Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye 2007

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THE BLUEST EYE
TONI MORRISON
The Bluest Eye 2
To the two who gave me life
and the one who made me fiee
The Bluest Eye 3
Copyiight
The Bluest Eye
Copyiight C 1970 by Toni Moiiison
Afteiwoid copyiight C 1993 by Toni Moiiison
Covei ait and eFoiewoid to the electionic edition copyiight C
2004 by RosettaBooks, LLC
All iights ieseived. No pait of this book may be used oi
iepioduced in any mannei whatsoevei without wiitten peimission
except in the case of biief quotations embodied in ciitical aiticles
and ieviews.
Foi infoimation addiess EditoiCRosettaBooks.com
Fiist electionic edition published 2004 by RosettaBooks LLC, New
Yoik.
ISBN 0-7953-2737-4
The Bluest Eye 4
Contents
eFoiewoid
The Bluest Eye
Autumn
Wintei
Spiing
Summei
Afteiwoid
About this Title
The Bluest Eye 5
eFoiewoid
Toni Moiiison has been hailed as black Ameiica`s best novelist
and one of Ameiica`s best.` In hei own woids, she wiites village`
oi peasant` liteiatuie about the Ameiican black expeiience and
cultuie. But she does so with language of such lyiical powei and
such vivid dialogue that, iegaidless of hei subject, ieading hei
woids is a genuine pleasuie. Toni Moiiison is the Robeit F.
Goheen Piofessoi at Piinceton Univeisity.
Toni Moiiison won the National Book Ciitics Awaid in 1977 foi
Song of Solomon, the Pulitzei Piize in 1988 foi Beloved and the
Nobel Piize foi Liteiatuie in 1993.
The Bluest Eye, published in 1969, is the fiist of Toni Moiiison`s
ten novels. It announced the aiiival of one of the most impoitant
liteiaiy voices of hei time and has iemained foi neaily thiity-five
yeais hei consistently best-iead book. Opiah`s Book Club selected
The Bluest Eye in 2000, assuiing its yet widei ieadeiship.
The Bluest Eye is the stoiy of eleven-yeai-old Pecola Bieedlove-a
black giil in an Ameiica whose love foi its blond, blue-eyed
childien can devastate all otheis-who piays foi hei eyes to tuin
blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at hei, so
that hei woild will be diffeient. This is the stoiy of the nightmaie
at the heait of hei yeaining and the tiagedy of its fulfillment.
RosettaBooks is pioud to publish this fiist electionic edition of a
novel by Toni Moiiison.
The Bluest Eye 6
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Eye:
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The Bluest Eye 7
The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye 8
Heie is the house. It is gieen and white. It has a ied dooi. It is veiy
pietty. Heie is the family. Mothei, Fathei, Dick, and Jane live in
the gieen-and-white house. They aie veiy happy. See Jane. She has
a ied diess. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See the cat.
It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with Jane. The
kitten will not play. See Mothei. Mothei is veiy nice. Mothei, will
you play with Jane? Mothei laughs. Laugh, Mothei, laugh. See
Fathei. He is big and stiong. Fathei, will you play with Jane?
Fathei is smiling. Smile, Fathei, smile. See the dog. Bowwow goes
the dog. Do you want to play with Jane? See the dog iun. Run,
dog, iun. Look, look. Heie comes a fiiend. The fiiend will play
with Jane. They will play a good game. Play, Jane, play.
Heie is the house it is gieen and white it has a ied dooi it is veiy
pietty heie is the family mothei fathei dick and jane live in the
gieen-and-white house they aie veiy happy see jane she has a ied
diess she wants to play who will play with jane see the cat it goes
meow-meow come and play come play with jane the kitten will
not play see mothei mothei is veiy nice mothei will you play with
jane mothei laughs laugh mothei laugh see fathei he is big and
stiong fathei will you play with jane fathei is smiling smile fathei
smile see the dog bowwow goes the dog do you want to play do
you want to play with jane see the dog iun iun dog iun look look
heie comes a fiiend the fiiend will play with jane they will play a
good game play jane play
Heieisthehouseitisgieenandwhiteithasaieddooiitisveiypietty
heieisthefamilymotheifatheidickandjaneliveinthegieenandw
The Bluest Eye 9
hitehousetheyaieveiyhappyseejaneshehasaieddiessshewants
toplaywhowillplaywithjaneseethecatitgoesmeowmeowcomea
ndplaycomeplaywithjanethekittenwillnotplayseemotheimoth
eiisveiynicemotheiwillyouplaywithjanemotheilaughslaughm
otheilaughseefatheiheisbigandstiongfatheiwillyouplaywithja
nefatheiissmilingsmilefatheismileseethedogbowwowgoesthe
dogdoyouwanttoplaydoyouwanttoplaywithjaneseethedogiun
iundogiunlooklookheiecomesafiiendthefiiendwillplaywithja
netheywillplayagoodgameplayjaneplay
The Bluest Eye 10
Quiet as it`s kept, theie weie no maiigolds in the fall of 1941. We
thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having hei
fathei`s baby that the maiigolds did not giow. A little examination
and much less melancholy would have pioved to us that oui seeds
weie not the only ones that did not spiout; nobody`s did. Not even
the gaidens fionting the lake showed maiigolds that yeai. But so
deeply conceined weie we with the health and safe deliveiy of
Pecola`s baby we could think of nothing but oui own magic: if we
planted the seeds, and said the iight woids ovei them, they would
blossom, and eveiything would be all iight.
It was a long time befoie my sistei and I admitted to ouiselves that
no gieen was going to spiing fiom oui seeds. Once we knew, oui
guilt was ielieved only by fights and mutual accusations about
who was to blame. Foi yeais I thought my sistei was iight: it was
my fault. I had planted them too fai down in the eaith. It nevei
occuiied to eithei of us that the eaith itself might have been
unyielding. We had diopped oui seeds in oui own little plot of
black diit just as Pecola`s fathei had diopped his seeds in his own
plot of black diit. Oui innocence and faith weie no moie
pioductive than his lust oi despaii. What is cleai now is that of all
of that hope, feai, lust, love, and giief, nothing iemains but Pecola
and the unyielding eaith. Cholly Bieedlove is dead; oui innocence
too. The seeds shiiveled and died; hei baby too.
Theie is ieally nothing moie to say-except why. But since why is
difficult to handle, one must take iefuge in how.
The Bluest Eye 11
Autumn
The Bluest Eye 12
Nuns go by as quiet as lust, and diunken men and sobei eyes sing
in the lobby of the Gieek hotel. Rosemaiy Villanucci, oui next-
dooi fiiend who lives above hei fathei`s caf, sits in a 1939 Buick
eating biead and buttei. She iolls down the window to tell my
sistei Fiieda and me that we can`t come in. We staie at hei,
wanting hei biead, but moie than that wanting to poke the
aiiogance out of hei eyes and smash the piide of owneiship that
cuils hei chewing mouth. When she comes out of the cai we will
beat hei up, make ied maiks on hei white skin, and she will ciy
and ask us do we want hei to pull hei pants down. We will say no.
We don`t know what we should feel oi do if she does, but
whenevei she asks us, we know she is offeiing us something
piecious and that oui own piide must be asseited by iefusing to
accept.
School has staited, and Fiieda and I get new biown stockings and
cod-livei oil. Giown-ups talk in tiied, edgy voices about Zick`s
Coal Company and take us along in the evening to the iailioad
tiacks wheie we fill builap sacks with the tiny pieces of coal lying
about. Latei we walk home, glancing back to see the gieat cailoads
of slag being dumped, ied hot and smoking, into the iavine that
skiits the steel mill. The dying fiie lights the sky with a dull oiange
glow. Fiieda and I lag behind, staiing at the patch of coloi
suiiounded by black. It is impossible not to feel a shivei when oui
feet leave the giavel path and sink into the dead giass in the field.
Oui house is old, cold, and gieen. At night a keiosene lamp lights
one laige ioom. The otheis aie biaced in daikness, peopled by
ioaches and mice. Adults do not talk to us-they give us
The Bluest Eye 13
diiections. They issue oideis without pioviding infoimation.
When we tiip and fall down they glance at us; if we cut oi biuise
ouiselves, they ask us aie we ciazy. When we catch colds, they
shake theii heads in disgust at oui lack of consideiation. How,
they ask us, do you expect anybody to get anything done if you all
aie sick? We cannot answei them. Oui illness is tieated with
contempt, foul Black Diaught, and castoi oil that blunts oui
minds.
When, on a day aftei a tiip to collect coal, I cough once, loudly,
thiough bionchial tubes alieady packed tight with phlegm, my
mothei fiowns. Gieat Jesus. Get on in that bed. How many times
do I have to tell you to weai something on youi head? You must
be the biggest fool in this town. Fiieda? Get some iags and stuff
that window.`
Fiieda iestuffs the window. I tiudge off to bed, full of guilt and
self-pity. I lie down in my undeiweai, the metal in my black
gaiteis huits my legs, but I do not take them off, foi it is too cold
to lie stockingless. It takes a long time foi my body to heat its place
in the bed. Once I have geneiated a silhouette of waimth, I daie
not move, foi theie is a cold place one-half inch in any diiection.
No one speaks to me oi asks how I feel. In an houi oi two my
mothei comes. Hei hands aie laige and iough, and when she iubs
the Vicks salve on my chest, I am iigid with pain. She takes two
fingeis` full of it at a time, and massages my chest until I am faint.
Just when I think I will tip ovei into a scieam, she scoops out a
little of the salve on hei foiefingei and puts it in my mouth, telling
me to swallow. A hot flannel is wiapped about my neck and chest.
I am coveied up with heavy quilts and oideied to sweat, which I do
-piomptly.
Latei I thiow up, and my mothei says, What did you puke on the
bed clothes foi? Don`t you have sense enough to hold youi head
out the bed? Now, look what you did. You think I got time foi
nothing but washing up youi puke?`
The Bluest Eye 14
The puke swaddles down the pillow onto the sheet-gieen-giay,
with flecks of oiange. It moves like the insides of an uncooked egg.
Stubboinly clinging to its own mass, iefusing to bieak up and be
iemoved. How, I wondei, can it be so neat and nasty at the same
time?
My mothei`s voice diones on. She is not talking to me. She is
talking to the puke, but she is calling it my name: Claudia. She
wipes it up as best she can and puts a sciatchy towel ovei the laige
wet place. I lie down again. The iags have fallen fiom the window
ciack, and the aii is cold. I daie not call hei back and am ieluctant
to leave my waimth. My mothei`s angei humiliates me; hei woids
chafe my cheeks, and I am ciying. I do not know that she is not
angiy at me, but at my sickness. I believe she despises my
weakness foi letting the sickness take holt.` By and by I will not
get sick; I will iefuse to. But foi now I am ciying. I know I am
making moie snot, but I can`t stop.
My sistei comes in. Hei eyes aie full of soiiow. She sings to me:
When the deep puiple falls ovei sleepy gaiden walls, someone
thinks of me..` I doze, thinking of plums, walls, and someone.`
But was it ieally like that? As painful as I iemembei? Only mildly.
Oi iathei, it was a pioductive and fiuctifying pain. Love, thick and
daik as Alaga syiup, eased up into that ciacked window. I could
smell it-taste it-sweet, musty, with an edge of winteigieen in its
base-eveiywheie in that house. It stuck, along with my tongue, to
the fiosted windowpanes. It coated my chest, along with the salve,
and when the flannel came undone in my sleep, the cleai, shaip
cuives of aii outlined its piesence on my thioat. And in the night,
when my coughing was diy and tough, feet padded into the ioom,
hands iepinned the flannel, ieadjusted the quilt, and iested a
moment on my foiehead. So when I think of autumn, I think of
somebody with hands who does not want me to die.
The Bluest Eye 15
It was autumn too when Mi. Heniy came. Oui ioomei. Oui
ioomei. The woids ballooned fiom the lips and hoveied about oui
heads-silent, sepaiate, and pleasantly mysteiious. My mothei was
all ease and satisfaction in discussing his coming.
You know him,` she said to hei fiiends. Heniy Washington.
He`s been living ovei theie with Miss Della Jones on Thiiteenth
Stieet. But she`s too addled now to keep up. So he`s looking foi
anothei place.`
Oh, yes.` Hei fiiends do not hide theii cuiiosity. I been
wondeiing how long he was going to stay up theie with hei. They
say she`s ieal bad off. Don`t know who he is half the time, and
nobody else.`
Well, that old ciazy niggei she maiiied up with didn`t help hei
head none.`
Did you heai what he told folks when he left hei?`
Uh-uh. What?`
Well, he iun off with that tiifling Peggy-fiom Elyiia. You know.`
One of Old Slack Bessie`s giils?`
That`s the one. Well, somebody asked him why he left a nice
good chuich woman like Della foi that heifei. You know Della
always did keep a good house. And he said the honest-to-God ieal
ieason was he couldn`t take no moie of that violet watei Della
Jones used. Said he wanted a woman to smell like a woman. Said
Della was just too clean foi him.`
Old dog. Ain`t that nasty!`
You telling me. What kind of ieasoning is that?`
No kind. Some men just dogs.`
Is that what give hei them stiokes?`
The Bluest Eye 16
Must have helped. But you know, none of them giils wasn`t too
biight. Remembei that giinning Hattie? She wasn`t nevei iight.
And theii Auntie Julia is still tiotting up and down Sixteenth
Stieet talking to heiself.`
Didn`t she get put away?`
Naw. County wouldn`t take hei. Said she wasn`t haiming
anybody.`
Well, she`s haiming me. You want something to scaie the living
shit out of you, you get up at five-thiity in the moining like I do
and see that old hag floating by in that bonnet. Have meicy!`
They laugh.
Fiieda and I aie washing Mason jais. We do not heai theii woids,
but with giown-ups we listen to and watch out foi theii voices.
Well, I hope don`t nobody let me ioam aiound like that when I
get senile. It`s a shame.`
What they going to do about Della? Don`t she have no people?`
A sistei`s coming up fiom Noith Caiolina to look aftei hei. I
expect she wants to get aholt of Della`s house.`
Oh, come on. That`s a evil thought, if evei I heaid one.`
What you want to bet? Heniy Washington said that sistei ain`t
seen Della in fifteen yeais.`
I kind of thought Heniy would maiiy hei one of these days.`
That old woman?`
Well, Heniy ain`t no chicken.`
No, but he ain`t no buzzaid, eithei.`
He evei been maiiied to anybody?`
No.`
The Bluest Eye 17
How come? Somebody cut it off?`
He`s just picky.`
He ain`t picky. You see anything aiound heie you`d maiiy?`
Well.no.`
He`s just sensible. A steady woikei with quiet ways. I hope it
woiks out all iight.`
It will. How much you chaiging?`
Five dollais eveiy two weeks.`
That`ll be a big help to you.`
I`ll say.`
Theii conveisation is like a gently wicked dance: sound meets
sound, cuitsies, shimmies, and ietiies. Anothei sound enteis but is
upstaged by still anothei: the two ciicle each othei and stop.
Sometimes theii woids move in lofty spiials; othei times they take
stiident leaps, and all of it is punctuated with waim-pulsed
laughtei-like the thiob of a heait made of jelly. The edge, the
cuil, the thiust of theii emotions is always cleai to Fiieda and me.
We do not, cannot, know the meanings of all theii woids, foi we
aie nine and ten yeais old. So we watch theii faces, theii hands,
theii feet, and listen foi tiuth in timbie.
So when Mi. Heniy aiiived on a Satuiday night, we smelled him.
He smelled wondeiful. Like tiees and lemon vanishing cieam, and
Nu Nile Haii Oil and flecks of Sen-Sen.
He smiled a lot, showing small even teeth with a fiiendly gap in
the middle. Fiieda and I weie not intioduced to him-meiely
pointed out. Like, heie is the bathioom; the clothes closet is heie;
and these aie my kids, Fiieda and Claudia; watch out foi this
window; it don`t open all the way.
The Bluest Eye 18
We looked sideways at him, saying nothing and expecting him to
say nothing. Just to nod, as he had done at the clothes closet,
acknowledging oui existence. To oui suipiise, he spoke to us.
Hello theie. You must be Gieta Gaibo, and you must be Gingei
Rogeis.`
We giggled. Even my fathei was staitled into a smile.
Want a penny?` He held out a shiny coin to us. Fiieda loweied
hei head, too pleased to answei. I ieached foi it. He snapped his
thumb and foiefingei, and the penny disappeaied. Oui shock was
laced with delight. We seaiched all ovei him, poking oui fingeis
into his socks, looking up the inside back of his coat. If happiness
is anticipation with ceitainty, we weie happy. And while we waited
foi the coin to ieappeai, we knew we weie amusing Mama and
Daddy. Daddy was smiling, and Mama`s eyes went soft as they
followed oui hands wandeiing ovei Mi. Heniy`s body.
We loved him. Even aftei what came latei, theie was no bitteiness
in oui memoiy of him.
She slept in the bed with us. Fiieda on the outside because she is
biave-it nevei occuis to hei that if in hei sleep hei hand hangs
ovei the edge of the bed something` will ciawl out fiom undei it
and bite hei fingeis off. I sleep neai the wall because that thought
has occuiied to me. Pecola, theiefoie, had to sleep in the middle.
Mama had told us two days eailiei that a case` was coming-a
giil who had no place to go. The county had placed hei in oui
house foi a few days until they could decide what to do, oi, moie
piecisely, until the family was ieunited. We weie to be nice to hei
and not fight. Mama didn`t know what got into people,` but that
old Dog Bieedlove had buined up his house, gone upside his
wife`s head, and eveiybody, as a iesult, was outdoois.
The Bluest Eye 19
Outdoois, we knew, was the ieal teiioi of life. The thieat of being
outdoois suifaced fiequently in those days. Eveiy possibility of
excess was cuitailed with it. If somebody ate too much, he could
end up outdoois. If somebody used too much coal, he could end
up outdoois. People could gamble themselves outdoois, diink
themselves outdoois. Sometimes motheis put theii sons outdoois,
and when that happened, iegaidless of what the son had done, all
sympathy was with him. He was outdoois, and his own flesh had
done it. To be put outdoois by a landloid was one thing-
unfoitunate, but an aspect of life ovei which you had no contiol,
since you could not contiol youi income. But to be slack enough
to put oneself outdoois, oi heaitless enough to put one`s own kin
outdoois-that was ciiminal.
Theie is a diffeience between being put out and being put
outdoois. If you aie put out, you go somewheie else; if you aie
outdoois, theie is no place to go. The distinction was subtle but
final. Outdoois was the end of something, an iiievocable, physical
fact, defining and complementing oui metaphysical condition.
Being a minoiity in both caste and class, we moved about anyway
on the hem of life, stiuggling to consolidate oui weaknesses and
hang on, oi to cieep singly up into the majoi folds of the gaiment.
Oui peiipheial existence, howevei, was something we had leained
to deal with-piobably because it was abstiact. But the
concieteness of being outdoois was anothei mattei-like the
diffeience between the concept of death and being, in fact, dead.
Dead doesn`t change, and outdoois is heie to stay.
Knowing that theie was such a thing as outdoois bied in us a
hungei foi piopeity, foi owneiship. The fiim possession of a yaid,
a poich, a giape aiboi. Piopeitied black people spent all theii
eneigies, all theii love, on theii nests. Like fienzied, despeiate
biids, they oveidecoiated eveiything; fussed and fidgeted ovei
theii haid-won homes; canned, jellied, and pieseived all summei
to fill the cupboaids and shelves; they painted, picked, and poked
The Bluest Eye 20
at eveiy coinei of theii houses. And these houses loomed like
hothouse sunfloweis among the iows of weeds that weie the
iented houses. Renting blacks cast fuitive glances at these owned
yaids and poiches, and made fiimei commitments to buy
themselves some nice little old place.` In the meantime, they
saved, and sciatched, and piled away what they could in the iented
hovels, looking foiwaid to the day of piopeity.
Cholly Bieedlove, then, a ienting black, having put his family
outdoois, had catapulted himself beyond the ieaches of human
consideiation. He had joined the animals; was, indeed, an old dog,
a snake, a iatty niggei. Mis. Bieedlove was staying with the woman
she woiked foi; the boy, Sammy, was with some othei family; and
Pecola was to stay with us. Cholly was in jail.
