Cholly's Cruelty In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

In the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Morrison details the life of a young African American girl named Pecola who grows in Lorain, Ohio in the years following the Great Depression. The book’s purpose is to explain how and why Cholly Breedlove, Pecola’s father, came to molest his own daughter. An alcoholic and barbaric, Cholly's baleful and belligerent behavior is a reflection of his troublesome upbringing as a child. While only four days old, Cholly’s parents abandon him, leaving Aunt Jimmy to rescue and adopt him. Shortly after Aunt Jimmy dies, two white men devastate Cholly’s first sexual encounter, who coerce Cholly to continue while they smile contemptuously. Cholly’s gestures of violence and cruelty are his means of showing endearment

Cholly’s first sexual encounter with Darlene, whom he lost his virginity with, is interrupted by two white men causing his unexplainable hate for black women. During the commotion, the narrator describes that Cholly “hated her, he almost wished he could do it- hard, long, and painfully, he hated her so much” illuminating Cholly’s hatred toward Darlene, but not the men (Morrison 148). Rather than feeling distaste towards the men who humiliate him, Cholly copes with this humiliation by turning his resentment towards black women who are socially and legally less powerful than him. Cholly understands that in an internally racist society, he has no ability to cause harm towards the white men, so instead he turns to black women who become the victims of his outrage. Furthermore, the loss of his sexual innocence at such a young age catapults Cholly into a disruptive, aggressive life in which he does not understand how to show love to his own daughter, Pecola. Before raping his daughter, the narrator describes Cholly’s mix of emotions questioning “what could he do for her- ever? What give to her? What say to her? What could a burned-out black man say to the hunched back of his eleven-year-old daughter?” revealing to the reader Cholly’s internal conflict. Unknowing how to show love to Pecola, Cholly rapes her, assuming that is the way a father is affectionate

Without any parental guidance throughout the majority of his life, Cholly is unable to take care of himself, let alone another individual such as a kid. The narrator describes, “having no idea of how to raise children, and having never watched any parent raise himself, he could not even comprehend what [marriage] should be” illustrating to the reader Cholly’s underdeveloped character. As a child, Cholly misses the opportunity and counsel from his parents to develop beyond the stereotype of black men, as he receives little to no real education on how to live independently. Moreover, when Cholly begins to learn, he learns through an internally racist society that depicts black men as sluggish, condescending towards black women, and extremely physical. Thus, the death of Aunt Jimmy triggered Cholly into living on his own without direction or advice from anyone. Aunt Jimmy was the most consistent figure Cholly had in his life and the narrator recounts, “Cholly was grateful for having been saved” conveying the importance of Aunt Jimmy in Cholly’s life. Aunt Jimmy is probably the only person in Cholly’s life that could have possibly saved Cholly from the person he becomes, but her death prompted Cholly into an offroad course leading to his own characteristic demise. Readers sympathize with Cholly not only because he has suffered abandonment, sexual