Mother is the most critical person in our lives. She gives us physical bodies, and to some extent, also grants us souls and love. The interactions with our mother in the early stages of life have a profound impact on how this relationship shapes and develops our personality. Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye", set in the United States after the Great Depression. It not only discusses race, poverty, and beauty but also the complex emotional relationships between mother and daughter. The main character, Pecola Breedlove's interaction with her mother, Pauline, doesn't resemble most mother-daughter relationships. Contrarily, under parents’ influence, Pecola’s life is full of tragedy and plays a key role in the psychological development and unfortunately fate. This tension is exemplified by love, neglect, racist discrimination, and a battle for self-esteem, which deeply affects her personality, resulting in her melancholic, dark destiny.
Looking at it from the story of the mother-Pauline's alienation and indifference significantly impacted her daughter's development. Initially, Pauline had a sense of duty-bound affection toward her children, but it was not a kind of genuine, tender motherly love. After the children were born, this affection gradually transformed into emotional distance and coldness. Especially under the weight of poverty, a disappointing marriage, and internalized racial discrimination. Pauline greatly dislikes how Pecola appears and where she is socially. Therefore, she cannot give the emotional support that Pecola craves. Having suffered from racial and beauty discrimination, Pauline internalizes the experience, which builds her hunger for beauty. This hunger for beauty pass down to her daughter and finds an expression in endless criticism of Pecola's appearance. Pauline's inability to accept Pecola for what she is makes her feel unloved and inconsequential, and a slow breakdown of Pecola's self-esteem follows. It leads to Pecola fantasizing about having blue eyes, the symbol of her desire to be beautiful and a response to the neglect of her mother.
In addition, Pauline's neglect and love for Pecola reflect the broader social and cultural environments. The black community at the time was full of intolerance and discrimination of darker skin, and the characters internalise such racism in their lives, as in the case of Pauline. Pauline's dissatisfaction with herself and her daughter's appearance represents her insecurity and powerlessness over her own identity. Pauline secretly longs for the approval of the white world because she believes that beauty is the only means of overcoming racial and class barriers. This twisted pursuit of beauty, in return, makes her love for Pecola egotistical and brutal.
Back to the daughter, the emotional distance and neglect of Pauline heavily influence Pecola's identity. Pecola's subjective life is full of pain and loneliness. She wants to escape the rejection of the real world by changing her looks in a bid to become worthy. The blue eyes represent her ideal self, not only as a symbol of beauty but as a reflection of her desire to be loved and accepted both on parents and society. But this fantasy does not give her the emotional gratification she craves; instead aggravates her mental breakdown.
“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.”
This quote is from the last chapter of the novel, presents the relationship between parents and children as a central issue in "The Bluest Eye". Aside from the father's love for children is twisted, violent, filled with chaos and pain, offering no warmth and completely shattering Pecola's sense of self. The mother's neglect, emotional unavailability, and distorted values about beauty worsen Pecola's psychological suffering and her distorted pursuit of beauty. This tense mother-daughter relationship not only betrays internal turmoil but also attempts to reflect society's profoundly ingrained prejudices regarding beauty, race, and class. Ultimately, Pecola's tragic fate is caused by the failure of her mother to provide emotional nourishment, and this lack is what becomes the force of her desire for blue eyes. However, this illusion cannot save her inner world and completely lost herself at the end.
After reading this noval, I've keep thing about how mother affect us on personality even our fate."A lucky person's lifetime is cured by childhood, while an unlucky person's lifetime is spent curing childhood." Although this words has been said to death, but perfectly embodied in Pecola's life. Her insecurity and lack of love form a lifetime effect. Pecola's tragedy shows how an unloved childhood can leave permanent scars. Her desire for blue eyes is not just about beauty, it's a desperate moaning for love, belonging, and identity in a society that never gave her a chance.