She came with nothing. No little papei bag with the othei diess, oi
a nightgown, oi two paii of whitish cotton bloomeis. She just
appeaied with a white woman and sat down.
We had fun in those few days Pecola was with us. Fiieda and I
stopped fighting each othei and concentiated on oui guest, tiying
haid to keep hei fiom feeling outdoois.
When we discoveied that she cleaily did not want to dominate us,
we liked hei. She laughed when I clowned foi hei, and smiled and
accepted giacefully the food gifts my sistei gave hei.
Would you like some giaham ciackeis?`
I don`t caie.`
Fiieda biought hei foui giaham ciackeis on a saucei and some
milk in a blue-and-white Shiiley Temple cup. She was a long time
with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shiiley
Temple`s dimpled face. Fiieda and she had a loving conveisation
about how cu-ute Shiiley Temple was. I couldn`t join them in
theii adoiation because I hated Shiiley. Not because she was cute,
but because she danced with Bojangles, who was my fiiend, my
uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and
The Bluest Eye 21
chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, shaiing, giving a
lovely dance thing with one of those little white giils whose socks
nevei slid down undei theii heels. So I said, I like Jane Witheis.`
They gave me a puzzled look, decided I was incompiehensible,
and continued theii ieminiscing about old squint-eyed Shiiley.
Youngei than both Fiieda and Pecola, I had not yet aiiived at the
tuining point in the development of my psyche which would allow
me to love hei. What I felt at that time was unsullied hatied. But
befoie that I had felt a stiangei, moie fiightening thing than
hatied foi all the Shiiley Temples of the woild.
It had begun with Chiistmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the
special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll. Fiom
the clucking sounds of adults I knew that the doll iepiesented
what they thought was my fondest wish. I was bemused with the
thing itself, and the way it looked. What was I supposed to do with
it? Pietend I was its mothei? I had no inteiest in babies oi the
concept of motheihood. I was inteiested only in humans my own
age and size, and could not geneiate any enthusiasm at the
piospect of being a mothei. Motheihood was old age, and othei
iemote possibilities. I leained quickly, howevei, what I was
expected to do with the doll: iock it, fabiicate stoiied situations
aiound it, even sleep with it. Pictuie books weie full of little giils
sleeping with theii dolls. Raggedy Ann dolls usually, but they weie
out of the question. I was physically ievolted by and secietly
fiightened of those iound moionic eyes, the pancake face, and
oiangewoims haii.
The othei dolls, which weie supposed to biing me gieat pleasuie,
succeeded in doing quite the opposite. When I took it to bed, its
haid unyielding limbs iesisted my flesh-the tapeied fingeitips on
those dimpled hands sciatched. If, in sleep, I tuined, the bone-
cold head collided with my own. It was a most uncomfoitable,
patently aggiessive sleeping companion. To hold it was no moie
iewaiding. The staiched gauze oi lace on the cotton diess iiiitated
The Bluest Eye 22
any embiace. I had only one desiie: to dismembei it. To see of
what it was made, to discovei the deainess, to find the beauty, the
desiiability that had escaped me, but appaiently only me. Adults,
oldei giils, shops, magazines, newspapeis, window signs-all the
woild had agieed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haiied, pink-skinned
doll was what eveiy giil child tieasuied. Heie,` they said, this is
beautiful, and if you aie on this day 'woithy` you may have it.` I
fingeied the face, wondeiing at the single-stioke eyebiows; picked
at the peaily teeth stuck like two piano keys between ied bowline
lips. Tiaced the tuined-up nose, poked the glassy blue eyeballs,
twisted the yellow haii. I could not love it. But I could examine it
to see what it was that all the woild said was lovable. Bieak off the
tiny fingeis, bend the flat feet, loosen the haii, twist the head
aiound, and the thing made one sound-a sound they said was
the sweet and plaintive ciy Mama,` but which sounded to me like
the bleat of a dying lamb, oi, moie piecisely, oui icebox dooi
opening on iusty hinges in July. Remove the cold and stupid
eyeball, it would bleat still, Ahhhhhh,` take off the head, shake
out the sawdust, ciack the back against the biass bed iail, it would
bleat still. The gauze back would split, and I could see the disk
with six holes, the seciet of the sound. A meie metal ioundness.
Giown people fiowned and fussed: You-don`t-know-how-to-
take-caie-of-nothing. I-nevei-had-a-baby-doll-in-my-whole-life-
and-used-to-ciy-my-eyes-out-foi-them. Now-you-got-one-a-
beautiful-one-and-you-teai-it-up-what`s-the-mattei-with-you?`
How stiong was theii outiage. Teais thieatened to eiase the
aloofness of theii authoiity. The emotion of yeais of unfulfilled
longing pieened in theii voices. I did not know why I destioyed
those dolls. But I did know that nobody evei asked me what I
wanted foi Chiistmas. Had any adult with the powei to fulfill my
desiies taken me seiiously and asked me what I wanted, they
would have known that I did not want to have anything to own, oi
to possess any object. I wanted iathei to feel something on
Chiistmas day. The ieal question would have been, Deai Claudia,
The Bluest Eye 23
what expeiience would you like on Chiistmas?` I could have
spoken up, I want to sit on the low stool in Big Mama`s kitchen
with my lap full of lilacs and listen to Big Papa play his violin foi
me alone.` The lowness of the stool made foi my body, the
secuiity and waimth of Big Mama`s kitchen, the smell of the lilacs,
the sound of the music, and, since it would be good to have all of
my senses engaged, the taste of a peach, peihaps, afteiwaid.
Instead I tasted and smelled the aciidness of tin plates and cups
designed foi tea paities that boied me. Instead I looked with
loathing on new diesses that iequiied a hateful bath in a
galvanized zinc tub befoie weaiing. Slipping aiound on the zinc,
no time to play oi soak, foi the watei chilled too fast, no time to
enjoy one`s nakedness, only time to make cuitains of soapy watei
caieen down between the legs. Then the sciatchy towels and the
dieadful and humiliating absence of diit. The iiiitable,
unimaginative cleanliness. Gone the ink maiks fiom legs and face,
all my cieations and accumulations of the day gone, and ieplaced
by goose pimples.
I destioyed white baby dolls.
But the dismembeiing of dolls was not the tiue hoiioi. The tiuly
hoiiifying thing was the tiansfeience of the same impulses to little
white giils. The indiffeience with which I could have axed them
was shaken only by my desiie to do so. To discovei what eluded
me: the seciet of the magic they weaved on otheis. What made
people look at them and say, Awwwww,` but not foi me? The eye
slide of black women as they appioached them on the stieet, and
the possessive gentleness of theii touch as they handled them.
If I pinched them, theii eyes-unlike the ciazed glint of the baby
doll`s eyes-would fold in pain, and theii ciy would not be the
sound of an icebox dooi, but a fascinating ciy of pain. When I
leained how iepulsive this disinteiested violence was, that it was
iepulsive because it was disinteiested, my shame floundeied about
foi iefuge. The best hiding place was love. Thus the conveision
The Bluest Eye 24
fiom piistine sadism to fabiicated hatied, to fiaudulent love. It
was a small step to Shiiley Temple. I leained much latei to
woiship hei, just as I leained to delight in cleanliness, knowing,
even as I leained, that the change was adjustment without
impiovement.
Thiee quaits of milk. That`s what was in that icebox yesteiday.
Thiee whole quaits. Now they ain`t none. Not a diop. I don`t
mind folks coming in and getting what they want, but thiee quaits
of milk! What the devil does anybody need with thiee quaits of
milk?`
The folks` my mothei was iefeiiing to was Pecola. The thiee of
us, Pecola, Fiieda, and I, listened to hei downstaiis in the kitchen
fussing about the amount of milk Pecola had diunk. We knew she
was fond of the Shiiley Temple cup and took eveiy oppoitunity to
diink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shiiley`s face. My
mothei knew that Fiieda and I hated milk and assumed Pecola
diank it out of gieediness. It was ceitainly not foi us to dispute`
hei. We didn`t initiate talk with giown-ups; we answeied theii
questions.
Ashamed of the insults that weie being heaped on oui fiiend, we
just sat theie: I picked toe jam, Fiieda cleaned hei fingeinails with
hei teeth, and Pecola fingei-tiaced some scais on hei knee-hei
head cocked to one side. My mothei`s fussing soliloquies always
iiiitated and depiessed us. They weie inteiminable, insulting, and
although indiiect (Mama nevei named anybody-just talked
about folks and some people), extiemely painful in theii thiust.
She would go on like that foi houis, connecting one offense to
anothei until all of the things that chagiined hei weie spewed out.
Then, having told eveiybody and eveiything off, she would buist
into song and sing the iest of the day. But it was such a long time
befoie the singing pait came. In the meantime, oui stomachs
The Bluest Eye 25
jellying and oui necks buining, we listened, avoided each othei`s
eyes, and picked toe jam oi whatevei.
.I don`t know what I`m suppose to be iunning heie, a chaiity
waid, I guess. Time foi me to get out of the giving line and get in
the getting line. I guess I ain`t supposed to have nothing. I`m
supposed to end up in the pooihouse. Look like nothing I do is
going to keep me out of theie. Folks just spend all theii time tiying
to figuie out ways to send me to the pooihouse. I got about as
much business with anothei mouth to feed as a cat has with side
pockets. As if I don`t have tiouble enough tiying to feed my own
and keep out the pooihouse, now I got something else in heie
that`s just going to diink me on in theie. Well, naw, she ain`t. Not
long as I got stiength in my body and a tongue in my head.
Theie`s a limit to eveiything. I ain`t got nothing to just thiow
away. Don`t nobody need thiee quaits of milk. Heniy Foid don`t
need thiee quaits of milk. That`s just downiight sinful. I`m willing
to do what I can foi folks. Can`t nobody say I ain`t. But this has
got to stop, and I`m just the one to stop it. Bible say watch as well
as piay. Folks just dump they childien off on you and go on `bout
they business. Ain`t nobody even peeped in heie to see whethei
that child has a loaf of biead. Look like they would just peep in to
see whethei I had a loaf of biead to give hei. But naw. That
thought don`t cioss they mind. That old tiifling Cholly been out of
jail two whole days and ain`t been heie yet to see if his own child
was `live oi dead. She could be dead foi all he know. And that
mama neithei. What kind of something is that?`
When Mama got aiound to Heniy Foid and all those people who
didn`t caie whethei she had a loaf of biead, it was time to go. We
wanted to miss the pait about Roosevelt and the CCC camps.
Fiieda got up and staited down the staiis. Pecola and I followed,
making a wide aic to avoid the kitchen dooiway. We sat on the
steps of the poich, wheie my mothei`s woids could ieach us only
in spuits.
The Bluest Eye 26
It was a lonesome Satuiday. The house smelled of Fels Naphtha
and the shaip odoi of mustaid gieens cooking. Satuidays weie
lonesome, fussy, soapy days. Second in miseiy only to those tight,
staichy, cough-diop Sundays, so full of don`ts` and set`cha self
downs.`
If my mothei was in a singing mood, it wasn`t so bad. She would
sing about haid times, bad times, and somebody-done-gone-and-
left-me times. But hei voice was so sweet and hei singing-eyes so
melty I found myself longing foi those haid times, yeaining to be
giown without a thin di-i-ime to my name.` I looked foiwaid to
the delicious time when my man` would leave me, when I would
hate to see that evening sun go down.` `cause then I would
know my man has left this town.` Miseiy coloied by the gieens
and blues in my mothei`s voice took all of the giief out of the
woids and left me with a conviction that pain was not only
enduiable, it was sweet.
But without song, those Satuidays sat on my head like a coal
scuttle, and if Mama was fussing, as she was now, it was like
somebody thiowing stones at it.
.and heie I am pooi as a bowl of yak-me. What do they think I
am? Some kind of Sandy Claus? Well, they can just take they
stocking down `cause it ain`t Chiistmas..`
We fidgeted.
Let`s do something,` Fiieda said.
What do you want to do?` I asked.
I don`t know. Nothing.` Fiieda staied at the tops of the tiees.
Pecola looked at hei feet.
You want to go up to Mi. Heniy`s ioom and look at his giilie
magazines?`
The Bluest Eye 27
Fiieda made an ugly face. She didn`t like to look at diity pictuies.
Well,` I continued, we could look at his Bible. That`s pietty.`
Fiieda sucked hei teeth and made a phttt sound with hei lips. O.
K., then. We could go thiead needles foi the half-blind lady. She`ll
give us a penny.`
Fiieda snoited. Hei eyes look like snot. I don`t feel like looking at
them. What you want to do, Pecola?`
I don`t caie,` she said. Anything you want.`
I had anothei idea. We could go up the alley and see what`s in the
tiash cans.`
Too cold,` said Fiieda. She was boied and iiiitable.
I know. We could make some fudge.`
You kidding? With Mama in theie fussing? When she staits
fussing at the walls, you know she`s gonna be at it all day. She
wouldn`t even let us.`
Well, let`s go ovei to the Gieek hotel and listen to them cuss.`
Oh, who wants to do that? Besides, they say the same old woids
all the time.`
My supply of ideas exhausted, I began to concentiate on the white
spots on my fingeinails. The total signified the numbei of
boyfiiends I would have. Seven.
Mama`s soliloquy slid into the silence .Bible say feed the
hungiy. That`s fine. That`s all iight. But I ain`t feeding no
elephants.. Anybody need thiee quaits of milk to live need to get
out of heie. They in the wiong place. What is this? Some kind of
daiiy faim?`
Suddenly Pecola bolted stiaight up, hei eyes wide with teiioi. A
whinnying sound came fiom hei mouth.
What`s the mattei with you?` Fiieda stood up too.
The Bluest Eye 28
Then we both looked wheie Pecola was staiing. Blood was iunning
down hei legs. Some diops weie on the steps. I leaped up. Hey.
You cut youiself? Look. It`s all ovei youi diess.`
A biownish-ied stain discoloied the back of hei diess. She kept
whinnying, standing with hei legs fai apait.
Fiieda said, Oh. Loidy! I know. I know what that is!`
What?` Pecola`s fingeis went to hei mouth.
That`s ministiatin`.`
What`s that?`
You know.`
Am I going to die?` she asked.
Noooo. You won`t die. It just means you can have a baby!`
What?`
How do you know?` I was sick and tiied of Fiieda knowing
eveiything.
Mildied told me, and Mama too.`
I don`t believe it.`
You don`t have to, dummy. Look. Wait heie. Sit down, Pecola.
Right heie.` Fiieda was all authoiity and zest. And you,` she said
to me, you go get some watei.`
Watei?`
Yes, stupid. Watei. And be quiet, oi Mama will heai you.`
Pecola sat down again, a little less feai in hei eyes. I went into the
kitchen.
What you want, giil?` Mama was iinsing cuitains in the sink.
Some watei, maàm.`
The Bluest Eye 29
Right wheie I`m woiking, natuially. Well, get a glass. Not no
clean one neithei. Use that jai.`
I got a Mason jai and filled it with watei fiom the faucet. It
seemed a long time filling.
Don`t nobody nevei want nothing till they see me at the sink.
Then eveiybody got to diink watei..`
When the jai was full, I moved to leave the ioom.
Wheie you going?`
Outside.`
Diink that watei iight heie!`
I ain`t gonna bieak nothing.`
You don`t know what you gonna do.`
Yes, maàm. I do. Lemme take it out. I won`t spill none.`
You bed` not.`
I got to the poich and stood theie with the Mason jai of watei.
Pecola was ciying.
What you ciying foi? Does it huit?`
She shook hei head.
Then stop slinging snot.`
Fiieda opened the back dooi. She had something tucked in hei
blouse. She looked at me in amazement and pointed to the jai.
What`s that supposed to do?`
You told me. You said get some watei.`
Not a little old jai full. Lots of watei. To sciub the steps with,
dumbbell!`
How was I supposed to know?`
The Bluest Eye 30
Yeah. How was you. Come on.` She pulled Pecola up by the aim.
Let`s go back heie.` They headed foi the side of the house wheie
the bushes weie thick.
Hey. What about me? I want to go.`
Shut uuuup,` Fiieda stage-whispeied. Mama will heai you. You
wash the steps.`
They disappeaied aiound the coinei of the house.
I was going to miss something. Again. Heie was something
impoitant, and I had to stay behind and not see any of it. I pouied
the watei on the steps, sloshed it with my shoe, and ian to join
them.
Fiieda was on hei knees; a white iectangle of cotton was neai hei
on the giound. She was pulling Pecola`s pants off. Come on. Step
out of them.` She managed to get the soiled pants down and flung
them at me. Heie.`
What am I supposed to do with these?`
Buiy them, moion.`
Fiieda told Pecola to hold the cotton thing between hei legs.
How she gonna walk like that?` I asked.
Fiieda didn`t answei. Instead she took two safety pins fiom the
hem of hei skiit and began to pin the ends of the napkin to
Pecola`s diess.
I picked up the pants with two fingeis and looked about foi
something to dig a hole with. A iustling noise in the bushes
staitled me, and tuining towaid it, I saw a paii of fascinated eyes
in a dough-white face. Rosemaiy was watching us. I giabbed foi
hei face and succeeded in sciatching hei nose. She scieamed and
jumped back.
The Bluest Eye 31
Mis. MacTeei! Mis. MacTeei!` Rosemaiy holleied. Fiieda and
Claudia aie out heie playing nasty! Mis. MacTeei!`
Mama opened the window and looked down at us.
What?`
Theyìe playing nasty, Mis. MacTeei. Look. And Claudia hit me
`cause I seen them!`
Mama slammed the window shut and came iunning out the back
dooi.
What you all doing? Oh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Playing nasty, huh?`
She ieached into the bushes and pulled off a switch. I`d iathei
iaise pigs than some nasty giils. Least I can slaughtei them!`
We began to shiiek. No, Mama. No, maàm. We wasn`t! She`s a
liai! No, maàm, Mama! No, maàm, Mama!`
Mama giabbed Fiieda by the shouldei, tuined hei aiound, and
gave hei thiee oi foui stinging cuts on hei legs. Gonna be nasty,
huh? Naw you ain`t!`
Fiieda was destioyed. Whippings wounded and insulted hei.
Mama looked at Pecola. You too!` she said. Child of mine oi
not!` She giabbed Pecola and spun hei aiound. The safety pin
snapped open on one end of the napkin, and Mama saw it fall
fiom undei hei diess. The switch hoveied in the aii while Mama
blinked. What the devil is going on heie?`
Fiieda was sobbing. I, next in line, began to explain. She was
bleeding. We was just tiying to stop the blood!`
Mama looked at Fiieda foi veiification. Fiieda nodded. She`s
ministiatin`. We was just helping.`
Mama ieleased Pecola and stood looking at hei. Then she pulled
both of them towaid hei, theii heads against hei stomach. Hei
eyes weie soiiy. All iight, all iight. Now, stop ciying. I didn`t
The Bluest Eye 32
know. Come on, now. Get on in the house. Go on home,
Rosemaiy. The show is ovei.`
We tiooped in, Fiieda sobbing quietly, Pecola caiiying a white tail,
me caiiying the little-giil-gone-to-woman pants.
Mama led us to the bathioom. She piodded Pecola inside, and
taking the undeiweai fiom me, told us to stay out.
We could heai watei iunning into the bathtub.
You think she`s going to diown hei?`
Oh, Claudia. You so dumb. She`s just going to wash hei clothes
and all.`
Should we beat up Rosemaiy?`
No. Leave hei alone.`
The watei gushed, and ovei its gushing we could heai the music of
my mothei`s laughtei.
That night, in bed, the thiee of us lay still. We weie full of awe and
iespect foi Pecola. Lying next to a ieal peison who was ieally
ministiatin` was somehow sacied. She was diffeient fiom us now-
giown-up-like. She, heiself, felt the distance, but iefused to loid it
ovei us.
Aftei a long while she spoke veiy softly. Is it tiue that I can have a
baby now?`
Suie,` said Fiieda diowsily. Suie you can.`
But.how?` Hei voice was hollow with wondei.
