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  • Essay / The Human Condition of Love in Morrison's “The Bluest Eye”

    Love can hold us captive, chain us, and make us slaves to its cruel ways, blinding us from all judgment. The human condition of love can be expressed as a strong affection for another arising from kinship, enthusiasm, or devotion to another human being. Love is universal and can exist in relationships like parent-child, husband and wife and various other forms. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison illustrates that love is too complex to be considered positive or negative. Like all things in life, it can also have a dark side, even though on the surface it is normally associated with joy, happiness and fulfillment. For some, love can disappear while for others, it is the unbreakable bond that binds people together. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The human condition of love makes its way into our lives the second we take our first breath. Children are exposed to it from the beginning and this love forms a bond between child and parent. As we grow older and form new relationships, between siblings, friends, and eventually finding a spouse and children, love is what forms these bonds. If it is present in a positive way, that is what children absorb, but on the other hand, if it arouses feelings of hatred and anger, that is what children's perception of love becomes. the child. Self-love goes hand in hand with self-perception. If one cannot have self-love, it is difficult to think of love associated with others. To the bluest of eyes, dissecting the love within the Breedlove family is very complicated. Mr. and Mrs. Breedlove are two people who have baggage from the past that has not been buried, which does not allow them to become mature adults and understand the impact of their decisions on their children. People often forget that love must begin with the one who is most important; You. Morrison shows through the Breedlove family that self-love is an unknown concept. Pecola Breedlove, comes from a family where poverty shrouded them in shame, and being defined as "ugly" forced them to accept their flaw. The Breedloves find the confinement of their poverty painful, frustrating, and often exasperating. Pecola is described as being the “ugliest” of them all. Pecola's ugliness and lack of self-esteem allow her to identify with the cracked sidewalk and dandelions, which are things considered ugly by others. “Why, she wonders if people call them weeds,” she thought they were pretty. (Morrison p. 47). Pecola does not view dandelions as ugly, which introduces the idea that beauty might be a matter of perception, and not something inherent in the object looked at. Pecola is able to find beauty in everything except herself. Morrison shows how innocent and naive Pecola is. Pecola blames herself for all the problems around her. As an innocent child, Pecola begins to believe that having blue eyes would be the solution to all the evil around her. Unfortunately, Pecola's obsession with beauty standards prevents her from realizing this. Another bond created by love in society is that between a husband and wife, which is based on the foundations of loyalty, honesty, care and support. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison shows the side of love that is not usually talked about. Pauline and Cholly Breedlove, a couple who had once been struck by Cupid's arrow, but would soon emerge from the love spell they were under. “She was safe and grateful; hewas kind and lively. She didn’t know there was so much laughter in the world.” (Morrison page 116). Morrison paints a vivid picture of how Cholly was Pauline's savior. The feeling of ugliness that Pauline perceives begins with her disabled foot, which leads to a feeling of separation from her family and a feeling of worthlessness. As a black woman, Ms. Breedlove was desperate for a sense of self-worth and meaning in her life. It's only through her relationship with Mr. Breedlove that she gets these things. Pauline fantasized about a figure, a (Prince Charming) who would cure her disabled foot and allow her to escape her ugliness and uselessness. This indicates his innocence at the time and his lack of self-esteem. The love between child and parent is very complicated in The Bluest Eye. The Macteer family represents a middle-class slave family, who had to work very hard, but retained family roles. An idealistic picture of a perfect family consisting of a protective father, a caring mother who showed tough love, and sisters who stuck together, especially when it came to throwing fists. “My mother’s anger humiliates me; his words rub my cheeks and I cry. I don't know if she doesn't know that she's not angry at me, but at my illness. (Morrison p. 11) During Claudia's illness, she was treated with a mixture of worry and anger. Even though Claudia was scolded and her mother complained about cleaning up her vomit, at the same time her mother breastfed her, gave her medicine, and watched her all night. Claudia later discovers that her mother's anger is not directed at her, but at the world, as she must raise her black family in a world governed by white culture. She protects her children and equips them to survive in a hostile environment. The mother-daughter relationship between Mrs. MacTeer and her two daughters, Claudia and Frieda, was loving and strong. They learned their own self-esteem from their mother's strength and are an example of love from their parents. Morrison spoke about the Macteer family to show that although they didn't have much, they had values ​​that kept the home strong. For the Macteer family, it was unity, no matter how hard the fight. Pecola was able to find love in their home rather than her own. In Breedlove, this is where the whole idea of ​​love behind family is tarnished. “That old Dog Breedlove had burned down his house, hit his wife's head, and as a result, everyone was out. » (Morrison p. 16). the Breedlove family stood for everything a family shouldn't be. Little eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove was raised in such a family and found everything bad, especially in the form of her father. How could love exist in a father capable of committing an act as heinous as rape? Cholly's parents abandoned him when he was born. Cholly never had a sense of home and family, which highlights his inability to be a father. Even after Aunt Jimmy saves him, he lives in a dysfunctional situation, where he lacks a father figure. Aunt Jimmy really cared about him, but he still had trouble connecting to her as a real parent. As a child, he thought that "when she made him sleep with her to keep warm in the winter and he saw her old wrinkled breasts sagging in her nightgown... then he wondered if he would have been as good to die” (Morrison p.132). If Cholly really considered her a legitimate parent, then he would like to share a bed with her in the winter. Aunt Jimmy attempts to change Cholly's future by naming him after his brother (a moral man) and severing his ties with his father. Aunt Jimmy died when he was still young and he.