Why did toni morrison write the bluest eye

Morrison later recognized the problematics of omitting PecolaвЂ™s consciousness, writing in the Afterword of the 1993 edition that the novel does not вЂњhandle effectively the silence at its center: the voice that is PecolaвЂ™s вЂunbeing.вЂ™ It should have had a shape-like the emptiness left by a boom or a cryвЂќ. Yet Morrison, like other authors in the mid-twentieth century, still uses the perspective of the rapist, Cholly, during the scene of the assault. Such reactions, coming so quickly on the heels of the rape scene that leaves a young girl unconscious on the kitchen floor, underscore how the trauma of rape can be compounded by the callousness of others.ДЄs a rape novel, The Bluest Eye replaces the pornographic titillation seen in novels such as Invisible Man with the pain of the violated victim-survivor. This attitude is epitomized by the reaction of PecolaвЂ™s community, as the adults say, вЂњ carry some of the blameвЂќ and вЂњHow come she didnвЂ™t fight him?вЂќ. Morrison demonstrates the predominant understandings of rape in the 1970s that blaming the victim for her trauma is easier than trying to understand it. Pecola, the eleven-year-old raped by her father Cholly, is driven mad by her fatherвЂ™s assaults and her motherвЂ™s refusal to believe what happened. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison writes back against вЂњthe male вЂglamour of shameвЂ™ rape is (or once was) routinely givenвЂќ. One notorious example of this pornographic voyeurism appears in Ralph EllisonвЂ™s Invisible Man (1952), where the Black father Jim Trueblood salaciously describes raping his daughter to a transfixed white man. By focusing upon the person harmed, rather than the perpetrator of the violence, the rape novel challenges long-standing misconceptions about rape and disallows a voyeuristic gaze that turns sexual violence into pornographic titillation. The rape novel instead portrays rape as a violent crime enacting physical and psychological damage upon the victim-survivor. Before 1970, most depictions of rape in American fiction offered the perspective of the perpetrator enjoying the violence and pain he forced upon a woman. MorrisonвЂ™s first novel also inaugurates a new genre of American fiction called the rape novel, which I describe in Writing the Survivor. The novel appeared on the American Library AssociationвЂ™s вЂњTop 10 Most Challenged BooksвЂќ list as recently as 2014 for content deemed too graphic for impressionable young people-for MorrisonвЂ™s novel depicts the rape of a Black girl by her father, the birth and death of her baby, and her fall into madness. The novel is now often taught in high schools and universities but with its popularity comes criticism. As MorrisonвЂ™s literary star rose, The Bluest Eye was recognized for its nuanced depiction of racism and the fetishization of white beauty standards. Toni MorrisonвЂ™s masterful first novel received accolades in Kirkus Review, which called the book a вЂњquiet chronicle of garrotted innocence.вЂќ MorrisonвЂ™s novel about three little Black girls was вЂњperhaps the least likely, least commercially viable story one could tell at the time,вЂќ according to Hilton Als in The New Yorker. The Bluest Eye was released on October 29, 1970. In this blog post, Field reflects on the power of Toni MorrisonвЂ™s debut novel The Bluest Eye, to mark its 50th anniversary. New from Clemson University Press, Writing the Survivor by Robin Field explores how rape novels place survivors at the heart of narratives of sexual violence rather than the perpetrators.

Why did toni morrison write the bluest eye