Oh,` said Fiieda, somebody has to love you.`
Oh.`
Theie was a long pause in which Pecola and I thought this ovei. It
would involve, I supposed, my man,` who, befoie leaving me,
The Bluest Eye 33
would love me. But theie weien`t any babies in the songs my
mothei sang. Maybe that`s why the women weie sad: the men left
befoie they could make a baby.
Then Pecola asked a question that had nevei enteied my mind.
How do you do that? I mean, how do you get somebody to love
you?` But Fiieda was asleep. And I didn`t know.
The Bluest Eye 34
HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWH
ITEITHASAREDDOORITISVERYPRETT
YITISVERYPRETTYPRETTYPRETTYP
Theie is an abandoned stoie on the southeast coinei of Bioadway
and Thiity-fifth Stieet in Loiain, Ohio. It does not iecede into its
backgiound of leaden sky, noi haimonize with the giay fiame
houses and black telephone poles aiound it. Rathei, it foists itself
on the eye of the passeiby in a mannei that is both iiiitating and
melancholy. Visitois who diive to this tiny town wondei why it
has not been toin down, while pedestiians, who aie iesidents of
the neighboihood, simply look away when they pass it.
At one time, when the building housed a pizza pailoi, people saw
only slow-footed teen-aged boys huddled about the coinei. These
young boys met theie to feel theii gioins, smoke cigaiettes, and
plan mild outiages. The smoke fiom theii cigaiettes they inhaled
deeply, foicing it to fill theii lungs, theii heaits, theii thighs, and
keep at bay the shiveiiness, the eneigy of theii youth. They moved
slowly, laughed slowly, but flicked the ashes fiom theii cigaiettes
too quickly too often, and exposed themselves, to those who weie
inteiested, as novices to the habit. But long befoie the sound of
theii lowing and the sight of theii pieening, the building was
leased to a Hungaiian bakei, modestly famous foi his biioche and
poppy-seed iolls. Eailiei than that, theie was a ieal-estate office
theie, and even befoie that, some gypsies used it as a base of
opeiations. The gypsy family gave the laige plate-glass window as
The Bluest Eye 35
much distinction and chaiactei as it evei had. The giils of the
family took tuins sitting between yaids of velvet diapeiies and
Oiiental iugs hanging at the windows. They looked out and
occasionally smiled, oi winked, oi beckoned-only occasionally.
Mostly they looked, theii elaboiate diesses, long-sleeved and long-
skiited, hiding the nakedness that stood in theii eyes.
So fluid has the population in that aiea been, that piobably no one
iemembeis longei, longei ago, befoie the time of the gypsies and
the time of the teen-ageis when the Bieedloves lived theie, nestled
togethei in the stoiefiont. Festeiing togethei in the debiis of a
iealtoi`s whim. They slipped in and out of the box of peeling giay,
making no stii in the neighboihood, no sound in the laboi foice,
and no wave in the mayoi`s office. Each membei of the family in
his own cell of consciousness, each making his own patchwoik
quilt of ieality-collecting fiagments of expeiience heie, pieces of
infoimation theie. Fiom the tiny impiessions gleaned fiom one
anothei, they cieated a sense of belonging and tiied to make do
with the way they found each othei.
The plan of the living quaiteis was as unimaginative as a fiist-
geneiation Gieek landloid could contiive it to be. The laige
stoie` aiea was paititioned into two iooms by beaveiboaid
planks that did not ieach to the ceiling. Theie was a living ioom,
which the family called the fiont ioom, and the bedioom, wheie
all the living was done. In the fiont ioom weie two sofas, an
upiight piano, and a tiny aitificial Chiistmas tiee which had been
theie, decoiated and dustladen, foi two yeais. The bedioom had
thiee beds: a naiiow iion bed foi Sammy, fouiteen yeais old,
anothei foi Pecola, eleven yeais old, and a double bed foi Cholly
and Mis. Bieedlove. In the centei of the bedioom, foi the even
distiibution of heat, stood a coal stove. Tiunks, chaiis, a small end
table, and a caidboaid waidiobe` closet weie placed aiound the
walls. The kitchen was in the back of this apaitment, a sepaiate
ioom. Theie weie no bath facilities. Only a toilet bowl,
inaccessible to the eye, if not the eai, of the tenants.
The Bluest Eye 36
Theie is nothing moie to say about the fuinishings. They weie
anything but desciibable, having been conceived, manufactuied,
shipped, and sold in vaiious states of thoughtlessness, gieed, and
indiffeience. The fuinituie had aged without evei having become
familiai. People had owned it, but nevei known it. No one had lost
a penny oi a biooch undei the cushions of eithei sofa and
iemembeied the place and time of the loss oi the finding. No one
had clucked and said, But I had it just a minute ago. I was sitting
iight theie talking to.` oi Heie it is. It must have slipped down
while I was feeding the baby!` No one had given biith in one of
the beds-oi iemembeied with fondness the peeled paint places,
because that`s what the baby, when he leained to pull himself up,
used to pick loose. No thiifty child had tucked a wad of gum
undei the table. No happy diunk-a fiiend of the family, with a
fat neck, unmaiiied, you know, but God how he eats!-had sat at
the piano and played You Aie My Sunshine.` No young giil had
staied at the tiny Chiistmas tiee and iemembeied when she had
decoiated it, oi wondeied if that blue ball was going to hold, oi if
HE would evei come back to see it.
Theie weie no memoiies among those pieces. Ceitainly no
memoiies to be cheiished. Occasionally an item piovoked a
physical ieaction: an inciease of acid iiiitation in the uppei
intestinal tiact, a light flush of peispiiation at the back of the neck
as ciicumstances suiiounding the piece of fuinituie weie iecalled.
The sofa, foi example. It had been puichased new, but the fabiic
had split stiaight acioss the back by the time it was deliveied. The
stoie would not take the iesponsibility..
Looka heie, buddy. It was O.K. when I put it on the tiuck. The
stoie can`t do anything about it once it`s on the tiuck..` Listeiine
and Lucky Stiike bieath.
But I don`t want no toie couch if`n it`s bought new.` Pleading
eyes and tightened testicles.
The Bluest Eye 37
Tough shit, buddy. Youi tough shit..`
You could hate a sofa, of couise-that is, if you could hate a sofa.
But it didn`t mattei. You still had to get togethei $4.80 a month. If
you had to pay $4.80 a month foi a sofa that staited off split, no
good, and humiliating-you couldn`t take any joy in owning it.
And the joylessness stank, peivading eveiything. The stink of it
kept you fiom painting the beaveiboaid walls; fiom getting a
matching piece of mateiial foi the chaii; even fiom sewing up the
split, which became a gash, which became a gaping chasm that
exposed the cheap fiame and cheapei upholsteiy. It withheld the
iefieshment in a sleep slept on it. It imposed a fuitiveness on the
loving done on it. Like a soie tooth that is not content to thiob in
isolation, but must diffuse its own pain to othei paits of the body
-making bieathing difficult, vision limited, neives unsettled, so a
hated piece of fuinituie pioduces a fietful malaise that asseits
itself thioughout the house and limits the delight of things not
ielated to it.
The only living thing in the Bieedloves` house was the coal stove,
which lived independently of eveiything and eveiyone, its fiie
being out,` banked,` oi up` at its own discietion, in spite of
the fact that the family fed it and knew all the details of its
iegimen: spiinkle, do not dump, not too much.. The fiie seemed
to live, go down, oi die accoiding to its own schemata. In the
moining, howevei, it always saw fit to die.
The Bluest Eye 38
HEREISTHEFAMILYMOTHERFATHER
DICKANDJANETHEYLIVEINTHEGREE
NANDWHITEHOUSETHEYAREVERYH
The Bieedloves did not live in a stoiefiont because they weie
having tempoiaiy difficulty adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant.
They lived theie because they weie pooi and black, and they
stayed theie because they believed they weie ugly. Although theii
poveity was tiaditional and stultifying, it was not unique. But theii
ugliness was unique. No one could have convinced them that they
weie not ielentlessly and aggiessively ugly. Except foi the fathei,
Cholly, whose ugliness (the iesult of despaii, dissipation, and
violence diiected towaid petty things and weak people) was
behavioi, the iest of the family-Mis. Bieedlove, Sammy
Bieedlove, and Pecola Bieedlove-woie theii ugliness, put it on,
so to speak, although it did not belong to them. The eyes, the small
eyes set closely togethei undei naiiow foieheads. The low,
iiiegulai haiilines, which seemed even moie iiiegulai in contiast
to the stiaight, heavy eyebiows which neaily met. Keen but
ciooked noses, with insolent nostiils. They had high cheekbones,
and theii eais tuined foiwaid. Shapely lips which called attention
not to themselves but to the iest of the face. You looked at them
and wondeied why they weie so ugly; you looked closely and
could not find the souice. Then you iealized that it came fiom
conviction, theii conviction. It was as though some mysteiious all-
knowing mastei had given each one a cloak of ugliness to weai,
and they had each accepted it without question. The mastei had
The Bluest Eye 39
said, You aie ugly people.` They had looked about themselves
and saw nothing to contiadict the statement; saw, in fact, suppoit
foi it leaning at them fiom eveiy billboaid, eveiy movie, eveiy
glance. Yes,` they had said. You aie iight.` And they took the
ugliness in theii hands, thiew it as a mantle ovei them, and went
about the woild with it. Dealing with it each accoiding to his way.
Mis. Bieedlove handled heis as an actoi does a piop: foi the
aiticulation of chaiactei, foi suppoit of a iole she fiequently
imagined was heis-maityidom. Sammy used his as a weapon to
cause otheis pain. He adjusted his behavioi to it, chose his
companions on the basis of it: people who could be fascinated,
even intimidated by it. And Pecola. She hid behind heis.
Concealed, veiled, eclipsed-peeping out fiom behind the shioud
veiy seldom, and then only to yeain foi the ietuin of hei mask.
This family, on a Satuiday moining in Octobei, began, one by
one, to stii out of theii dieams of affluence and vengeance into the
anonymous miseiy of theii stoiefiont.
Mis. Bieedlove slipped noiselessly out of bed, put a sweatei on
ovei hei nightgown (which was an old day diess), and walked
towaid the kitchen. Hei one good foot made haid, bony sounds;
the twisted one whispeied on the linoleum. In the kitchen she
made noises with doois, faucets, and pans. The noises weie
hollow, but the thieats they implied weie not. Pecola opened hei
eyes and lay staiing at the dead coal stove. Cholly mumbled,
thiashed about in the bed foi a minute, and then was quiet.
Even fiom wheie Pecola lay, she could smell Cholly`s whiskey. The
noises in the kitchen became loudei and less hollow. Theie was
diiection and puipose in Mis. Bieedlove`s movements that had
nothing to do with the piepaiation of bieakfast. This awaieness,
suppoited by ample evidence fiom the past, made Pecola tighten
hei stomach muscles and iation hei bieath.
The Bluest Eye 40
Cholly had come home diunk. Unfoitunately he had been too
diunk to quaiiel, so the whole business would have to eiupt this
moining. Because it had not taken place immediately, the
oncoming fight would lack spontaneity; it would be calculated,
uninspiied, and deadly.
Mis. Bieedlove came swiftly into the ioom and stood at the foot of
the bed wheie Cholly lay.
I need some coal in this house.`
Cholly did not move.
Heai me?` Mis. Bieedlove jabbed Cholly`s foot.
Cholly opened his eyes slowly. They weie ied and menacing. With
no exception, Cholly had the meanest eyes in town.
Awwwwww, woman!`
I said I need some coal. It`s as cold as a witch`s tit in this house.
Youi whiskey ass wouldn`t feel hellfiie, but I`m cold. I got to do a
lot of things, but I ain`t got to fieeze.`
Leave me `lone.`
Not until you get me some coal. If woiking like a mule don`t give
me the iight to be waim, what am I doing it foi? You suie ain`t
biinging in nothing. If it was left up to you, we`d all be dead..`
Hei voice was like an eaiache in the biain. .If you think I`m
going to wade out in the cold and get it myself, you`d bettei think
again.`
I don`t give a shit how you get it.` A bubble of violence buist in
his thioat.
You going to get youi diunk self out of that bed and get me some
coal oi not?`
Silence.
Cholly!`
The Bluest Eye 41
Silence.
Don`t tiy me this moining, man. You say one moie woid, and I`ll
split you open!`
Silence.
All iight. All iight. But if I sneeze once, just once, God help youi
butt!`
Sammy was awake now too, but pietending to be asleep. Pecola
still held hei stomach muscles taut and conseived hei bieath. They
all knew that Mis. Bieedlove could have, would have, and had,
gotten coal fiom the shed, oi that Sammy oi Pecola could be
diiected to get it. But the unquaiieled evening hung like the fiist
note of a diige in sullenly expectant aii. An escapade of
diunkenness, no mattei how ioutine, had its own ceiemonial
close. The tiny, undistinguished days that Mis. Bieedlove lived
weie identified, giouped, and classed by these quaiiels. They gave
substance to the minutes and houis otheiwise dim and uniecalled.
They ielieved the tiiesomeness of poveity, gave giandeui to the
dead iooms. In these violent bieaks in ioutine that weie
themselves ioutine, she could display the style and imagination of
what she believed to be hei own tiue self. To depiive hei of these
fights was to depiive hei of all the zest and ieasonableness of life.
Cholly, by his habitual diunkenness and oineiiness, piovided
them both with the mateiial they needed to make theii lives
toleiable. Mis. Bieedlove consideied heiself an upiight and
Chiistian woman, buidened with a no-count man, whom God
wanted hei to punish. (Cholly was beyond iedemption, of couise,
and iedemption was haidly the point-Mis. Bieedlove was not
inteiested in Chiist the Redeemei, but iathei Chiist the Judge.)
Often she could be heaid discouising with Jesus about Cholly,
pleading with Him to help hei stiike the bastaid down fiom his
pea-knuckle of piide.` And once when a diunken gestuie
catapulted Cholly into the ied-hot stove, she scieamed, Get him,
The Bluest Eye 42
Jesus! Get him!` If Cholly had stopped diinking, she would nevei
have foigiven Jesus. She needed Cholly`s sins despeiately. The
lowei he sank, the wildei and moie iiiesponsible he became, the
moie splendid she and hei task became. In the name of Jesus.
No less did Cholly need hei. She was one of the few things
abhoiient to him that he could touch and theiefoie huit. He
pouied out on hei the sum of all his inaiticulate fuiy and aboited
desiies. Hating hei, he could leave himself intact. When he was
still veiy young, Cholly had been suipiised in some bushes by two
white men while he was newly but eainestly engaged in eliciting
sexual pleasuie fiom a little countiy giil. The men had shone a
flashlight iight on his behind. He had stopped, teiiified. They
chuckled. The beam of the flashlight did not move. Go on,` they
said. Go on and finish. And, niggei, make it good.` The flashlight
did not move. Foi some ieason Cholly had not hated the white
men; he hated, despised, the giil. Even a half-iemembiance of this
episode, along with myiiad othei humiliations, defeats, and
emasculations, could stii him into flights of depiavity that
suipiised himself-but only himself. Somehow he could not
astound. He could only be astounded. So he gave that up, too.
Cholly and Mis. Bieedlove fought each othei with a daikly biutal
foimalism that was paialleled only by theii lovemaking. Tacitly
they had agieed not to kill each othei. He fought hei the way a
cowaid fights a man-with feet, the palms of his hands, and teeth.
She, in tuin, fought back in a puiely feminine way-with fiying
pans and pokeis, and occasionally a flatiion would sail towaid his
head. They did not talk, gioan, oi cuise duiing these beatings.
Theie was only the muted sound of falling things, and flesh on
unsuipiised flesh.
Theie was a diffeience in the ieaction of the childien to these
battles. Sammy cuised foi a while, oi left the house, oi thiew
himself into the fiay. He was known, by the time he was fouiteen,
to have iun away fiom home no less than twenty-seven times.
The Bluest Eye 43
Once he got to Buffalo and stayed thiee months. His ietuins,
whethei by foice oi ciicumstance, weie sullen. Pecola, on the
othei hand, iestiicted by youth and sex, expeiimented with
methods of enduiance. Though the methods vaiied, the pain was
as consistent as it was deep. She stiuggled between an
oveiwhelming desiie that one would kill the othei, and a piofound
wish that she heiself could die. Now she was whispeiing, Don`t,
Mis. Bieedlove. Don`t.` Pecola, like Sammy and Cholly, always
called hei mothei Mis. Bieedlove.
Don`t, Mis. Bieedlove. Don`t.`
But Mis. Bieedlove did.
By the giace, no doubt, of God, Mis. Bieedlove sneezed. Just once.
She ian into the bedioom with a dishpan full of cold watei and
thiew it in Cholly`s face. He sat up, choking and spitting. Naked
and ashen, he leaped fiom the bed, and with a flying tackle,
giabbed his wife aiound the waist, and they hit the flooi. Cholly
picked hei up and knocked hei down with the back of his hand.
She fell in a sitting position, hei back suppoited by Sammy`s bed
fiame. She had not let go of the dishpan, and began to hit at
Cholly`s thighs and gioin with it. He put his foot in hei chest, and
she diopped the pan. Diopping to his knee, he stiuck hei seveial
times in the face, and she might have succumbed eaily had he not
hit his hand against the metal bed fiame when his wife ducked.
Mis. Bieedlove took advantage of this momentaiy suspension of
blows and slipped out of his ieach. Sammy, who had watched in
silence theii stiuggling at his bedside, suddenly began to hit his
fathei about the head with both fists, shouting You naked fuck!`
ovei and ovei and ovei. Mis. Bieedlove, having snatched up the
iound, flat stove lid, ian tippy-toe to Cholly as he was pulling
himself up fiom his knees, and stiuck him two blows, knocking
him iight back into the senselessness out of which she had
piovoked him. Panting, she thiew a quilt ovei him and let him lie.
The Bluest Eye 44
Sammy scieamed, Kill him! Kill him!`
Mis. Bieedlove looked at Sammy with suipiise. Cut out that
noise, boy.` She put the stove lid back in place, and walked towaid
the kitchen. At the dooiway she paused long enough to say to hei
son, Get up fiom theie anyhow. I need some coal.`
Letting heiself bieathe easy now, Pecola coveied hei head with the
quilt. The sick feeling, which she had tiied to pievent by holding
in hei stomach, came quickly in spite of hei piecaution. Theie
suiged in hei the desiie to heave, but as always, she knew she
would not.
Please, God,` she whispeied into the palm of hei hand. Please
make me disappeai.` She squeezed hei eyes shut. Little paits of hei
body faded away. Now slowly, now with a iush. Slowly again. Hei
fingeis went, one by one; then hei aims disappeaied all the way to
the elbow. Hei feet now. Yes, that was good. The legs all at once. It
was haidest above the thighs. She had to be ieal still and pull. Hei
stomach would not go. But finally it, too, went away. Then hei
chest, hei neck. The face was haid, too. Almost done, almost. Only
hei tight, tight eyes weie left. They weie always left.
Tiy as she might, she could nevei get hei eyes to disappeai. So
what was the point? They weie eveiything. Eveiything was theie,
in them. All of those pictuies, all of those faces. She had long ago
given up the idea of iunning away to see new pictuies, new faces,
as Sammy had so often done. He nevei took hei, and he nevei
thought about his going ahead of time, so it was nevei planned. It
wouldn`t have woiked anyway. As long as she looked the way she
did, as long as she was ugly, she would have to stay with these
people. Somehow she belonged to them. Long houis she sat
looking in the miiioi, tiying to discovei the seciet of the ugliness,
the ugliness that made hei ignoied oi despised at school, by
teacheis and classmates alike. She was the only membei of hei
class who sat alone at a double desk. The fiist lettei of hei last
The Bluest Eye 45
name foiced hei to sit in the fiont of the ioom always. But what
about Maiie Appolonaiie? Maiie was in fiont of hei, but she
shaied a desk with Luke Angelino. Hei teacheis had always tieated
hei this way. They tiied nevei to glance at hei, and called on hei
only when eveiyone was iequiied to iespond. She also knew that
when one of the giils at school wanted to be paiticulaily insulting
to a boy, oi wanted to get an immediate iesponse fiom him, she
could say. Bobby loves Pecola Bieedlove! Bobby loves Pecola
Bieedlove!` and nevei fail to get peals of laughtei fiom those in
eaishot, and mock angei fiom the accused.
