The Bluest Esyes
Latishia Taylor 5th Hour AP English The House, the blue eyes, the marigolds…. Oh My! In the novel The Bluest Eye, there were a lot of roles of symbolism. Symbolism is the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. The title by itself starts off one of the many symbols in the novel. Seeing the novel uses the singular form of the word “eye” to express many of the characters’ sad isolation. The symbols in this novel symbolize different meanings for each character.
Some of the symbols are the bluest eyes, the house, the marigolds. The novels begins with a prologue, beginning with a sentence from a Dick-and-Jane narrative: “Here is the house(3). ” The homes in this novel do not only indicate the social economic status , but they also symbolize the emotional situations and values of the characters who inhabit them. For instance the Breedlove’s storefront apartments despicable and aged, suffering from Mrs. Breedlove’s preference for her employer’s home over her own. This symbolizes the misery of the Breedlove family.
Their home lacks positive symbols such as the couch being thought of as a comfort provider or the loving that has been conducted upon it, a bed being defined by someone giving birth in it. Just as the family has an ironic name; they do the total opposite of their name; the few household objects that they do possess: a ripped couch, a cold stove, are symbols of suffering and degradation rather than of a home. The Breedlove’s apartment not only is considered ugly on their part but the community recognizes this also. The ugliness of the abandoned storefront and its defiance to blend in with the other buildings that surround it.
This symbolizes the hideousness of the Breedlove’s story; a story not only about the ugliness they create but also about the ugliness brought out against them. Just as the storefront has now been abandoned, they have also been abandoned by the world around them. Unlike the Breedlove’s “home”; the MacTeer’s is drafty and dark, but it is carefully tended by Mrs. MacTeer and. According to Claudia it is also filled with love, symbolizing their family’s comparative cohesion. There is a young girl in this novel that goes a lot of complications. Her name is Pecola and she is the daughter of Mr. nd Mrs. Breedlove. Where she has one wish and that is to have the bluest eyes. When her parents get into arguments she lies in bed imaging that all her body parts are dissolving except for her eyes. ”Please,God,” she whispered in the palm of her hand. “Please make me dissappear(45). ” She hates her ugliness and for a long time she hoped and prayed for blue eyes, which will make her beautiful and change all the evil in her life to good. To Pecola, the blue eyes symbolize the beauty and happiness that she associates with the white middle-class world.
They also symbolize her own blindness, for she gains blue eyes only at the cost of her sanity. Pecola decides that if she had beautiful eyes, her life would magically right itself. She wants blue eyes for two reasons; so that she can change what she sees, and so that she can change how others see her. For Pecola, these reasons are interchangeable because she believes that how people see her; as ugly, creates what she see; hurtful behavior. At the end of the novel Pecola goes mad, believing that she has gotten the blue eyes that she has been wishing for. She also imagines up a n imaginary friend.
Pecola can not stop admiring her eyes she claims that now she can even look at the sun without blinking. Rather than granting Pecola insight into the world around her and providing a compensating connection with other people, these eyes are a form of blindness. Pecola can no longer accurately perceive the outside world, and she has become more invisible to others. He new friendship is only imagined and does not protect her from old suffering and insecurity. Even though she granted her wish of blue eyes, she still has scars deep down on the inside that won’t seem to just disappear.
During the novel Pecola is also raped and impregnated by her father. The community thought she should be taken out of school and hoping that the baby doent’s not live. “I thought about the baby that everybody wanted dead(190). ” When Claudia and Frieda heard about Pecola being impregnated by her father that felt the need to help her. At first they just thought to pray and ask God to let the baby live, but then they thought that wasn’t enough so they decided to give up the bicycle they wanted, bury the money and plant the marigolds seeds. we’ll bury the money over by her house so we can’t go back and dig it up, and we’ll plant the seeds out back of our house so we can watch over them. And when they come up, we’ll know everything is all right. All right(192)? ” To Claudia an Frieda, they associated the marigolds with the safety and well-being of Pecola’s baby. Their ceremonial offering of money and the remaining unsold marigolds seeds represent an honest sacrifice on their part. They believed that if the marigolds they had planted grew, then Pecola’s baby would be all right.
To Claudia’ s and Frieda’s disliking the flowers did not bloom and Pecola’s baby died when it was prematurely born. From there forth on, they avoided Pecola Breedlove. In a more general sense, marigolds represent the constant renewal of nature. In Pecola’s case, this cycle of renewal is perverted by her father’s rape of her. This novel consisted of a lot of symbolism. Most of which all were involved with Pecola. In some shape, way, or form Pecola was affected by all the symbols in the novel. Some good effects, some bad effects, some had a little bit of the both effects.
