The Bluest Eye & The Family

Pecola and Gwendolen, the protagonists in two novels, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Buchi Emecheta's The Family (also known as Gwendolen), are characters violated and oppressed in various ways by men and by the society and institutions which uphold the patriarchy. As black females, Gwendolen and Pecola are doubly oppressed--first, as blacks, and second as females. In addition, they suffer the oppression of two cultures, black and white. Morrison and Emecheta focus on poor, black female characters, which means characters who suffer on the three levels of socioeconomics, racism, and sexism.

In The Bluest Eye, Morrison explores the theme of male oppression of females in the contexts of racism, capitalism, and a world run by and for white people, especially white people with power and property. Black people, especially poor black people, and particularly poor black females, suffer in this racist, capitalist system. At the bottom of this system of oppression is the poor black female, personified by Pecola.

The rapes both characters endure are lifelong traumas, but "violation" comes in many forms. One of the most insidious and destructive results of this systematic violation is that Pecola comes to feel so negatively about herself that she sinks into a self-hatred which will finally drive her to silence. Here she thinks about the mere look of a man, a white shopkeeper, and the impact of a look he gives her, a look in which she feels invisible:

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sely happy ending. The message of the book is not hopeful. It would seem that Morrison's message is a thoroughly pessimistic one. From the beginning of Buchi Emecheta's novel, the same relationship of oppression and violation is established between the black female protagonist and the males in her life. In this case, the first male to violate Gwendolen is, as with Pecola, a trusted adult male, a close family friend, "Uncle" Johnny (her grandmother's boy friend), a man who Gwendolen is taught to trust, and, as with Pecola, the violation takes place in her own home. These factors are crucial because, again, it creates in the violated Gwendolen's consciousness the awareness that there is no place in the world that is safe from violation and no man who can be trusted to not violate: Uncle Johnny . . . was kneeling on the bamboo bed. He was now touching her face and mouth, telling her not to cry, that he was here to take care of her. She struggled to get up, but he shushed her, telling her not to wake Granny who was very tired and now sleeping. . . . The hand Uncle Johnny kept on her mouth was firm, but his other hand touched all her body. . . . He wanted her to laugh and enjoy his playing with her, but instead fear and shock f

Category: Literature - T