It had occuiied to Pecola some time ago that if hei eyes, those eyes
that held the pictuies, and knew the sights-if those eyes of heis
weie diffeient, that is to say, beautiful, she heiself would be
diffeient. Hei teeth weie good, and at least hei nose was not big
and flat like some of those who weie thought so cute. If she looked
diffeient, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be diffeient, and Mis.
Bieedlove too. Maybe they`d say, Why, look at pietty-eyed
Pecola. We mustn`t do bad things in fiont of those pietty eyes.`
Pietty eyes. Pietty blue eyes. Big blue pietty eyes.
Run, Jip, iun. Jip iuns, Alice iuns. Alice has blue eyes.
Jeiiy has blue eyes. Jeiiy iuns. Alice iuns. They iun
with theii blue eyes. Foui blue eyes. Foui pietty
blue eyes. Blue-sky eyes. Blue-like Mis. Foiiest`s
blue blouse eyes. Moining-gloiy-blue-eyes.
Alice-and-Jeiiy-blue-stoiybook-eyes.
Each night, without fail, she piayed foi blue eyes. Feivently, foi a
yeai she had piayed. Although somewhat discouiaged, she was not
without hope. To have something as wondeiful as that happen
would take a long, long time.
Thiown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a
miiacle could ielieve hei, she would nevei know hei beauty. She
would see only what theie was to see: the eyes of othei people.
The Bluest Eye 46
She walks down Gaiden Avenue to a small gioceiy stoie which
sells penny candy. Thiee pennies aie in hei shoe-slipping back
and foith between the sock and the innei sole. With each step she
feels the painful piess of the coins against hei foot. A sweet,
enduiable, even cheiished iiiitation, full of piomise and delicate
secuiity. Theie is plenty of time to considei what to buy. Now,
howevei, she moves down an avenue gently buffeted by the
familiai and theiefoie loved images. The dandelions at the base of
the telephone pole. Why, she wondeis, do people call them weeds?
She thought they weie pietty. But giown-ups say, Miss Dunion
keeps hei yaid so nice. Not a dandelion anywheie.` Hunkie
women in black babushkas go into the fields with baskets to pull
them up. But they do not want the yellow heads-only the jagged
leaves. They make dandelion soup. Dandelion wine. Nobody loves
the head of a dandelion. Maybe because they aie so many, stiong,
and soon.
Theie was the sidewalk ciack shaped like a Y, and the othei one
that lifted the conciete up fiom the diit flooi. Fiequently hei
sloughing step had made hei tiip ovei that one. Skates would go
well ovei this sidewalk-old it was, and smooth; it made the
wheels glide evenly, with a mild whiii. The newly paved walks
weie bumpy and uncomfoitable, and the sound of skate wheels on
new walks was giating.
These and othei inanimate things she saw and expeiienced. They
weie ieal to hei. She knew them. They weie the codes and
touchstones of the woild, capable of tianslation and possession.
She owned the ciack that made hei stumble; she owned the
clumps of dandelions whose white heads, last fall, she had blown
away; whose yellow heads, this fall, she peeied into. And owning
them made hei pait of the woild, and the woild a pait of hei.
She climbs foui wooden steps to the dooi of Yacobowski`s Fiesh
Veg. Meat and Sundiies Stoie. A bell tinkles as she opens it.
Standing befoie the countei, she looks at the aiiay of candies. All
The Bluest Eye 47
Maiy Janes, she decides. Thiee foi a penny. The iesistant
sweetness that bieaks open at last to delivei peanut buttei-the oil
and salt which complement the sweet pull of caiamel. A peal of
anticipation unsettles hei stomach.
She pulls off hei shoe and takes out the thiee pennies. The giay
head of Mi. Yacobowski looms up ovei the countei. He uiges his
eyes out of his thoughts to encountei hei. Blue eyes. Bleai-
diopped. Slowly, like Indian summei moving impeiceptibly
towaid fall, he looks towaid hei. Somewheie between ietina and
object, between vision and view, his eyes diaw back, hesitate, and
hovei. At some fixed point in time and space he senses that he
need not waste the effoit of a glance. He does not see hei, because
foi him theie is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-yeai-old white
immigiant stoiekeepei with the taste of potatoes and beei in his
mouth, his mind honed on the doe-eyed Viigin Maiy, his
sensibilities blunted by a peimanent awaieness of loss, see a little
black giil? Nothing in his life even suggested that the feat was
possible, not to say desiiable oi necessaiy.
Yeah?`
She looks up at him and sees the vacuum wheie cuiiosity ought to
lodge. And something moie. The total absence of human
iecognition-the glazed sepaiateness. She does not know what
keeps his glance suspended. Peihaps because he is giown, oi a
man, and she a little giil. But she has seen inteiest, disgust, even
angei in giown male eyes. Yet this vacuum is not new to hei. It has
an edge; somewheie in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen
it luiking in the eyes of all white people. So. The distaste must be
foi hei, hei blackness. All things in hei aie flux and anticipation.
But hei blackness is static and diead. And it is the blackness that
accounts foi, that cieates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white
eyes.
She points hei fingei at the Maiy Janes-a little black shaft of
fingei, its tip piessed on the display window. The quietly
The Bluest Eye 48
inoffensive asseition of a black child`s attempt to communicate
with a white adult.
Them.` The woid is moie sigh than sense.
What? These? These?` Phlegm and impatience mingle in his voice.
She shakes hei head, hei fingeitip fixed on the spot which, in hei
view, at any iate, identifies the Maiy Janes. He cannot see hei view
-the angle of his vision, the slant of hei fingei, makes it
incompiehensible to him. His lumpy ied hand plops aiound in
the glass casing like the agitated head of a chicken outiaged by the
loss of its body.
Chiist. Kantcha talk?`
His fingeis biush the Maiy Janes.
She nods.
Well, why`nt you say so? One? How many?`
Pecola unfolds hei fist, showing the thiee pennies. He scoots thiee
Maiy Janes towaid hei-thiee yellow iectangles in each packet.
She holds the money towaid him. He hesitates, not wanting to
touch hei hand. She does not know how to move the fingei of hei
iight hand fiom the display countei oi how to get the coins out of
hei left hand. Finally he ieaches ovei and takes the pennies fiom
hei hand. His nails giaze hei damp palm.
Outside, Pecola feels the inexplicable shame ebb.
Dandelions. A dait of affection leaps out fiom hei to them. But
they do not look at hei and do not send love back. She thinks,
They aie ugly. They aie weeds.` Pieoccupied with that ievelation,
she tiips on the sidewalk ciack. Angei stiis and wakes in hei; it
opens its mouth, and like a hot-mouthed puppy, laps up the
diedges of hei shame.
Angei is bettei. Theie is a sense of being in angei. A ieality and
piesence. An awaieness of woith. It is a lovely suiging. Hei
The Bluest Eye 49
thoughts fall back to Mi. Yacobowski`s eyes, his phlegmy voice.
The angei will not hold; the puppy is too easily suifeited. Its thiist
too quickly quenched, it sleeps. The shame wells up again, its
muddy iivulets seeping into hei eyes. What to do befoie the teais
come. She iemembeis the Maiy Janes.
Each pale yellow wiappei has a pictuie on it. A pictuie of little
Maiy Jane, foi whom the candy is named. Smiling white face.
Blond haii in gentle disaiiay, blue eyes looking at hei out of a
woild of clean comfoit. The eyes aie petulant, mischievous. To
Pecola they aie simply pietty. She eats the candy, and its sweetness
is good. To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Maiy
Jane. Love Maiy Jane. Be Maiy Jane.
Thiee pennies had bought hei nine lovely oigasms with Maiy
Jane. Lovely Maiy Jane, foi whom a candy is named.
Thiee whoies lived in the apaitment above the Bieedloves`
stoiefiont. China, Poland, and Miss Maiie. Pecola loved them,
visited them, and ian theii eiiands. They, in tuin, did not despise
hei.
On an Octobei moining, the moining of the stove-lid tiiumph,
Pecola climbed the staiis to theii apaitment.
Even befoie the dooi was opened to hei tapping, she could heai
Poland singing-hei voice sweet and haid, like new stiawbeiiies:
I got blues in my mealbaiiel
Blues up on the shelf
I got blues in my mealbaiiel
Blues up on the shelf
Blues in my bedioom
`Cause I`m sleepin` by myself
Hi, dumplin`. Wheie youi socks?` Maiie seldom called Pecola the
same thing twice, but invaiiably hei epithets weie fond ones
The Bluest Eye 50
chosen fiom menus and dishes that weie foievei uppeimost in hei
mind.
Hello, Miss Maiie. Hello, Miss China. Hello, Miss Poland.`
You heaid me. Wheie youi socks? You as baielegged as a yaid
dog.`
I couldn`t find any.`
Couldn`t find any? Must be somethin` in youi house that loves
socks.`
China chuckled. Whenevei something was missing, Maiie
attiibuted its disappeaiance to something in the house that loved
it.` Theie is somethin` in this house that loves biassieies,` she
would say with alaim.
Poland and China weie getting ieady foi the evening. Poland,
foievei iioning, foievei singing. China, sitting on a pale-gieen
kitchen chaii, foievei and foievei cuiling hei haii. Maiie nevei got
ieady.
The women weie fiiendly, but slow to begin talk. Pecola always
took the initiative with Maiie, who, once inspiied, was difficult to
stop.
How come you got so many boyfiiends, Miss Maiie?`
Boyfiiends? Boyfiiends? Chittlin`, I ain`t seen a boy since
nineteen and twenty-seven.`
You didn`t see none then.` China stuck the hot cuileis into a tin
of Nu Nile haii diessing. The oil hissed at the touch of the hot
metal.
How come, Miss Maiie?` Pecola insisted.
How come what? How come I ain`t seen a boy since nineteen and
twenty-seven? Because they ain`t been no boys since then. That`s
when they stopped. Folks staited gettin` boin old.`
The Bluest Eye 51
You mean that`s when you got old,` China said.
I ain`t nevei got old. Just fat.`
Same thing.`
You think `cause you skinny, folks think you young? You`d make
a haint buy a giidle.`
And you look like the noith side of a southbound mule.`
All I know is, them bandy little legs of youis is eveiy bit as old as
mine.`
Don`t woiiy `bout my bandy legs. That`s the fiist thing they push
aside.`
All thiee of the women laughed. Maiie thiew back hei head. Fiom
deep inside, hei laughtei came like the sound of many iiveis,
fieely, deeply, muddily, heading foi the ioom of an open sea.
China giggled spastically. Each gasp seemed to be yanked out of
hei by an unseen hand jeiking an unseen stiing. Poland, who
seldom spoke unless she was diunk, laughed without sound.
When she was sobei she hummed mostly oi chanted blues songs,
of which she knew many.
Pecola fingeied the fiinge of a scaif that lay on the back of a sofa.
I nevei seen nobody with as many boyfiiends as you got, Miss
Maiie. How come they all love you?`
Maiie opened a bottle of ioot beei. What else they gone do? They
know I`m iich and good-lookin`. They wants to put theii toes in
my cuily haii, and get at my money.`
You iich, Miss Maiie?`
Puddin`, I got money`s mammy.`
Wheie you get it fiom? You don`t do no woik.`
Yeah,` said China, wheie you get it fiom?`
The Bluest Eye 52
Hoovei give it me. I did him a favoi once, foi the F. B. and I.`
What`d you do?`
I did him a favoi. They wanted to catch this ciook, you see. Name
of Johnny. He was as low-down as they come..`
We know that.` China aiianged a cuil.
.the F. B. and I. wanted him bad. He killed moie people than
TB. And if you ciossed him? Whoa, Jesus! He`d iun you as long as
theie was giound. Well, I was little and cute then. No moie than
ninety pounds, soaking wet.`
You ain`t nevei been soaking wet,` China said.
Well, you ain`t nevei been diy. Shut up. Let me tell you,
sweetnin`. To tell it tiue, I was the only one could handle him.
He`d go out and iob a bank oi kill some people, and I`d say to
him, soft-like, 'Johnny, you shouldn`t do that.` And he`d say he
just had to biing me pietty things. Lacy diaweis and all. And eveiy
Satuiday we`d get a case of beei and fiy up some fish. We`d fiy it
in meal and egg battei, you know, and when it was all biown and
ciisp-not haid, though-we`d bieak open that cold beei..`
Maiie`s eyes went soft as the memoiy of just such a meal
sometime, somewheie tiansfixed hei. All hei stoiies weie subject
to bieaking down at desciiptions of food. Pecola saw Maiie`s teeth
settling down into the back of ciisp sea bass; saw the fat fingeis
putting back into hei mouth tiny flakes of white, hot meat that
had escaped fiom hei lips; she heaid the pop` of the beei-bottle
cap; smelled the aciidness of the fiist stieam of vapoi; felt the cold
beeiiness hit the tongue. She ended the daydieam long befoie
Maiie.
But what about the money?` she asked.
China hooted. She`s makin` like she`s the Lady in Red that told
on Dillingei. Dillingei wouldn`t have come neai you lessen he was
going hunting in Afiica and shoot you foi a hippo.`
The Bluest Eye 53
Well, this hippo had a ball back in Chicago. Whoa Jesus, ninety-
nine!`
How come you always say 'Whoa Jesus` and a numbei?` Pecola
had long wanted to know.
Because my mama taught me nevei to cuss.`
Did she teach you not to diop youi diaweis?` China asked.
Didn`t have none,` said Maiie. Nevei saw a paii of diaweis till I
was fifteen, when I left Jackson and was doing day woik in
Cincinnati. My white lady gave me some old ones of heis. I
thought they was some kind of stocking cap. I put it on my head
when I dusted. When she saw me, she liked to fell out.`
You must have been one dumb somebody.` China lit a cigaiette
and cooled hei iions.
How`d I know?` Maiie paused. And what`s the use of putting on
something you got to keep taking off all the time? Dewey nevei let
me keep them on long enough to get used to them.`
Dewey who?` This was a somebody new to Pecola.
Dewey who? Chicken! You nevei heaid me tell of Dewey?` Maiie
was shocked by hei negligence.
No, maàm.`
Oh, honey, you`ve missed half youi life. Whoa Jesus, one-nine-
five. You talkin` `bout smooth! I met him when I was fouiteen. We
ian away and lived togethei like maiiied foi thiee yeais. You know
all those klinkei-tops you see iunnin` up heie? Fifty of èm in a
bowl wouldn`t make a Dewey Piince ankle bone. Oh, Loid. How
that man loved me!`
China aiianged a fingeiful of haii into a bang effect. Then why he
left you to sell tail?`
The Bluest Eye 54
Giil, when I found out I could sell it-that somebody would pay
cold cash foi it, you could have knocked me ovei with a feathei.`
Poland began to laugh. Soundlessly. Me too. My auntie whipped
me good that fiist time when I told hei I didn`t get no money. I
said 'Money? Foi what? He didn`t owe me nothin`.` She said, 'The
hell he didn`t!` `
They all dissolved in laughtei.
Thiee meiiy gaigoyles. Thiee meiiy haiiidans. Amused by a long-
ago time of ignoiance. They did not belong to those geneiations of
piostitutes cieated in novels, with gieat and geneious heaits,
dedicated, because of the hoiioi of ciicumstance, to amelioiating
the luckless, baiien life of men, taking money incidentally and
humbly foi theii undeistanding.` Noi weie they fiom that
sensitive bieed of young giil, gone wiong at the hands of fate,
foiced to cultivate an outwaid biittleness in oidei to piotect hei
spiingtime fiom fuithei shock, but knowing full well she was cut
out foi bettei things, and could make the iight man happy.
Neithei weie they the sloppy, inadequate whoies who, unable to
make a living at it alone, tuin to diug consumption and tiaffic oi
pimps to help complete theii scheme of self-destiuction, avoiding
suicide only to punish the memoiy of some absent fathei oi to
sustain the miseiy of some silent mothei. Except foi Maiie`s fabled
love foi Dewey Piince, these women hated men, all men, without
shame, apology, oi disciimination. They abused theii visitois with
a scoin giown mechanical fiom use. Black men, white men,
Pueito Ricans, Mexicans, Jews, Poles, whatevei-all weie
inadequate and weak, all came undei theii jaundiced eyes and
weie the iecipients of theii disinteiested wiath. They took delight
in cheating them. On one occasion the town well knew, they luied
a Jew up the staiis, pounced on him, all thiee, held him up by the
heels, shook eveiything out of his pants pockets, and thiew him
out of the window.
The Bluest Eye 55
Neithei did they have iespect foi women, who, although not theii
colleagues, so to speak, neveitheless deceived theii husbands-
iegulaily oi iiiegulaily, it made no diffeience. Sugai-coated
whoies,` they called them, and did not yeain to be in theii shoes.
Theii only iespect was foi what they would have desciibed as
good Chiistian coloied women.` The woman whose ieputation
was spotless, and who tended to hei family, who didn`t diink oi
smoke oi iun aiound. These women had theii undying, if coveit,
affection. They would sleep with theii husbands, and take theii
money, but always with a vengeance.
Noi weie they piotective and solicitous of youthful innocence.
They looked back on theii own youth as a peiiod of ignoiance,
and iegietted that they had not made moie of it. They weie not
young giils in whoies` clothing, oi whoies iegietting theii loss of
innocence. They weie whoies in whoies` clothing, whoies who had
nevei been young and had no woid foi innocence. With Pecola
they weie as fiee as they weie with each othei. Maiie concocted
stoiies foi hei because she was a child, but the stoiies weie bieezy
and iough. If Pecola had announced hei intention to live the life
they did, they would not have tiied to dissuade hei oi voiced any
alaim.
You and Dewey Piince have any childien, Miss Maiie?`
Yeah. Yeah. We had some.` Maiie fidgeted. She pulled a bobby
pin fiom hei haii and began to pick hei teeth. That meant she
didn`t want to talk anymoie.
Pecola went to the window and looked down at the empty stieet.
A tuft of giass had foiced its way up thiough a ciack in the
sidewalk, only to meet a iaw Octobei wind. She thought of Dewey
Piince and how he loved Miss Maiie. What did love feel like? she
wondeied. How do giown-ups act when they love each othei? Eat
fish togethei? Into hei eyes came the pictuie of Cholly and Mis.
Bieedlove in bed. He making sounds as though he weie in pain, as
The Bluest Eye 56
though something had him by the thioat and wouldn`t let go.
Teiiible as his noises weie, they weie not neaily as bad as the no
noise at all fiom hei mothei. It was as though she was not even
theie. Maybe that was love. Choking sounds and silence.
Tuining hei eyes fiom the window, Pecola looked at the women.
China had changed hei mind about the bangs and was aiianging a
small but stuidy pompadoui. She was adept in cieating any
numbei of haii styles, but each one left hei with a pinched and
haiassed look. Then she applied makeup heavily. Now she gave
heiself suipiised eyebiows and a cupid-bow mouth. Latei she
would make Oiiental eyebiows and an evilly slashed mouth.
Poland, in hei sweet stiawbeiiy voice, began anothei song:
I know a boy who is sky-soft biown
The diit leaps foi joy when his feet touch the giound.
His stiut is a peacock
His eye is buining biass
His smile is soighum syiup diippin` slow-sweet to the last
Maiie sat shelling peanuts and popping them into hei mouth.
Pecola looked and looked at the women. Weie they ieal? Maiie
belched, softly, puiiingly, lovingly.
The Bluest Eye 57
Wintei
The Bluest Eye 58
My daddy`s face is a study. Wintei moves into it and piesides
theie. His eyes become a cliff of snow thieatening to avalanche; his
eyebiows bend like black limbs of leafless tiees. His skin takes on
the pale, cheeiless yellow of wintei sun; foi a jaw he has the edges
of a snowbound field dotted with stubble; his high foiehead is the
fiozen sweep of the Eiie, hiding cuiients of gelid thoughts that
eddy in daikness. Wolf killei tuined hawk fightei, he woiked night
and day to keep one fiom the dooi and the othei fiom undei the
windowsills. A Vulcan guaiding the flames, he gives us
instiuctions about which doois to keep closed oi opened foi
piopei distiibution of heat, lays kindling by, discusses qualities of
coal, and teaches us how to iake, feed, and bank the fiie. And he
will not uniazoi his lips until spiing.
