son, and a depressed mother. The

depression his mother was faced with made her distant and cold: “mothers who were

depressed… more likely to exhibit withdrawal and less likely to respond to their child's

emotional needs” (Mustillo 3). This withdrawal is expressed as Geraldine never coddles

or talks to Junior. She only ever looks after his physical needs. This made him angry.

Angry that he was not worth enough to even his own mother to be loved.

C. Junior hated this home life to a point he was there as little as possible. He spent much of

his time in the park next to the house. Because of this loneliness at home “[h]e hated to

see the swings, slides, monkey bars, and seesaws empty” (Morrison 86). This led to him

calling over people to play with him at the park, though many said no and those who “did

and left too soon, [he] threw gravel at” (Morrison 88). This is how he took out his anger.

His wrath was what made him who he was. And he became well known for his behaviors

towards those who would not play with him for as long as he wanted them to. This led to

a more directly aggressive form of anger: “[m]ore and more [he] enjoyed bullying girls”
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(Morrison 87). This was his way of taking out the anger he held towards his mother more

directly as he could not bully her, but he could bully girls his age.

Topic Sentence: As the dominos continue to topple we reach a place closer to final piece of

destruction, we move one closer to the horrible checkmate.

A. Pauline was a woman of pride and of lust. She was proud of her organization skills

growing up and to this day and lusted after a life she could never have. She never felt “at

home, or that she belonged anyplace” (Morrison 111) due to her limp foot that followed

her around like a contagious disease. She found her home however in her arrangements,

and she took great pride in them. She would do them everyday, and when “by some

accident somebody scattered her rows” (Morrison 111) she would take a silent delight as

it gave her a chance to do it all over again. This pride followed her through her life as she

became a housekeeper for different families.

B. She also had a strong lust for a life she couldn’t know at her home. She wished to be

treated like the other children. She felt that the “deformity explained for her many things

that would have been otherwise incomprehensible” (Morrison 110). It explained why she

was treated differently than the others she grew up with, she was treated as a fragile

object rather than a full human being. This lust was achieved, though, sending her into an

ecstasy like state when she first heard her future husband, Cholly, whistling down the

street towards her. He made her feel whole and not so weak when he met her and “was

tickling her broken foot and kissing her leg” (Morrison 115). As these lusts are satisfied

and Pauline’s pride moves from her “rows” to herself, she becomes someone new. She

receives “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the
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Father, but is of the world” (John 2.16). She is finally satisfied and feels a sense of joy

and completion as Cholly enters her life.

C. As more time passes she learns the true nature of the man that Cholly is. The passion dies

out, a child is born, and the love they had vanishes far beyond where Pauline’s lust can

ever retrieve it. She begins to spend less time at home and more time with the white

family she is housekeeping for. They gave her everything she ever wanted growing up,

and even more importantly, they restored her pride. The family praised her for her work

lifting her spirits and making her lust to fit in more and more satisfied as she “[hears],

‘We’ll never let her go. We could never find anybody like Polly’” (Morrison 128). They

gave her a nickname, her family never did. They praised her for her strengths and saw

nothing else, she grew to only see her weakness. They made sure she wouldn’t leave by

building her up and boosting her pride in herself.

Topic Sentence: The chain almost hits its conclusion as Cholly’s inner demons shove his

domino over with striking speed.

A. Cholly is a lust filled, pride bearing sinner of a man. He grew up with no mother and no

father. He was early on filled with a lust to know who his father was. This lust manifested

as he got older to a lust of the flesh. He found this lust for the flesh in a girl named

Darlene during his Aunt Jimmy’s funeral. The two walked off and attained what they felt

was a bit of privacy in a vineyard. After a short intimate moment the two young ones

undressed. This lead to more intimacy as “[t]heir bodies began to make sense to [Cholly],

and it was not as difficult as he had thought it would be” (Morrison 147). This dance of

two bodies was a way for Cholly to distract himself from the loss of his Aunt Jimmy and

the love he never had from his mother or father. These lustful thoughts and “all these evil
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things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7.23). The defiling of the Cholly

sends him on a path that will consume him in sin and allow for his inner demons to take

over and destroy the life that could have been.

B. Cholly’s pride was stripped from him in his mind because of his marriage to Pauline. It

was “the constantness, varitylessness, the sheer weight of sameness that drove him to

despair and froze his imagination” (Morrison 160). His imagination, creative, and

spontaneous actions are what build his pride in himself. This sameness drains him to a

point where the only way he feels like himself was “in drink” and “when that closed,

there was oblivion” (Morrison 160). These destructive behaviors led to a morphing of his

mind into what would be the grotesque sins to break himself, his family, and his

daughter. Without the humble mindset and clarity of sobriety Cholly lacks in wisdom

allowing for “pride [to] cometh, then cometh disgrace” (Proverbs 11.2). This turns Cholly

into a shell of his original being where his sin has choked the light out of him.

C. All of his sins culminate into one defining moment that would break his daughter:

“[Cholly] became aware that he was uncomfortable; next he felt the discomfort dissolve

into pleasure. The sequence of his emotions was revulsion, guilt, pity, then love”

(Morrison 161). Cholly proceeds to churn that “love” that he is feeling into what it truly

is: lust. He rapes his daughter and takes away what childhood she had left. His demons

thrust themselves both onto and into his daughter in that moment. The tipping of Cholly’s

domino into Pecola’s and the crushing blow that cracks and destroys it.

Topic Sentence: Pecola: the end of the chain. The last domino, crushed under the weight of

everyone else’s sins.

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A. Pecola is a product of the other people around her. Destroying her and sending her into a

schizophrenic break. She is a culmination of the sins everyone else has pushed onto, and

into, her. The envy of Claudia, the lust of Geraldine, the wrath of Junior, and the

overpowering sins of her father. Pecola becomes pregnant, but loses the baby, from her

father’s “loving” actions towards her. Whether it was the act of being raped or of losing

the baby that breaks her is trivial, for they both are the breaking of her spirit. It is,

however, not uncommon for a man like Cholly to act out like this due to his depressed

state from his marriage: “depressed parents are more likely to be… physically or verbally

aggressive with their children” (Mustillo 3). These symptoms are no excuse for his

actions towards his daughter, but instead are justification in Pecola’s head to why her

father would do something like that.

B. These circumstances led to an influx of people keeping their distance and staring at

Pecola. She lost her friends and her father. This led to the need for her to create her own

friend, one that would never leave her. This led to her schizophrenic breakdown. This

made her believe she had blue eyes and was finally beautiful. She is convinced that her

eyes are the bluest and refuses to believe her father did anything wrong to her. Even after

she had to leave school “[a]fter that first day at school when I had my blue eyes. Well the

next day they had Mrs. Breedlove come out. Now I don’t go anymore” (Morrison 197).

After all of this Pecola’s spirit drops and she has to bring herself back up due to the lack

of friends or family willing to help raise her up themselves. It is the sins of her father,

“[a] man’s pride shall bring him low” (Proverbs 29.23), that enters her and brings her low

with him. She creates her new friends in order to release these demons in way that would
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bring her up by complimenting her and feeding her own sins. Feeding her vanity and her

pride until she feels “better” than she has ever felt before.