Self-Loathing In The Bluest Eye

Self-loathing is the envy of the life that is perfect. The wanting to be something that is perceived as possible, but merely an unrealistic image. The world strives to attack these feelings; they find any types of insecurities and try to make money from the feelings created. Society created self-loathing not to make people think about themselves, but as a business deal that makes billions of dollars every year. Self-loathing is present in almost all people, but it is also oblivious to everyone. People put on their phony smiles and go out into the regular world with the fake confidence. In the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the major theme of the book is self-loathing. In every character there is an example of self-loathing, whether it be explicit

Breedlove was set up for self-loathing. She was the victim of factors that were out of her control. She was set into a household with Cholly that was bound to crash at some point. Early in her life Mrs. Breedlove was full of confidence and little self-loathing. As she began life as a mother the self-loathing crept in. She thought of herself as ugly and it began to lose control. Once it hit a certain point she began not to care and “settled down to just being ugly” (Morrison 123). As soon as she caved, she began to hate her personal life more and more. She became complacent with her life of sorrow and spent no time trying to patch up what was left of her tattered life. When her kids started to come to life she hoped they did not resemble her, “but I knowed she was ugly… Lord she was ugly” (Morrison 124). Her first baby has no effect on her self-loathing, but Pecola starts her long hard trail of hatred. Pecola first makes her ugly and this causes Mrs. Breedlove’s self loathing to rise. When she is born Mrs. Breedlove automatically believes that her baby is pure ugly. This sets the tone for Pecola’s life of self-loathing. A hidden view of Mrs. Breedlove calling her baby ugly reflects right back to her. Pecola is an image of her mother and when she sees the ugly baby it further confirms all of Mrs. Breedlove’s hatred. She turns to other people’s lives to try and get over herself. She begins to care more about other families instead of her own. She treats her own

He starts the family snowball and creates a whole family that secretly hates themselves. He started his family “off split, no good, and humiliating” (Morrison 36). They were doomed from the start and because of this they never had a chance. The small tear which represents Cholly, started off fine and not a big deal. As his family began to blossom so did the tear. The small tear held by the outside of his family, but once they began to let go, the whole family was destroyed. The tear became uncontrollable and directed the life of Cholly and the rest of the Breedloves. He started his family feeling “small, black, helpless” (Morrison 150) and his hatred of women led him to hate himself but the one tender spot in his life let him control his anger against his family. The incident with the menacing white men was the start of the inner demons. He no longer cared about anyone but met Mrs. Breedlove that subdue this hatred to a point. With all this anger and rage it would eventually not be enough for Mrs. Breedlove’s love to handle. “Again the hatred mixed with tenderness” (Morrison 163) and the final straw snapped. This cause a pain he could never get rid of. A pain that left a bigger hole in his heart. The moment before raping his daughter he was weak and at that moment he snapped. He committed an action that would never let him live life the same. Always having the fact that he raped his daughter staring him down cause