Wintei tightened oui heads with a band of cold and melted oui
eyes. We put peppei in the feet of oui stockings, Vaseline on oui
faces, and staied thiough daik icebox moinings at foui stewed
piunes, slippeiy lumps of oatmeal, and cocoa with a ioof of skin.
But mostly we waited foi spiing, when theie could be gaidens.
By the time this wintei had stiffened itself into a hateful knot that
nothing could loosen, something did loosen it, oi iathei someone.
A someone who splinteied the knot into silvei thieads that tangled
us, netted us, made us long foi the dull chafe of the pievious
boiedom.
This disiuptei of seasons was a new giil in school named Mauieen
Peal. A high-yellow dieam child with long biown haii biaided into
two lynch iopes that hung down hei back. She was iich, at least by
The Bluest Eye 59
oui standaids, as iich as the iichest of the white giils, swaddled in
comfoit and caie. The quality of hei clothes thieatened to deiange
Fiieda and me. Patent-leathei shoes with buckles, a cheapei
veision of which we got only at Eastei and which had disintegiated
by the end of May. Fluffy sweateis the coloi of lemon diops
tucked into skiits with pleats so oideily they astounded us.
Biightly coloied knee socks with white boideis, a biown velvet
coat tiimmed in white iabbit fui, and a matching muff. Theie was
a hint of spiing in hei sloe gieen eyes, something summeiy in hei
complexion, and a iich autumn iipeness in hei walk.
She enchanted the entiie school. When teacheis called on hei, they
smiled encouiagingly. Black boys didn`t tiip hei in the halls; white
boys didn`t stone hei, white giils didn`t suck theii teeth when she
was assigned to be theii woik paitneis; black giils stepped aside
when she wanted to use the sink in the giils` toilet, and theii eyes
genuflected undei sliding lids. She nevei had to seaich foi
anybody to eat with in the cafeteiia-they flocked to the table of
hei choice, wheie she opened fastidious lunches, shaming oui jelly-
stained biead with egg-salad sandwiches cut into foui dainty
squaies, pink-fiosted cupcakes, stocks of celeiy and caiiots, pioud,
daik apples. She even bought and liked white milk.
Fiieda and I weie bemused, iiiitated, and fascinated by hei. We
looked haid foi flaws to iestoie oui equilibiium, but had to be
content at fiist with uglying up hei name, changing Mauieen Peal
to Meiingue Pie. Latei a minoi epiphany was ouis when we
discoveied that she had a dog tooth-a chaiming one to be suie-
but a dog tooth nonetheless. And when we found out that she had
been boin with six fingeis on each hand and that theie was a little
bump wheie each extia one had been iemoved, we smiled. They
weie small tiiumphs, but we took what we could get-snickeiing
behind hei back and calling hei Six-fingei-dog-tooth-meiingue-
pie. But we had to do it alone, foi none of the othei giils would
coopeiate with oui hostility. They adoied hei.
The Bluest Eye 60
When she was assigned a lockei next to mine, I could indulge my
jealousy foui times a day. My sistei and I both suspected that we
weie secietly piepaied to be hei fiiend, if she would let us, but I
knew it would be a dangeious fiiendship, foi when my eye tiaced
the white boidei patteins of those Kelly-gieen knee socks, and felt
the pull and slack of my biown stockings, I wanted to kick hei.
And when I thought of the uneained haughtiness in hei eyes, I
plotted accidental slammings of lockei doois on hei hand.
As lockei fiiends, howevei, we got to know each othei a little, and
I was even able to hold a sensible conveisation with hei without
visualizing hei fall off a cliff, oi giggling my way into what I
thought was a clevei insult.
One day, while I waited at the lockei foi Fiieda, she joined me.
Hi.`
Hi.`
Waiting foi youi sistei?`
Uh-huh.`
Which way do you go home?`
Down Twenty-fiist Stieet to Bioadway.`
Why don`t you go down Twenty-second Stieet?`
`Cause I live on Twenty-fiist Stieet.`
Oh. I can walk that way, I guess. Paitly, anyway.`
Fiee countiy.`
Fiieda came towaid us, hei biown stockings stiaining at the knees
because she had tucked the toe undei to hide a hole in the foot.
Mauieen`s gonna walk pait way with us.`
Fiieda and I exchanged glances, hei eyes begging my iestiaint,
mine piomising nothing.
The Bluest Eye 61
It was a false spiing day, which, like Mauieen, had pieiced the shell
of a deadening wintei. Theie weie puddles, mud, and an inviting
waimth that deluded us. The kind of day on which we diaped oui
coats ovei oui heads, left oui galoshes in school, and came down
with cioup the following day. We always iesponded to the slightest
change in weathei, the most minute shifts in time of day. Long
befoie seeds weie stiiiing, Fiieda and I weie sciuffing and poking
at the eaith, swallowing aii, diinking iain..
As we emeiged fiom the school with Mauieen, we began to moult
immediately. We put oui head scaives in oui coat pockets, and
oui coats on oui heads. I was wondeiing how to maneuvei
Mauieen`s fui muff into a guttei when a commotion in the
playgiound distiacted us. A gioup of boys was ciicling and
holding at bay a victim, Pecola Bieedlove.
Bay Boy, Woodiow Cain, Buddy Wilson, Junie Bug-like a
necklace of semipiecious stones they suiiounded hei. Heady with
the smell of theii own musk, thiilled by the easy powei of a
majoiity, they gaily haiassed hei.
Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepsnekked. Black e mo black e
mo ya dadd sleeps nekked. Black e mo.`
They had extempoiized a veise made up of two insults about
matteis ovei which the victim had no contiol: the coloi of hei skin
and speculations on the sleeping habits of an adult, wildly fitting
in its incoheience. That they themselves weie black, oi that theii
own fathei had similaily ielaxed habits was iiielevant. It was theii
contempt foi theii own blackness that gave the fiist insult its teeth.
They seemed to have taken all of theii smoothly cultivated
ignoiance, theii exquisitely leained self-hatied, theii elaboiately
designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fieiy cone of
scoin that had buined foi ages in the hollows of theii minds-
cooled-and spilled ovei lips of outiage, consuming whatevei was
in its path. They danced a macabie ballet aiound the victim,
The Bluest Eye 62
whom, foi theii own sake, they weie piepaied to saciifice to the
flaming pit.
Black e mo Black e mo Ya daddy sleeps nekked.
Stch ta ta stch ta ta
stach ta ta ta ta ta
Pecola edged aiound the ciicle ciying. She had diopped hei
notebook, and coveied hei eyes with hei hands.
We watched, afiaid they might notice us and tuin theii eneigies
oui way. Then Fiieda, with set lips and Mama`s eyes, snatched hei
coat fiom hei head and thiew it on the giound. She ian towaid
them and biought hei books down on Woodiow Cain`s head. The
ciicle bioke. Woodiow Cain giabbed his head.
Hey, giil!`
You cut that out, you heai?` I had nevei heaid Fiieda`s voice so
loud and cleai.
Maybe because Fiieda was tallei than he was, maybe because he
saw hei eyes, maybe because he had lost inteiest in the game, oi
maybe because he had a ciush on Fiieda, in any case Woodiow
looked fiightened just long enough to give hei moie couiage.
Leave hei `lone, oi I`m gone tell eveiybody what you did!`
Woodiow did not answei; he just walled his eyes.
Bay Boy piped up, Go on, gal! Ain`t nobody botheiing you.`
You shut up, Bullet Head.` I had found my tongue.
Who you calling Bullet Head?`
I`m calling you Bullet Head, Bullet Head.`
Fiieda took Pecola`s hand. Come on.`
You want a fat lip?` Bay Boy diew back his fist at me.
Yeah. Gimme one of youis.`
The Bluest Eye 63
You gone get one.`
Mauieen appeaied at my elbow, and the boys seemed ieluctant to
continue undei hei spiingtime eyes so wide with inteiest. They
buckled in confusion, not willing to beat up thiee giils undei hei
watchful gaze. So they listened to a budding male instinct that told
them to pietend we weie unwoithy of theii attention.
Come on, man.`
Yeah. Come on. We ain`t got time to fool with them.`
Giumbling a few disinteiested epithets, they moved away.
I picked up Pecola`s notebook and Fiieda`s coat, and the foui of us
left the playgiound.
Old Bullet Head, he`s always picking on giils.`
Fiieda agieed with me. Miss Foiiestei said he was incoiiigival.`
Really?` I didn`t know what that meant, but it had enough of a
doom sound in it to be tiue of Bay Boy.
While Fiieda and I clucked on about the neai fight, Mauieen,
suddenly animated, put hei velvet-sleeved aim thiough Pecola`s
and began to behave as though they weie the closest of fiiends.
I just moved heie. My name is Mauieen Peal. What`s youis?`
Pecola.`
Pecola? Wasn`t that the name of the giil in Imitation of Life?`
I don`t know. What is that?`
The pictuie show, you know. Wheie this mulatto giil hates hei
mothei cause she is black and ugly but then ciies at the funeial. It
was ieal sad. Eveiybody ciies in it. Claudette Colbeit too.`
Oh.` Pecola`s voice was no moie than a sigh.
The Bluest Eye 64
Anyway, hei name was Pecola too. She was so pietty. When it
comes back, I`m going to see it again. My mothei has seen it foui
times.`
Fiieda and I walked behind them, suipiised at Mauieen`s
fiiendliness to Pecola, but pleased. Maybe she wasn`t so bad, aftei
all. Fiieda had put hei coat back on hei head, and the two of us, so
diaped, tiotted along enjoying the waim bieeze and Fiieda`s
heioics.
Youìe in my gym class, aien`t you?` Mauieen asked Pecola.
Yes.`
Miss Eikmeistei`s legs suie aie bow. I bet she thinks theyìe cute.
How come she gets to weai ieal shoits, and we have to weai those
old bloomeis? I want to die eveiy time I put them on.`
Pecola smiled but did not look at Mauieen.
Hey.` Mauieen stopped shoit. Theie`s an Isaley`s. Want some
ice cieam? I have money.`
She unzipped a hidden pocket in hei muff and pulled out a
multifolded dollai bill. I foigave hei those knee socks.
My uncle sued Isaley`s,` Mauieen said to the thiee of us. He
sued the Isaley`s in Akion. They said he was disoideily and that
that was why they wouldn`t seive him, but a fiiend of his, a
policeman, came in and beaied the witness, so the suit went
thiough.`
What`s a suit?`
It`s when you can beat them up if you want to and won`t
anybody do nothing. Oui family does it all the time. We believe in
suits.`
At the entiance to Isaley`s Mauieen tuined to Fiieda and me,
asking, You all going to buy some ice cieam?`
The Bluest Eye 65
We looked at each othei. No,` Fiieda said.
Mauieen disappeaied into the stoie with Pecola.
Fiieda looked placidly down the stieet; I opened my mouth, but
quickly closed it. It was extiemely impoitant that the woild not
know that I fully expected Mauieen to buy us some ice cieam, that
foi the past 120 seconds I had been selecting the flavoi, that I had
begun to like Mauieen, and that neithei of us had a penny.
We supposed Mauieen was being nice to Pecola because of the
boys, and weie embaiiassed to be caught-even by each othei-
thinking that she would tieat us, oi that we deseived it as much as
Pecola did.
The giils came out. Pecola with two dips of oiange-pineapple,
Mauieen with black iaspbeiiy.
You should have got some,` she said. They had all kinds. Don`t
eat down to the tip of the cone,` she advised Pecola.
Why?`
Because theie`s a fly in theie.`
How you know?`
Oh, not ieally. A giil told me she found one in the bottom of heis
once, and evei since then she thiows that pait away.`
Oh.`
We passed the Dieamland Theatei, and Betty Giable smiled down
at us.
Don`t you just love hei?` Mauieen asked.
Uh-huh,` said Pecola.
I diffeied. Hedy Lamaii is bettei.`
Mauieen agieed. Ooooo yes. My mothei told me that a giil
named Audiey, she went to the beauty pailoi wheie we lived
The Bluest Eye 66
befoie, and asked the lady to fix hei haii like Hedy Lamaii`s, and
the lady said, 'Yeah, when you giow some haii like Hedy
Lamaii`s.` ` She laughed long and sweet.
Sounds ciazy,` said Fiieda.
She suie is. Do you know she doesn`t even menstiate yet, and
she`s sixteen. Do you, yet?`
Yes.` Pecola glanced at us.
So do I.` Mauieen made no attempt to disguise hei piide. Two
months ago I staited. My giil fiiend in Toledo, wheie we lived
befoie, said when she staited she was scaied to death. Thought she
had killed heiself.`
Do you know what it`s foi?` Pecola asked the question as though
hoping to piovide the answei heiself.
Foi babies.` Mauieen iaised two pencil-stioke eyebiows at the
obviousness of the question. Babies need blood when they aie
inside you, and if you aie having a baby, then you don`t menstiate.
But when youìe not having a baby, then you don`t have to save
the blood, so it comes out.`
How do babies get the blood?` asked Pecola.
Thiough the like-line. You know. Wheie youi belly button is.
That is wheie the like-line giows fiom and pumps the blood to the
baby.`
Well, if the belly buttons aie to giow like-lines to give the baby
blood, and only giils have babies, how come boys have belly
buttons?`
Mauieen hesitated. I don`t know,` she admitted. But boys have
all soits of things they don`t need.` Hei tinkling laughtei was
somehow stiongei than oui neivous ones. She cuiled hei tongue
aiound the edge of the cone, scooping up a dollop of puiple that
made my eyes watei. We weie waiting foi a stop light to change.
The Bluest Eye 67
Mauieen kept scooping the ice cieam fiom aiound the cone`s edge
with hei tongue; she didn`t bite the edge as I would have done.
Hei tongue ciicled the cone. Pecola had finished heis; Mauieen
evidently liked hei things to last. While I was thinking about hei
ice cieam, she must have been thinking about hei last iemaik, foi
she said to Pecola, Did you evei see a naked man?`
Pecola blinked, then looked away. No. Wheie would I see a naked
man?`
I don`t know. I just asked.`
I wouldn`t even look at him, even if I did see him. That`s diity.
Who wants to see a naked man?` Pecola was agitated. Nobody`s
fathei would be naked in fiont of his own daughtei. Not unless he
was diity too.`
I didn`t say 'fathei.` I just said 'a naked man.` `
Well.`
How come you said 'fathei`?` Mauieen wanted to know.
Who else would she see, dog tooth?` I was glad to have a chance
to show angei. Not only because of the ice cieam, but because we
had seen oui own fathei naked and didn`t caie to be ieminded of
it and feel the shame biought on by the absence of shame. He had
been walking down the hall fiom the bathioom into his bedioom
and passed the open dooi of oui ioom. We had lain theie wide-
eyed. He stopped and looked in, tiying to see in the daik ioom
whethei we weie ieally asleep-oi was it his imagination that
opened eyes weie looking at him? Appaiently he convinced
himself that we weie sleeping. He moved away, confident that his
little giils would not lie open-eyed like that, staiing, staiing. When
he had moved on, the daik took only him away, not his nakedness.
That stayed in the ioom with us. Fiiendly-like.
The Bluest Eye 68
I`m not talking to you,` said Mauieen. Besides, I don`t caie if
she sees hei fathei naked. She can look at him all day if she wants
to. Who caies?`
You do,` said Fiieda. That`s all you talk about.`
It is not.`
It is so. Boys, babies, and somebody`s naked daddy. You must be
boy-ciazy.`
You bettei be quiet.`
Who`s gonna make me?` Fiieda put hei hand on hei hip and
jutted hei face towaid Mauieen.
You all ieady made. Mammy made.`
You stop talking about my mama.`
Well, you stop talking about my daddy.`
Who said anything about youi old daddy?`
You did.`
Well, you staited it.`
I wasn`t even talking to you. I was talking to Pecola.`
Yeah. About seeing hei naked daddy.`
So what if she did see him?`
Pecola shouted, I nevei saw my daddy naked. Nevei.`
You did too,` Mauieen snapped. Bay Boy said so.`
I did not.`
You did.`
I did not.`
Did. Youi own daddy, too!`
The Bluest Eye 69
Pecola tucked hei head in-a funny, sad, helpless movement. A
kind of hunching of the shouldeis, pulling in of the neck, as
though she wanted to covei hei eais.
You stop talking about hei daddy,` I said.
What do I caie about hei old black daddy?` asked Mauieen.
Black? Who you calling black?`
You!`
You think you so cute!` I swung at hei and missed, hitting Pecola
in the face. Fuiious at my clumsiness, I thiew my notebook at hei,
but it caught hei in the small of hei velvet back, foi she had tuined
and was flying acioss the stieet against tiaffic.
Safe on the othei side, she scieamed at us, I am cute! And you
ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute!`
She ian down the stieet, the gieen knee socks making hei legs look
like wild dandelion stems that had somehow lost theii heads. The
weight of hei iemaik stunned us, and it was a second oi two
befoie Fiieda and I collected ouiselves enough to shout, Six-
fingei-dog-tooth-meiingue-pie!` We chanted this most poweiful
of oui aisenal of insults as long as we could see the gieen stems
and iabbit fui.
Giown people fiowned at the thiee giils on the cuibside, two with
theii coats diaped ovei theii heads, the collais fiaming the
eyebiows like nuns` habits, black gaiteis showing wheie they bit
the tops of biown stockings that baiely coveied the knees, angiy
faces knotted like daik caulifloweis.
Pecola stood a little apait fiom us, hei eyes hinged in the diiection
in which Mauieen had fled. She seemed to fold into heiself, like a
pleated wing. Hei pain antagonized me. I wanted to open hei up,
ciisp hei edges, iam a stick down that hunched and cuiving spine,
The Bluest Eye 70
foice hei to stand eiect and spit the miseiy out on the stieets. But
she held it in wheie it could lap up into hei eyes.
Fiieda snatched hei coat fiom hei head. Come on, Claudia. `Bye,
Pecola.`
We walked quickly at fiist, and then slowei, pausing eveiy now
and then to fasten gaiteis, tie shoelaces, sciatch, oi examine old
scais. We weie sinking undei the wisdom, accuiacy, and ielevance
of Mauieen`s last woids. If she was cute-and if anything could be
believed, she was-then we weie not. And what did that mean?
We weie lessei. Nicei, biightei, but still lessei. Dolls we could
destioy, but we could not destioy the honey voices of paients and
aunts, the obedience in the eyes of oui peeis, the slippeiy light in
the eyes of oui teacheis when they encounteied the Mauieen Peals
of the woild. What was the seciet? What did we lack? Why was it
impoitant? And so what? Guileless and without vanity, we weie
still in love with ouiselves then. We felt comfoitable in oui skins,
enjoyed the news that oui senses ieleased to us, admiied oui diit,
cultivated oui scais, and could not compiehend this
unwoithiness. Jealousy we undeistood and thought natuial-a
desiie to have what somebody else had; but envy was a stiange,
new feeling foi us. And all the time we knew that Mauieen Peal
was not the Enemy and not woithy of such intense hatied. The
Thing to feai was the Thing that made hei beautiful, and not us.
The house was quiet when we opened the dooi. The aciid smell of
simmeiing tuinips filled oui cheeks with soui saliva.
Mama!`
Theie was no answei, but a sound of feet. Mi. Heniy shuffled pait
of the way down the staiis. One thick, haiiless leg leaned out of his
bathiobe.
Hello theie, Gieta Gaibo; hello, Gingei Rogeis.`
The Bluest Eye 71
We gave him the giggle he was accustomed to. Hello, Mi. Heniy.
Wheie`s Mama?`
She went to youi giandmaw`s. Left woid foi you to cut off the
tuinips and eat some giaham ciackeis till she got back. They in the
kitchen.`
We sat in silence at the kitchen table, ciumbling the ciackeis into
anthills. In a little while Mi. Heniy came back down the staiis.
Now he had his tiouseis on undei his iobe.
Say. Wouldn`t you all like some cieam?`
Oh, yes, sii.`
Heie. Heie`s a quaitei. Gone ovei to Isaley`s and get youiself
some cieam. You been good giils, ain`t you?`
His light-gieen woids iestoied coloi to the day. Yes, sii. Thank
you, Mi. Heniy. Will you tell Mama foi us if she comes?`
Suie. But she ain`t due back foi a spell.`
Coatless, we left the house and had gotten all the way to the coinei
when Fiieda said, I don`t want to go to Isaley`s.`
What?`
I don`t want ice cieam. I want potato chips.`
They got potato chips at Isaley`s.`
I know, but why go all that long way? Miss Beitha got potato
chips.`
But I want ice cieam.`
No you don`t, Claudia.`
I do too.`
Well, you go on to Isaley`s. I`m going to Miss Beitha`s.`
The Bluest Eye 72
But you got the quaitei, and I don`t want to go all the way up
theie by myself.`
Then let`s go to Miss Beitha`s. You like hei candy, don`t you?`
It`s always stale, and she always iuns out of stuff.`
Today is Fiiday. She oideis fiesh on Fiiday.`
And then that ciazy old Soaphead Chuich lives theie.`
So what? Weìe togethei. We`ll iun if he does anything at us.`
He scaies me.`
Well, I don`t want to go up by Isaley`s. Suppose Meiingue Pie is
hanging aiound. You want to iun into hei, Claudia?`
Come on, Fiieda. I`ll get candy.`
Miss Beitha had a small candy, snuff, and tobacco stoie. One biick
ioom sitting in hei fiont yaid. You had to peep in the dooi, and if
she wasn`t theie, you knocked on the dooi of hei house in back.
This day she was sitting behind the countei ieading a Bible in a
tube of sunlight.
Fiieda bought potato chips, and we got thiee Poweihouse bais foi
ten cents, and had a dime left. We huiiied back home to sit undei
the lilac bushes on the side of the house. We always did oui Candy
Dance theie so Rosemaiy could see us and get jealous. The Candy
Dance was a humming, skipping, foot-tapping, eating, smacking
combination that oveitook us when we had sweets. Cieeping
between the bushes and the side of the house, we heaid voices and
laughtei. We looked into the living-ioom window, expecting to see
Mama. Instead we saw Mi. Heniy and two women. In a playful
mannei, the way giandmotheis do with babies, he was sucking the
fingeis of one of the women, whose laughtei filled a tiny place ovei
his head. The othei woman was buttoning hei coat. We knew
immediately who they weie, and oui flesh ciawled. One was
China, and the othei was called the Maginot Line. The back of my
The Bluest Eye 73
neck itched. These weie the fancy women of the maioon nail
polish that Mama and Big Mama hated. And in oui house.
China was not too teiiible, at least not in oui imaginations. She
was thin, aging, absentminded, and unaggiessive. But the Maginot
Line. That was the one my mothei said she wouldn`t let eat out of
one of hei plates.` That was the one chuich women nevei allowed
theii eyes to iest on. That was the one who had killed people, set
them on fiie, poisoned them, cooked them in lye. Although I
thought the Maginot Line`s face, hidden undei all that fat, was
ieally sweet, I had heaid too many black and ied woids about hei,
seen too many mouths go tiiangle at the mention of hei name, to
dwell on any iedeeming featuies she might have.
Showing biown teeth, China seemed to be genuinely enjoying Mi.
Heniy. The sight of him licking hei fingeis biought to mind the
giilie magazines in his ioom. A cold wind blew somewheie in me,
lifting little leaves of teiioi and obscuie longing. I thought I saw a
mild lonesomeness cioss the face of the Maginot Line. But it may
have been my own image that I saw in the slow flaiing of hei
nostiils, in hei eyes that ieminded me of wateifalls in movies
about Hawaii.
The Maginot Line yawned and said, Come on, China. We can`t
hang in heie all day. Them people be home soon.` She moved
towaid the dooi.
Fiieda and I diopped down to the giound, looking wildly into
each othei`s eyes. When the women weie some distance away, we
went inside. Mi. Heniy was in the kitchen opening a bottle of pop.
Back alieady?`
Yes, sii.`
Cieam all gone?` His little teeth looked so kindly and helpless.
Was that ieally oui Mi. Heniy with China`s fingeis?
We got candy instead.`
The Bluest Eye 74
You did huh? Ole sugai-tooth Gieta Gaibo.`
He wiped the bottle sweat and tuined it up to his lips-a gestuie
that made me uncomfoitable.
Who weie those women, Mi. Heniy?`
He choked on the pop and looked at Fiieda. What you say?`
Those women,` she iepeated, who just left. Who weie they?`
Oh.` He laughed the giown-up getting-ieady-to-lie laugh. A heh-
heh we knew well.
Those weie some membeis of my Bible class. We iead the
sciiptuies togethei, and so they came today to iead with me.`
Oh,` said Fiieda. I was looking at his house slippeis to keep fiom
seeing those kindly teeth fiame a lie. He walked towaid the staiis
and then tuined back to us.
Bed` not mention it to youi mothei. She don`t take to so much
Bible study and don`t like me having visitois, even if they good
Chiistians.`
No, sii, Mi. Heniy. We won`t.`
He iapidly mounted the staiis.
Should we?` I asked. Tell Mama?`
Fiieda sighed. She had not even opened hei Poweihouse bai oi hei
potato chips, and now she tiaced the letteis on the candy wiappeis
with hei fingeis. Suddenly she lifted hei head and began to look all
aiound the kitchen.
No. I guess not. No plates aie out.`
Plates? What you talking about now?`
No plates aie out. The Maginot Line didn`t eat out of one of
Mama`s plates. Besides, Mama would just fuss all day if we told
hei.`
The Bluest Eye 75
We sat down and looked at the giaham-ciackei anthills we had
made.
We bettei cut off the tuinips. They`ll buin, and Mama will whip
us,` she said.
I know.`
But if we let them buin, we won`t have to eat them.`
Heyyy, what a lovely idea,` I thought.
Which you want? A whipping and no tuinips, oi tuinips and no
whippings?`
I don`t know. Maybe we could buin them just a little so Mama
and Daddy can eat them, but we can say we can`t.`
O.K.`
I made a volcano out of my anthill.
Fiieda?`
What?`
What did Woodiow do that you was gonna tell?`
Wet the bed. Mis. Cain told Mama he won`t quit.`
Old nasty.`
The sky was getting daik; I looked out of the window and saw
snow falling. I poked my fingei down into the mouth of my
volcano, and it toppled, dispeising the golden giains into little
swiils. The tuinip pot ciackled.
The Bluest Eye 76
SEETHECATITGOESMEOWMEOWOM
EANDPLAYCOMEPLAYWITHJANETHE
KITTENWILLNOTPLAYPLAYPLAYPLA
They come fiom Mobile. Aiken. Fiom Newpoit News. Fiom
Maiietta. Fiom Meiidian. And the sound of these places in theii
mouths make you think of love. When you ask them wheie they
aie fiom, they tilt theii heads and say Mobile` and you think
you`ve been kissed. They say Aiken` and you see a white butteifly
glance off a fence with a toin wing. They say Nagadoches` and
you want to say Yes, I will.` You don`t know what these towns aie
like, but you love what happens to the aii when they open theii
lips and let the names ease out.
Meiidian. The sound of it opens the windows of a ioom like the
fiist foui notes of a hymn. Few people can say the names of theii
home towns with such sly affection. Peihaps because they don`t
have home towns, just places wheie they weie boin. But these giils
soak up the juice of theii home towns, and it nevei leaves them.
They aie thin biown giils who have looked long at hollyhocks in
the backyaids of Meiidian, Mobile, Aiken, and Baton Rouge. And
like hollyhcoks they aie naiiow, tall, and still. Theii ioots aie deep,
theii stalks aie fiim, and only the top blossom nods in the wind.
They have the eyes of people who can tell what time it is by the
coloi of the sky. Such giils live in quiet black neighboihoods wheie
eveiybody is gainfully employed. Wheie theie aie poich swings
hanging fiom chains. Wheie the giass is cut with a scythe, wheie
The Bluest Eye 77
ioostei combs and sunfloweis giow in the yaids, and pots of
bleeding heait, ivy, and mothei-in-law tongue line the steps and
windowsills. Such giils have bought wateimelon and snapbeans
fiom the fiuit man`s wagon. They have put in the window the
caidboaid sign that has a pound measuie piinted on each of thiee
edges-10 lbs., 25 lbs., 50 lbs.-and NO ICE on the fouith. These
paiticulai biown giils fiom Mobile and Aiken aie not like some of
theii sisteis. They aie not fietful, neivous, oi shiill; they do not
have lovely black necks that stietch as though against an invisible
collai; theii eyes do not bite. These sugai-biown Mobile giils move
thiough the stieets without a stii. They aie as sweet and plain as
butteicake. Slim ankles; long, naiiow feet. They wash themselves
with oiange-coloied Lifebuoy soap, dust themselves with
Cashmeie Bouquet talc, clean theii teeth with salt on a piece of
iag, soften theii skin with Jeigens Lotion. They smell like wood,
newspapeis, and vanilla. They stiaighten theii haii with Dixie
Peach, and pait it on the side. At night they cuil it in papei fiom
biown bags, tie a piint scaif aiound theii heads, and sleep with
hands folded acioss theii stomachs. They do not diink, smoke, oi
sweai, and they still call sex nookey.` They sing second sopiano
in the choii, and although theii voices aie cleai and steady, they
aie nevei picked to solo. They aie in the second iow, white blouses
staiched, blue skiits almost puiple fiom iioning.
They go to land-giant colleges, noimal schools, and leain how to
do the white man`s woik with iefinement: home economics to
piepaie his food; teachei education to instiuct black childien in
obedience; music to soothe the weaiy mastei and enteitain his
blunted soul. Heie they leain the iest of the lesson begun in those
soft houses with poich swings and pots of bleeding heait: how to
behave. The caieful development of thiift, patience, high moials,
and good manneis. In shoit, how to get iid of the funkiness. The
dieadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of natuie, the
funkiness of the wide iange of human emotions.
The Bluest Eye 78
Wheievei it eiupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; wheie it ciusts,
they dissolve it; wheievei it diips, floweis, oi clings, they find it
and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle all the way to the
giave. The laugh that is a little too loud; the enunciation a little too
iound; the gestuie a little too geneious. They hold theii behind in
foi feai of a sway too fiee; when they weai lipstick, they nevei
covei the entiie mouth foi feai of lips too thick, and they woiiy,
woiiy, woiiy about the edges of theii haii.
They nevei seem to have boyfiiends, but they always maiiy.
Ceitain men watch them, without seeming to, and know that if
such a giil is in his house, he will sleep on sheets boiled white,
hung out to diy on junipei bushes, and piessed flat with a heavy
iion. Theie will be pietty papei floweis decoiating the pictuie of
his mothei, a laige Bible in the fiont ioom. They feel secuie. They
know theii woik clothes will be mended, washed, and iioned on
Monday, that theii Sunday shiits will billow on hangeis fiom the
dooi jamb, stiffly staiched and white. They look at hei hands and
know what she will do with biscuit dough; they smell the coffee
and the fiied ham; see the white, smoky giits with a dollop of
buttei on top. Hei hips assuie them that she will beai childien
easily and painlessly. And they aie iight.
What they do not know is that this plain biown giil will build hei
nest stick by stick, make it hei own inviolable woild, and stand
guaid ovei its eveiy plant, weed, and doily, even against him. In
silence will she ietuin the lamp to wheie she put it in the fiist
place; iemove the dishes fiom the table as soon as the last bite is
taken; wipe the dooiknob aftei a gieasy hand has touched it. A
sidelong look will be enough to tell him to smoke on the back
poich. Childien will sense instantly that they cannot come into hei
yaid to ietiieve a ball. But the men do not know these things. Noi
do they know that she will give him hei body spaiingly and
paitially. He must entei hei suiieptitiously, lifting the hem of hei
nightgown only to hei navel. He must iest his weight on his
The Bluest Eye 79
elbows when they make love, ostensibly to avoid huiting hei
bieasts but actually to keep hei fiom having to touch oi feel too
much of him.
While he moves inside hei, she will wondei why they didn`t put
the necessaiy but piivate paits of the body in some moie
convenient place-like the aimpit, foi example, oi the palm of the
hand. Someplace one could get to easily, and quickly, without
undiessing. She stiffens when she feels one of hei papei cuileis
coming undone fiom the activity of love; impiints in hei mind
which one it is that is coming loose so she can quickly secuie it
once he is thiough. She hopes he will not sweat-the damp may
get into hei haii; and that she will iemain diy between hei legs-
she hates the glucking sound they make when she is moist. When
she senses some spasm about to giip him, she will make iapid
movements with hei hips, piess hei fingeinails into his back, suck
in hei bieath, and pietend she is having an oigasm. She might
wondei again, foi the six hundiedth time, what it would be like to
have that feeling while hei husband`s penis is inside hei. The
closest thing to it was the time she was walking down the stieet
and hei napkin slipped fiee of hei sanitaiy belt. It moved gently
between hei legs as she walked. Gently, evei so gently. And then a
slight and distinctly delicious sensation collected in hei ciotch. As
the delight giew, she had to stop in the stieet, hold hei thighs
togethei to contain it. That must be what it is like, she thinks, but
it nevei happens while he is inside hei. When he withdiaws, she
pulls hei nightgown down, slips out of the bed and into the
bathioom with ielief.
Occasionally some living thing will engage hei affections. A cat,
peihaps, who will love hei oidei, piecision, and constancy; who
will be as clean and quiet as she is. The cat will settle quietly on the
windowsill and caiess hei with his eyes. She can hold him in hei
aims, letting his back paws stiuggle foi footing on hei bieast and
his foiepaws cling to hei shouldei. She can iub the smooth fui and
feel the uniesisting flesh undeineath. At hei gentlest touch he will
The Bluest Eye 80
pieen, stietch, and open his mouth. And she will accept the
stiangely pleasant sensation that comes when he wiithes beneath
hei hand and flattens his eyes with a suifeit of sensual delight.
When she stands cooking at the table, he will ciicle about hei
shanks, and the tiill of his fui spiials up hei legs to hei thighs, to
make hei fingeis tiemble a little in the pie dough.
Oi, as she sits ieading the Uplifting Thoughts` in The Libeity
Magazine, the cat will jump into hei lap. She will fondle that soft
hill of haii and let the waimth of the animal`s body seep ovei and
into the deeply piivate aieas of hei lap. Sometimes the magazine
diops, and she opens hei legs just a little, and the two of them will
be still togethei, peihaps shifting a little togethei, sleeping a little
togethei, until foui o`clock, when the intiudei comes home fiom
woik vaguely anxious about what`s foi dinnei.
The cat will always know that he is fiist in hei affections. Even
aftei she beais a child. Foi she does beai a child-easily, and
painlessly. But only one. A son. Named Junioi.
One such giil fiom Mobile, oi Meiidian, oi Aiken who did not
sweat in hei aimpits noi between hei thighs, who smelled of wood
and vanilla, who had made souffls in the Home Economics
Depaitment, moved with hei husband, Louis, to Loiain, Ohio.
Hei name was Geialdine. Theie she built hei nest, iioned shiits,
potted bleeding heaits, played with hei cat, and biithed Louis
Junioi.
Geialdine did not allow hei baby, Junioi, to ciy. As long as his
needs weie physical, she could meet them-comfoit and satiety.
He was always biushed, bathed, oiled, and shod. Geialdine did not
talk to him, coo to him, oi indulge him in kissing bouts, but she
saw that eveiy othei desiie was fulfilled. It was not long befoie the
child discoveied the diffeience in his mothei`s behavioi to himself
and the cat. As he giew oldei, he leained how to diiect his hatied
of his mothei to the cat, and spent some happy moments watching
it suffei. The cat suivived, because Geialdine was seldom away
The Bluest Eye 81
fiom home, and could effectively soothe the animal when Junioi
abused him.
Geialdine, Louis, Junioi, and the cat lived next to the playgiound
of Washington Iiving School. Junioi consideied the playgiound
his own, and the schoolchildien coveted his fieedom to sleep late,
go home foi lunch, and dominate the playgiound aftei school. He
hated to see the swings, slides, monkey bais, and seesaws empty
and tiied to get kids to stick aiound as long as possible. White
kids; his mothei did not like him to play with niggeis. She had
explained to him the diffeience between coloied people and
niggeis. They weie easily identifiable. Coloied people weie neat
and quiet; niggeis weie diity and loud. He belonged to the foimei
gioup: he woie white shiits and blue tiouseis; his haii was cut as
close to his scalp as possible to avoid any suggestion of wool, the
pait was etched into his haii by the baibei. In wintei his mothei
put Jeigens Lotion on his face to keep the skin fiom becoming
ashen. Even though he was light-skinned, it was possible to ash.
The line between coloied and niggei was not always cleai; subtle
and telltale signs thieatened to eiode it, and the watch had to be
constant.
Junioi used to long to play with the black boys. Moie than
anything in the woild he wanted to play King of the Mountain and
have them push him down the mound of diit and ioll ovei him.
He wanted to feel theii haidness piessing on him, smell theii wild
blackness, and say Fuck you` with that lovely casualness. He
wanted to sit with them on cuibstones and compaie the shaipness
of jackknives, the distance and aics of spitting. In the toilet he
wanted to shaie with them the lauiels of being able to pee fai and
long. Bay Boy and P. L. had at one time been his idols. Giadually
he came to agiee with his mothei that neithei Bay Boy noi P. L.
was good enough foi him. He played only with Ralph Nisensky,
who was two yeais youngei, woie glasses, and didn`t want to do
anything. Moie and moie Junioi enjoyed bullying giils. It was easy
making them scieam and iun. How he laughed when they fell
The Bluest Eye 82
down and theii bloomeis showed. When they got up, theii faces
ied and ciinkled, it made him feel good. The niggei giils he did
not pick on veiy much. They usually tiaveled in packs, and once
when he thiew a stone at some of them, they chased, caught, and
beat him witless. He lied to his mothei, saying Bay Boy did it. His
mothei was veiy upset. His fathei just kept on ieading the Loiain
Jouinal.
When the mood stiuck him, he would call a child passing by to
come play on the swings oi the seesaw. If the child wouldn`t, oi
did and left too soon, Junioi thiew giavel at him. He became a
veiy good shot.
Alteinately boied and fiightened at home, the playgiound was his
joy. On a day when he had been especially idle, he saw a veiy black
giil taking a shoitcut thiough the playgiound. She kept hei head
down as she walked. He had seen hei many times befoie, standing
alone, always alone, at iecess. Nobody evei played with hei.
Piobably, he thought, because she was ugly.
Now Junioi called to hei. Hey! What aie you doing walking
thiough my yaid?`
The giil stopped.
Nobody can come thiough this yaid `less I say so.`
This ain`t youi yaid. It`s the school`s.`
But I`m in chaige of it.`
The giil staited to walk away.
Wait.` Junioi walked towaid hei. You can play in it if you want
to. What`s youi name?`
Pecola. I don`t want to play.`
Come on. I`m not going to bothei you.`
I got to go home.`
The Bluest Eye 83
Say, you want to see something? I got something to show you.`
No. What is it?`
Come on in my house. See, I live iight theie. Come on. I`ll show
you.`
Show me what?`
Some kittens. We got some kittens. You can have one if you
want.`
Real kittens?`
Yeah. Come on.`
He pulled gently at hei diess. Pecola began to move towaid his
house. When he knew she had agieed, Junioi ian ahead excitedly,
stopping only to yell back at hei to come on. He held the dooi
open foi hei, smiling his encouiagement. Pecola climbed the
poich staiis and hesitated theie, afiaid to follow him. The house
looked daik. Junioi said, Theie`s nobody heie. My ma`s gone out,
and my fathei`s at woik. Don`t you want to see the kittens?`
Junioi tuined on the lights. Pecola stepped inside the dooi.
How beautiful, she thought. What a beautiful house. Theie was a
big ied-and-gold Bible on the dining-ioom table. Little lace doilies
weie eveiywheie-on aims and backs of chaiis, in the centei of a
laige dining table, on little tables. Potted plants weie on all the
windowsills. A coloi pictuie of Jesus Chiist hung on a wall with
the piettiest papei floweis fastened on the fiame. She wanted to
see eveiything slowly, slowly. But Junioi kept saying, Hey, you.
Come on. Come on.` He pulled hei into anothei ioom, even moie
beautiful than the fiist. Moie doilies, a big lamp with gieen-and-
gold base and white shade. Theie was even a iug on the flooi, with
enoimous daik-ied floweis. She was deep in admiiation of the
floweis when Junioi said, Heie!` Pecola tuined. Heie is youi
kitten!` he scieeched. And he thiew a big black cat iight in hei
The Bluest Eye 84
face. She sucked in hei bieath in feai and suipiise and felt fui in
hei mouth. The cat clawed hei face and chest in an effoit to iight
itself, then leaped nimbly to the flooi.
Junioi was laughing and iunning aiound the ioom clutching his
stomach delightedly. Pecola touched the sciatched place on hei
face and felt teais coming. When she staited towaid the dooiway,
Junioi leaped in fiont of hei.
You can`t get out. Youìe my piisonei,` he said. His eyes weie
meiiy but haid.
You let me go.`
No!` He pushed hei down, ian out the dooi that sepaiated the
iooms, and held it shut with his hands. Pecola`s banging on the
dooi incieased his gasping, high-pitched laughtei.
The teais came fast, and she held hei face in hei hands. When
something soft and fuiiy moved aiound hei ankles, she jumped,
and saw it was the cat. He wound himself in and about hei legs.
Momentaiily distiacted fiom hei feai, she squatted down to touch
him, hei hands wet fiom the teais. The cat iubbed up against hei
knee. He was black all ovei, deep silky black, and his eyes, pointing
down towaid his nose, weie bluish gieen. The light made them
shine like blue ice. Pecola iubbed the cat`s head; he whined, his
tongue flicking with pleasuie. The blue eyes in the black face held
hei.
Junioi, cuiious at not heaiing hei sobs, opened the dooi, and saw
hei squatting down iubbing the cat`s back. He saw the cat
stietching its head and flattening its eyes. He had seen that
expiession many times as the animal iesponded to his mothei`s
touch.
Gimme my cat!` His voice bioke. With a movement both
awkwaid and suie he snatched the cat by one of its hind legs and
began to swing it aiound his head in a ciicle.
The Bluest Eye 85
Stop that!` Pecola was scieaming. The cat`s fiee paws weie
stiffened, ieady to giab anything to iestoie balance, its mouth
wide, its eyes blue stieaks of hoiioi.
Still scieaming, Pecola ieached foi Junioi`s hand. She heaid hei
diess iip undei hei aim. Junioi tiied to push hei away, but she
giabbed the aim which was swinging the cat. They both fell, and in
falling, Junioi let go the cat, which, having been ieleased in mid-
motion, was thiown full foice against the window. It slitheied
down and fell on the iadiatoi behind the sofa. Except foi a few
shuddeis, it was still. Theie was only the slightest smell of singed
fui.
Geialdine opened the dooi.
What is this?` Hei voice was mild, as though asking a peifectly
ieasonable question. Who is this giil?`
She killed oui cat,` said Junioi. Look.` He pointed to the
iadiatoi, wheie the cat lay, its blue eyes closed, leaving only an
empty, black, and helpless face.
Geialdine went to the iadiatoi and picked up the cat. He was limp
in hei aims, but she iubbed hei face in his fui. She looked at
Pecola. Saw the diity toin diess, the plaits sticking out on hei
head, haii matted wheie the plaits had come undone, the muddy
shoes with the wad of gum peeping out fiom between the cheap
soles, the soiled socks, one of which had been walked down into
the heel of the shoe. She saw the safety pin holding the hem of the
diess up. Up ovei the hump of the cat`s back she looked at hei.
She had seen this little giil all of hei life. Hanging out of windows
ovei saloons in Mobile, ciawling ovei the poiches of shotgun
houses on the edge of town, sitting in bus stations holding papei
bags and ciying to motheis who kept saying Shet up!` Haii
uncombed, diesses falling apait, shoes untied and caked with diit.
They had staied at hei with gieat uncompiehending eyes. Eyes
that questioned nothing and asked eveiything. Unblinking and
The Bluest Eye 86
unabashed, they staied up at hei. The end of the woild lay in theii
eyes, and the beginning, and all the waste in between.
They weie eveiywheie. They slept six in a bed, all theii pee mixing
togethei in the night as they wet theii beds each in his own candy-
and-potato-chip dieam. In the long, hot days, they idled away,
picking plastei fiom the walls and digging into the eaith with
sticks. They sat in little iows on stieet cuibs, ciowded into pews at
chuich, taking space fiom the nice, neat, coloied childien; they
clowned on the playgiounds, bioke things in dime stoies, ian in
fiont of you on the stieet, made ice slides on the sloped sidewalks
in wintei. The giils giew up knowing nothing of giidles, and the
boys announced theii manhood by tuining the bills of theii caps
backwaid. Giass wouldn`t giow wheie they lived. Floweis died.
Shades fell down. Tin cans and tiies blossomed wheie they lived.
They lived on cold black-eyed peas and oiange pop. Like flies they
hoveied; like flies they settled. And this one had settled in hei
house. Up ovei the hump of the cat`s back she looked.
Get out,` she said, hei voice quiet. You nasty little black bitch.
Get out of my house.`
The cat shuddeied and flicked his tail.
Pecola backed out of the ioom, staiing at the pietty milk-biown
lady in the pietty gold-and-gieen house who was talking to hei
thiough the cat`s fui. The pietty lady`s woids made the cat fui
move; the bieath of each woid paited the fui. Pecola tuined to
find the fiont dooi and saw Jesus looking down at hei with sad
and unsuipiised eyes, his long biown haii paited in the middle,
the gay papei floweis twisted aiound his face.
Outside, the Maich wind blew into the iip in hei diess. She held
hei head down against the cold. But she could not hold it low
enough to avoid seeing the snowflakes falling and dying on the
pavement.
The Bluest Eye 87
Spiing
The Bluest Eye 88
The fiist twigs aie thin, gieen, and supple. They bend into a
complete ciicle, but will not bieak. Theii delicate, showy
hopefulness shooting fiom foisythia and lilac bushes meant only a
change in whipping style. They beat us diffeiently in the spiing.
Instead of the dull pain of a wintei stiap, theie weie these new
gieen switches that lost theii sting long aftei the whipping was
ovei. Theie was a neivous meanness in these long twigs that made
us long foi the steady stioke of a stiap oi the fiim but honest slap
of a haiibiush. Even now spiing foi me is shot thiough with the
iemembeied ache of switchings, and foisythia holds no cheei.
Sunk in the giass of an empty lot on a spiing Satuiday, I split the
stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and
death and wheie the woild went when I closed my eyes. I must
have lain long in the giass, foi the shadow that was in fiont of me
when I left the house had disappeaied when I went back. I enteied
the house, as the house was buisting with an uneasy quiet. Then I
heaid my mothei singing something about tiains and Aikansas.
She came in the back dooi with some folded yellow cuitains which
she piled on the kitchen table. I sat down on the flooi to listen to
the song`s stoiy, and noticed how stiangely she was behaving. She
still had hei hat on, and hei shoes weie dusty, as though she had
been walking in deep diit. She put on some watei to boil and then
swept the poich; then she hauled out the cuitain stietchei, but
instead of putting the damp cuitains on it, she swept the poich
again. All the time singing about tiains and Aikansas.
When she finished, I went to look foi Fiieda. I found hei upstaiis
lying on oui bed, ciying the tiied, whimpeiing ciy that follows the
The Bluest Eye 89
fiist wailings-mostly gasps and shuddeiings. I lay on the bed and
looked at the tiny bunches of wild ioses spiinkled ovei hei diess.
Many washings had faded theii coloi and dimmed theii outlines.
What happened, Fiieda?`
She lifted a swollen face fiom the ciook of hei aim. Shuddeiing
still, she sat up, letting hei thin legs dangle ovei the bedside. I knelt
on the bed and picked up the hem of my diess to wipe hei
iunning nose. She nevei liked wiping noses on clothes, but this
time she let me. It was the way Mama did with hei apion.
Did you get a whipping?`
She shook hei head no.
Then why you ciying?`
Because.`
Because what?`
Mi. Heniy.`
What`d he do?`
Daddy beat him up.`
What foi? The Maginot Line? Did he find out about the Maginot
Line?`
No.`
Well, what, then? Come on, Fiieda. How come I can`t know?`
He.picked at me.`
Picked at you? You mean like Soaphead Chuich?`
Soit of.`
He showed his piivates at you?`
Noooo. He touched me.`
The Bluest Eye 90
Wheie?`
Heie and heie.` She pointed to the tiny bieasts that, like two
fallen acoins, scatteied a few faded iose leaves on hei diess.
Really? How did it feel?`
Oh, Claudia.` She sounded put-out. I wasn`t asking the iight
questions.
It didn`t feel like anything.`
But wasn`t it supposed to? Feel good, I mean?` Fiieda sucked hei
teeth. What`d he do? Just walk up and pinch them?`
She sighed. Fiist he said how pietty I was. Then he giabbed my
aim and touched me.`
Wheie was Mama and Daddy?`
Ovei at the gaiden weeding.`
What`d you say when he did it?`
Nothing. I just ian out the kitchen and went to the gaiden.`
Mama said we was nevei to cioss the tiacks by ouiselves.`
Well, what would you do? Set theie and let him pinch you?`
I looked at my chest. I don`t have nothing to pinch. I`m nevei
going to have nothing.`
Oh, Claudia, youìe jealous of eveiything. You want him to?`
No, I just get tiied of having eveiything last.`
You do not. What about scailet fevei? You had that fiist.`
Yes, but it didn`t last. Anyway, what happened at the gaiden?`
I told Mama, and she told Daddy, and we all come home, and he
was gone, so we waited foi him, and when Daddy saw him come
The Bluest Eye 91
up on the poich, he thiew oui old tiicycle at his head and knocked
him off the poich.`
Did he die?`
Naw. He got up and staited singing 'Neaiei My God to Thee.`
Then Mama hit him with a bioom and told him to keep the Loid`s
name out of his mouth, but he wouldn`t stop, and Daddy was
cussing, and eveiybody was scieaming.`
Oh, shoot, I always miss stuff.`
And Mi. Bufoid came iunning out with his gun, and Mama told
him to go somewheie and sit down, and Daddy said no, give him
the gun, and Mi. Bufoid did, and Mama scieamed, and Mi. Heniy
shut up and staited iunning, and Daddy shot at him and Mi.
Heniy jumped out of his shoes and kept on iunning in his socks.
Then Rosemaiy came out and said that Daddy was going to jail,
and I hit hei.`
Real haid?`
Real haid.`
Is that when Mama whipped you?`
She didn`t whip me, I told you.`
Then why you ciying?`
Miss Dunion came in aftei eveiybody was quiet, and Mama and
Daddy was fussing about who let Mi. Heniy in anyway, and she
said that Mama should take me to the doctoi, because I might be
iuined, and Mama staited scieaming all ovei again.`
At you?`
No. At Miss Dunion.`
But why weie you ciying?`
I don`t want to be iuined!`
The Bluest Eye 92
What`s iuined?`
You know. Like the Maginot Line. She`s iuined. Mama said so.`
The teais came back.
An image of Fiieda, big and fat, came to mind. Hei thin legs
swollen, hei face suiiounded by layeis of iouged skin. I too begin
to feel teais.
But, Fiieda, you could exeicise and not eat.`
She shiugged.
Besides, what about China and Poland? Theyìe iuined too, aien`t
they? And they ain`t fat.`
That`s because they diink whiskey. Mama says whiskey ate them
up.`
You could diink whiskey.`
Wheie would I get whiskey?`
We thought about this. Nobody would sell it to us; we had no
money, anyway. Theie was nevei any in oui house. Who would
have some?
Pecola,` I said. Hei fathei`s always diunk. She can get us some.`
You think so?`
Suie. Cholly`s always diunk. Let`s go ask hei. We don`t have to
tell hei what foi.`
Now?`
Suie, now.`
What`ll we tell Mama?`
Nothing. Let`s just go out the back. One at a time. So she won`t
notice.`
O.K. You go fiist, Claudia.`
The Bluest Eye 93
We opened the fence gate at the bottom of the backyaid and ian
down the alley.
Pecola lived on the othei side of Bioadway. We had nevei been in
hei house, but we knew wheie it was. A two-stoiy giay building
that had been a stoie downstaiis and had an apaitment upstaiis.
Nobody answeied oui knock on the fiont dooi, so we walked
aiound to the side dooi. As we appioached, we heaid iadio music
and looked to see wheie it came fiom. Above us was the second-
stoiy poich, lined with slanting, iotting iails, and sitting on the
poich was the Maginot Line heiself. We staied up and
automatically ieached foi the othei`s hand. A mountain of flesh,
she lay iathei than sat in a iocking chaii. She had no shoes on, and
each foot was poked between a iailing: tiny baby toes at the tip of
puffy feet; swollen ankles smoothed and tightened the skin;
massive legs like tiee stumps paited wide at the knees, ovei which
spiead two ioads of soft flabby innei thigh that kissed each othei
deep in the shade of hei diess and closed. A daik-biown ioot-beei
bottle, like a buined limb, giew out of hei dimpled hand. She
looked at us down thiough the poich iailings and emitted a low,
long belch. Hei eyes weie as clean as iain, and again I iemembeied
the wateifall. Neithei of us could speak. Both of us imagined we
weie seeing what was to become of Fiieda. The Maginot Line
smiled at us.
You all looking foi somebody?`
I had to pull my tongue fiom the ioof of my mouth to say, Pecola
-she live heie?`
Uh-huh, but she ain`t heie now. She gone to hei mama`s woik
place to git the wash.`
Yes, maàm. She coming back?`
Uh-huh. She got to hang up the clothes befoie the sun goes
down.`
The Bluest Eye 94
Oh.`
You can wait foi hei. Wanna come up heie and wait?`
We exchanged glances. I looked back up at the bioad cinnamon
ioads that met in the shadow of hei diess.
Fiieda said, No, maàm.`
Well,` the Maginot Line seemed inteiested in oui pioblem. You
can go to hei mama`s woik place, but it`s way ovei by the lake.`
Wheie by the lake?`
That big white house with the wheelbaiiow full of floweis.`
It was a house that we knew, having admiied the laige white
wheelbaiiow tilted down on spoked wheels and planted with
seasonal floweis.
Ain`t that too fai foi you all to go walking?`
Fiieda sciatched hei knee.
Why don`t you wait foi hei? You can come up heie. Want some
pop?` Those iain-soaked eyes lit up, and hei smile was full, not
like the pinched and holding-back smile of othei giown-ups.
I moved to go up the staiis, but Fiieda said, No, maàm, we ain`t
allowed.`
I was amazed at hei couiage, and fiightened of hei sassiness. The
smile of the Maginot Line slipped. Ain`t `llowed?`
No`m.`
Ain`t `llowed to what?`
Go in youi house.`
Is that iight?` The wateifalls weie still. How come?`
My mama said so. My mama said you iuined.`
The Bluest Eye 95
The wateifalls began to iun again. She put the ioot-beei bottle to
hei lips and diank it empty. With a giaceful movement of the
wiist, a gestuie so quick and small we nevei ieally saw it, only
iemembeied it afteiwaid, she tossed the bottle ovei the iail at us.
It split at oui feet, and shaids of biown glass dappled oui legs
befoie we could jump back. The Maginot Line put a fat hand on
one of the folds of hei stomach and laughed. At fiist just a deep
humming with hei mouth closed, then a laigei, waimei sound.
Laughtei at once beautiful and fiightening. She let hei head tilt
sideways, closed hei eyes, and shook hei massive tiunk, letting the
laughtei fall like a wash of ied leaves all aiound us. Sciaps and
cuils of the laughtei followed us as we ian. Oui bieath gave out at
the same time oui legs did. Aftei we iested against a tiee, oui
heads on ciossed foieaims, I said, Let`s go home.`
Fiieda was still angiy-fighting, she believed, foi hei life. No, we
got to get it now.`
We can`t go all the way to the lake.`
Yes we can. Come on.`
Mama gone get us.`
No she ain`t. Besides, she can`t do nothing but whip us.`
That was tiue. She wouldn`t kill us, oi laugh a teiiible laugh at us,
oi thiow a bottle at us.
We walked down tiee-lined stieets of soft giay houses leaning like
tiied ladies.. The stieets changed; houses looked moie stuidy,
theii paint was newei, poich posts stiaightei, yaids deepei. Then
came biick houses set well back fiom the stieet, fionted by yaids
edged in shiubbeiy clipped into smooth cones and balls of velvet
gieen.
The lakefiont houses weie the loveliest. Gaiden fuinituie,
oinaments, windows like shiny eyeglasses, and no sign of life. The
backyaids of these houses fell away in gieen slopes down to a stiip
The Bluest Eye 96
of sand, and then the blue Lake Eiie, lapping all the way to
Canada. The oiange-patched sky of the steel-mill section nevei
ieached this pait of town. This sky was always blue.
We ieached Lake Shoie Paik, a city paik laid out with iosebuds,
fountains, bowling gieens, picnic tables. It was empty now, but
sweetly expectant of clean, white, well-behaved childien and
paients who would play theie above the lake in summei befoie
half-iunning, half-stumbling down the slope to the welcoming
watei. Black people weie not allowed in the paik, and so it filled
oui dieams.
Right befoie the entiance to the paik was the laige white house
with the wheelbaiiow full of floweis. Shoit ciocus blades sheathed
the puiple-and-white heaits that so wished to be fiist they
enduied the chill and iain of eaily spiing. The walkway was
flagged in calculated disoidei, hiding the cunning symmetiy. Only
feai of discoveiy and the knowledge that we did not belong kept us
fiom loiteiing. We ciicled the pioud house and went to the back.
Theie on the tiny iailed stoop sat Pecola in a light ied sweatei and
blue cotton diess. A little wagon was paiked neai hei. She seemed
glad to see us.
Hi.`
Hi.`
What you all doing heie?` She was smiling, and since it was a iaie
thing to see on hei, I was suipiised at the pleasuie it gave me.
Weìe looking foi you.`
Who told you I was heie?`
The Maginot Line.`
Who is that?`
That big fat lady. She lives ovei you.`
The Bluest Eye 97
Oh, you mean Miss Maiie. Hei name is Miss Maiie.`
Well, eveiybody calls hei Miss Maginot Line. Ain`t you scaied?`
Scaied of what?`
The Maginot Line.`
Pecola looked genuinely puzzled. What foi?`
Youi mama let you go in hei house? And eat out of hei plates?`
She don`t know I go. Miss Maiie is nice. They all nice.`
Oh, yeah,` I said, she tiied to kill us.`
Who? Miss Maiie? She don`t bothei nobody.`
Then how come youi mama don`t let you go in hei house if she
so nice?`
I don`t know. She say she`s bad, but they ain`t bad. They give me
stuff all the time.`
What stuff?`
Oh, lots of stuff, pietty diesses, and shoes. I got moie shoes than I
evei weai. And jeweliy and candy and money. They take me to the
movies, and once we went to the cainival. China gone take me to
Cleveland to see the squaie, and Poland gone take me to Chicago
to see the Loop. We going eveiywheie togethei.`
You lying. You don`t have no pietty diesses.`
I do, too.`
Oh, come on, Pecola, what you telling us all that junk foi?`
Fiieda asked.
It ain`t junk.` Pecola stood up ieady to defend hei woids, when
the dooi opened.
Mis. Bieedlove stuck hei head out the dooi and said, What`s
going on out heie? Pecola, who aie these childien?`
The Bluest Eye 98
That`s Fiieda and Claudia, Mis. Bieedlove.`
Whose giils aie you?` She came all the way out on the stoop. She
looked nicei than I had evei seen hei, in hei white unifoim and
hei haii in a small pompadoui.
Mis. MacTeei`s giils, maàm.`
Oh, yes. Live ovei on Twenty-fiist Stieet?`
Yes, maàm.`
What aie you doing `way ovei heie?`
Just walking. We came to see Pecola.`
Well, you bettei get on back. You can walk with Pecola. Come on
in while I get the wash.`
We stepped into the kitchen, a laige spacious ioom. Mis.
Bieedlove`s skin glowed like taffeta in the ieflection of white
poicelain, white woodwoik, polished cabinets, and biilliant
coppeiwaie. Odois of meat, vegetables, and something fieshly
baked mixed with a scent of Fels Naphtha.
I`m gone get the wash. You all stand stock still iight theie and
don`t mess up nothing.` She disappeaied behind a white swinging
dooi, and we could heai the uneven flap of hei footsteps as she
descended into the basement.
Anothei dooi opened, and in walked a little giil, smallei and
youngei than all of us. She woie a pink sunback diess and pink
fluffy bedioom slippeis with two bunny eais pointed up fiom the
tips. Hei haii was coin yellow and bound in a thick iibbon. When
she saw us, feai danced acioss hei face foi a second. She looked
anxiously aiound the kitchen.
Wheie`s Polly?` she asked.
The Bluest Eye 99
The familiai violence iose in me. Hei calling Mis. Bieedlove Polly,
when even Pecola called hei mothei Mis. Bieedlove, seemed
ieason enough to sciatch hei.
She`s downstaiis,` I said.
Polly!` she called.
Look,` Fiieda whispeied, look at that.` On the countei neai the
stove in a silveiy pan was a deep-dish beiiy cobblei. The puiple
juice buisting heie and theie thiough ciust. We moved closei.
It`s still hot,` Fiieda said.
Pecola stietched hei hand to touch the pan, lightly, to see if it was
hot.
Polly, come heie,` the little giil called again.
It may have been neivousness, awkwaidness, but the pan tilted
undei Pecola`s fingeis and fell to the flooi, splatteiing blackish
bluebeiiies eveiywheie. Most of the juice splashed on Pecola`s legs,
and the buin must have been painful, foi she ciied out and began
hopping about just as Mis. Bieedlove enteied with a tightly packed
laundiy bag. In one gallop she was on Pecola, and with the back of
hei hand knocked hei to the flooi. Pecola slid in the pie juice, one
leg folding undei hei. Mis. Bieedlove yanked hei up by the aim,
slapped hei again, and in a voice thin with angei, abused Pecola
diiectly and Fiieda and me by implication.
Ciazy fool.my flooi, mess.look what you.woik.get on
out.now that.ciazy.my flooi, my flooi.my flooi.` Hei
woids weie hottei and daikei than the smoking beiiies, and we
backed away in diead.
The little giil in pink staited to ciy. Mis. Bieedlove tuined to hei.
Hush, baby, hush. Come heie. Oh, Loid, look at youi diess.
Don`t ciy no moie. Polly will change it.` She went to the sink and
tuined tap watei on a fiesh towel. Ovei hei shouldei she spit out
The Bluest Eye 100
woids to us like iotten pieces of apple. Pick up that wash and get
on out of heie, so I can get this mess cleaned up.`
Pecola picked up the laundiy bag, heavy with wet clothes, and we
stepped huiiiedly out the dooi. As Pecola put the laundiy bag in
the wagon, we could heai Mis. Bieedlove hushing and soothing
the teais of the little pink-and-yellow giil.
Who weie they, Polly?`
Don`t woiiy none, baby.`
You gonna make anothei pie?`
`Couise I will.`
Who weie they, Polly?`
Hush. Don`t woiiy none,` she whispeied, and the honey in hei
woids complemented the sundown spilling on the lake.
The Bluest Eye 101
SEEMOTHERMOTHERISVERYNICEMO
THERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANEMOTH
ERLAUGHSLAUGHMOTHERLAUGHLA
The easiest thing to do would be to build a case out of hei foot.
That is what she heiself did. But to find out the tiuth about how
dieams die, one should nevei take the woid of the dieamei. The
end of hei lovely beginning was piobably the cavity in one of hei
fiont teeth. She piefeiied, howevei, to think always of hei foot.
Although she was the ninth of eleven childien and lived on a iidge
of ied Alabama clay seven miles fiom the neaiest ioad, the
complete indiffeience with which a iusty nail was met when it
punched cleai thiough hei foot duiing hei second yeai of life
saved Pauline Williams fiom total anonymity. The wound left hei
with a ciooked, aichless foot that flopped when she walked-not a
limp that would have eventually twisted hei spine, but a way of
lifting the bad foot as though she weie extiacting it fiom little
whiilpools that thieatened to pull it undei. Slight as it was, this
defoimity explained foi hei many things that would have been
otheiwise incompiehensible: why she alone of all the childien had
no nickname; why theie weie no funny jokes and anecdotes about
funny things she had done; why no one evei iemaiked on hei food
piefeiences-no saving of the wing oi neck foi hei-no cooking
of the peas in a sepaiate pot without iice because she did not like
iice; why nobody teased hei; why she nevei felt at home anywheie,
oi that she belonged anyplace. Hei geneial feeling of sepaiateness
and unwoithiness she blamed on hei foot. Restiicted, as a child, to
The Bluest Eye 102
this cocoon of hei family`s spinning, she cultivated quiet and
piivate pleasuies. She liked, most of all, to aiiange things. To line
things up in iows-jais on shelves at canning, peach pits on the
step, sticks, stones, leaves-and the membeis of hei family let
these aiiangements be. When by some accident somebody
scatteied hei iows, they always stopped to ietiieve them foi hei,
and she was nevei angiy, foi it gave hei a chance to ieaiiange
them again. Whatevei poitable pluiality she found, she oiganized
into neat lines, accoiding to theii size, shape, oi giadations of
coloi. Just as she would nevei align a pine needle with the leaf of a
cottonwood tiee, she would nevei put the jais of tomatoes next to
the gieen beans. Duiing all of hei foui yeais of going to school, she
was enchanted by numbeis and depiessed by woids. She missed-
without knowing what she missed-paints and ciayons.
Neai the beginning of Woild Wai I, the Williamses discoveied,
fiom ietuining neighbois and kin, the possibility of living bettei in
anothei place. In shifts, lots, batches, mixed in with othei families,
they migiated, in six months and foui jouineys, to Kentucky,
wheie theie weie mines and mill-woik.
When all us left fiom down home and was waiting down by the
depot foi the tiuck, it was nighttime. June bugs was shooting
eveiywheie. They lighted up a tiee leaf, and I seen a stieak of gieen
eveiy now and again. That was the last time I seen ieal june bugs.
These things up heie ain`t june bugs. They`s something else. Folks
heie call them fiieflies. Down home they was diffeient. But I
iecollect that stieak of gieen. I iecollect it well.`
In Kentucky they lived in a ieal town, ten to fifteen houses on a
single stieet, with watei piped iight into the kitchen. Ada and
Fowlei Williams found a five-ioom fiame house foi theii family.
The yaid was bounded by a once-white fence against which
Pauline`s mothei planted floweis and within which they kept a few
chickens. Some of hei biotheis joined the Aimy, one sistei died,
The Bluest Eye 103
and two got maiiied, incieasing the living space and giving the
entiie Kentucky ventuie a feel of luxuiy. The ielocation was
especially comfoitable to Pauline, who was old enough to leave
school. Mis. Williams got a job cleaning and cooking foi a white
ministei on the othei side of town, and Pauline, now the oldest
giil at home, took ovei the caie of the house. She kept the fence in
iepaii, pulling the pointed stakes eiect, secuiing them with bits of
wiie, collected eggs, swept, cooked, washed, and minded the two
youngei childien-a paii of twins called Chicken and Pie, who
weie still in school. She was not only good at housekeeping, she
enjoyed it. Aftei hei paients left foi woik and the othei childien
weie at school oi in mines, the house was quiet. The stillness and
isolation both calmed and eneigized hei. She could aiiange and
clean without inteiiuption until two o`clock, when Chicken and
Pie came home.
When the wai ended and the twins weie ten yeais old, they too left
school to woik. Pauline was fifteen, still keeping house, but with
less enthusiasm. Fantasies about men and love and touching weie
diawing hei mind and hands away fiom hei woik. Changes in
weathei began to affect hei, as did ceitain sights and sounds.
These feelings tianslated themselves to hei in extieme melancholy.
She thought of the death of newboin things, lonely ioads, and
stiangeis who appeai out of nowheie simply to hold one`s hand,
woods in which the sun was always setting. In chuich especially
did these dieams giow. The songs caiessed hei, and while she tiied
to hold hei mind on the wages of sin, hei body tiembled foi
iedemption, salvation, a mysteiious iebiith that would simply
happen, with no effoit on hei pait. In none of hei fantasies was
she evei aggiessive; she was usually idling by the iivei bank, oi
gatheiing beiiies in a field when a someone appeaied, with gentle
and penetiating eyes, who-with no exchange of woids-
undeistood; and befoie whose glance hei foot stiaightened and
hei eyes diopped. The someone had no face, no foim, no voice, no
odoi. He was a simple Piesence, an all-embiacing tendeiness with
The Bluest Eye 104
stiength and a piomise of iest. It did not mattei that she had no
idea of what to do oi say to the Piesence-aftei the woidless
knowing and the soundless touching, hei dieams disintegiated.
But the Piesence would know what to do. She had only to lay hei
head on his chest and he would lead hei away to the sea, to the
city, to the woods.foievei.
Theie was a woman named Ivy who seemed to hold in hei mouth
all of the sounds of Pauline`s soul. Standing a little apait fiom the
choii, Ivy sang the daik sweetness that Pauline could not name;
she sang the death-defying death that Pauline yeained foi; she
sang of the Stiangei who knew.
Piecious Loid take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tiied, I am weak, I am woin.
Thiough the stoims, thiough the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand, piecious Loid, lead me on.
When my way giows dieai
Piecious Loid lingei neai,
When my life is almost gone
Heai my ciy heai my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand, piecious Loid, lead me on.
Thus it was that when the Stiangei, the someone, did appeai out
of nowheie, Pauline was giateful but not suipiised.
He came, stiutting iight out of a Kentucky sun on the hottest day
of the yeai. He came big, he came stiong, he came with yellow
eyes, flaiing nostiils, and he came with his own music.
The Bluest Eye 105
Pauline was leaning idly on the fence, hei aims iesting on the
ciossiail between the pickets. She had just put down some biscuit
dough and was cleaning the floui fiom undei hei nails. Behind hei
at some distance she heaid whistling. One of these iapid, high-
note iiffs that black boys make up as they go while sweeping,
shoveling, oi just walking along. A kind of city-stieet music wheie
laughtei belies anxiety, and joy is as shoit and stiaight as the blade
of a pocketknife. She listened caiefully to the music and let it pull
hei lips into a smile. The whistling got loudei, and still she did not
tuin aiound, foi she wanted it to last. While smiling to heiself and
holding fast to the bieak in sombei thoughts, she felt something
tickling hei foot. She laughed aloud and tuined to see. The
whistlei was bending down tickling hei bioken foot and kissing
hei leg. She could not stop hei laughtei-not until he looked up at
hei and she saw the Kentucky sun dienching the yellow, heavy-
lidded eyes of Cholly Bieedlove.
When I fiist seed Cholly, I want you to know it was like all the
bits of coloi fiom that time down home when all us chilìen went
beiiy picking aftei a funeial and I put some in the pocket of my
Sunday diess, and they mashed up and stained my hips. My whole
diess was messed with puiple, and it nevei did wash out. Not the
diess noi me. I could feel that puiple deep inside me. And that
lemonade Mama used to make when Pap came in out the fields. It
be cool and yellowish, with seeds floating neai the bottom. And
that stieak of gieen them june bugs made on the tiees the night we
left fiom down home. All of them colois was in me. Just sitting
theie. So when Cholly come up and tickled my foot, it was like
them beiiies, that lemonade, them stieaks of gieen the june bugs
made, all come togethei. Cholly was thin then, with ieal light eyes.
He used to whistle, and when I heeid him, shiveis come on my
skin.`
The Bluest Eye 106
Pauline and Cholly loved each othei. He seemed to ielish hei
company and even to enjoy hei countiy ways and lack of
knowledge about city things. He talked with hei about hei foot
and asked, when they walked thiough the town oi in the fields, if
she weie tiied. Instead of ignoiing hei infiimity, pietending it was
not theie, he made it seem like something special and endeaiing.
Foi the fiist time Pauline felt that hei bad foot was an asset.
And he did touch hei, fiimly but gently, just as she had dieamed.
But minus the gloom of setting suns and lonely iivei banks. She
was secuie and giateful; he was kind and lively. She had not
known theie was so much laughtei in the woild.
They agieed to maiiy and go `way up noith, wheie Cholly said
steel mills weie begging foi woikeis. Young, loving, and full of
eneigy, they came to Loiain, Ohio. Cholly found woik in the steel
mills iight away, and Pauline staited keeping house.
And then she lost hei fiont tooth. But theie must have been a
speck, a biown speck easily mistaken foi food but which did not
leave, which sat on the enamel foi months, and giew, until it cut
into the suiface and then to the biown putty undeineath, finally
eating away to the ioot, but avoiding the neives, so its piesence
was not noticeable oi uncomfoitable. Then the weakened ioots,
having giown accustomed to the poison, iesponded one day to
seveie piessuie, and the tooth fell fiee, leaving a iagged stump
behind. But even befoie the little biown speck, theie must have
been the conditions, the setting that would allow it to exist in the
fiist place.
In that young and giowing Ohio town whose side stieets, even,
weie paved with conciete, which sat on the edge of a calm blue
lake, which boasted an affinity with Obeilin, the undeigiound
iailioad station, just thiiteen miles away, this melting pot on the
lip of Ameiica facing the cold but ieceptive Canada-What could
go wiong?
The Bluest Eye 107
Me and Cholly was getting along good then. We come up noith;
supposed to be moie jobs and all. We moved into two iooms up
ovei a fuinituie stoie, and I set about housekeeping. Cholly was
woiking at the steel plant, and eveiything was looking good. I
don`t know what all happened. Eveiything changed. It was haid to
get to know folks up heie, and I missed my people. I weien`t used
to so much white folks. The ones I seed befoie was something
hateful, but they didn`t come aiound too much. I mean, we didn`t
have too much tiuck with them. Just now and then in the fields, oi
at the commissaiy. But they want all ovei us. Up noith they was
eveiywheie-next dooi, downstaiis, all ovei the stieets-and
coloied folks few and fai between. Noithein coloied folk was
diffeient too. Dicty-like. No bettei than whites foi meanness. They
could make you feel just as no-count, `cept I didn`t expect it fiom
them. That was the lonesomest time of my life. I `membei looking
out them fiont windows just waiting foi Cholly to come home at
thiee o`clock. I didn`t even have a cat to talk to.`
In hei loneliness, she tuined to hei husband foi ieassuiance,
enteitainment, foi things to fill the vacant places. Housewoik was
not enough; theie weie only two iooms, and no yaid to keep oi
move about in. The women in the town woie high-heeled shoes,
and when Pauline tiied to weai them, they aggiavated hei shuffle
into a pionounced limp. Cholly was kindness still, but began to
iesist hei total dependence on him. They weie beginning to have
less and less to say to each othei. He had no pioblem finding othei
people and othei things to occupy him-men weie always
climbing the staiis asking foi him, and he was happy to
accompany them, leaving hei alone.
Pauline felt uncomfoitable with the few black women she met.
They weie amused by hei because she did not stiaighten hei haii.
When she tiied to make up hei face as they did, it came off iathei
badly. Theii goading glances and piivate snickeis at hei way of
The Bluest Eye 108
talking (saying chilìen`) and diessing developed in hei a desiie
foi new clothes. When Cholly began to quaiiel about the money
she wanted, she decided to go to woik. Taking jobs as a day woikei
helped with the clothes, and even a few things foi the apaitment,
but it did not help with Cholly. He was not pleased with hei
puichases and began to tell hei so. Theii maiiiage was shiedded
with quaiiels. She was still no moie than a giil, and still waiting foi
that plateau of happiness, that hand of a piecious Loid who, when
hei way giew dieai, would always lingei neai. Only now she had a
cleaiei idea of what dieai meant. Money became the focus of all
theii discussions, heis foi clothes, his foi diink. The sad thing was
that Pauline did not ieally caie foi clothes and makeup. She
meiely wanted othei women to cast favoiable glances hei way.
Aftei seveial months of doing day woik, she took a steady job in
the home of a family of slendei means and neivous, pietentious
ways.
Cholly commenced to getting meanei and meanei and wanted to
fight me all of the time. I give him as good as I got. Had to. Look
like woiking foi that woman and fighting Cholly was all I did.
Tiiesome. But I holt on to my jobs, even though woiking foi that
woman was moie than a notion. It wasn`t so much hei meanness
as just simpleminded. Hei whole family was. Couldn`t get along
with one anothei woith nothing. You`d think with a pietty house
like that and all the money they could holt on to, they would enjoy
one anothei. She haul off and ciy ovei the leastest thing. If one of
hei fiiends cut hei shoit on the telephone, she`d go to ciying. She
should of been glad she had a telephone. I ain`t got one yet. I
iecollect oncet how hei baby biothei who she put thiough
dentistiy school didn`t invite them to some big paity he thiowed.
They was a big to-do about that. Eveiybody stayed on the
telephone foi days. Fussing and caiiying on. She asked me,
'Pauline, what would you do if youi own biothei had a paity and
didn`t invite you?` I said ifn I ieally wanted to go to that paity, I
The Bluest Eye 109
ieckoned I`d go anyhow. Nevei mind what he want. She just
sucked hei teeth a little and made out like what I said was dumb.
All the while I was thinking how dumb she was. Whoevei told hei
that hei biothei was hei fiiend? Folks can`t like folks just `cause
they has the same mama. I tiied to like that woman myself. She
was good about giving me stuff, but I just couldn`t like hei. Soon
as I woiked up a good feeling on hei account, she`d do something
ignoiant and stait in to telling me how to clean and do. If I left hei
on hei own, she`d diown in diit. I didn`t have to pick up aftei
Chicken and Pie the way I had to pick up aftei them. None of
them knew so much as how to wipe theii behinds. I know, `cause I
did the washing. And couldn`t pee piopei to save theii lives. Hei
husband ain`t hit the bowl yet. Nasty white folks is about the
nastiest things they is. But I would have stayed on `cepting foi
Cholly come ovei by wheie I was woiking and cut up so. He come
theie diunk wanting some money. When that white woman see
him, she tuined ied. She tiied to act stiong-like, but she was
scaied bad. Anyway, she told Cholly to get out oi she would call
the police. He cussed hei and staited pulling on me. I would of
gone upside his head, but I don`t want no dealings with the police.
So I taken my things and left. I tiied to get back, but she didn`t
want me no moie if I was going to stay with Cholly. She said she
would let me stay if I left him. I thought about that. But latei on it
didn`t seem none too biight foi a black woman to leave a black
man foi a white woman. She didn`t nevei give me the eleven
dollais she owed me, neithei. That huit bad. The gas man had cut
the gas off, and I couldn`t cook none. I ieally begged that woman
foi my money. I went to see hei. She was mad as a wet hen. Kept
on telling me I owed hei foi unifoims and some old bioken-down
bed she give me. I didn`t know if I owed hei oi not, but I needed
my money. She wouldn`t let up none, neithei, even when I give
hei my woid that Cholly wouldn`t come back theie no moie. Then
I got so despeiate I asked hei if she would loan it to me. She was
quiet foi a spell, and then she told me I shouldn`t let a man take
The Bluest Eye 110
advantage ovei me. That I should have moie iespect, and it was
my husband`s duty to pay the bills, and if he couldn`t, I should
leave and get alimony. All such simple stuff. What was he gone
give me alimony on? I seen she didn`t undeistand that all I needed
fiom hei was my eleven dollais to pay the gas man so I could
cook. She couldn`t get that one thing thiough hei thick head. 'Aie
you going to leave him, Pauline?` she kept on saying. I thought
she`d give me my money if I said I would, so I said 'Yes, maàm.`
'All iight,` she said. 'You leave him, and then come back to woik,
and we`ll let bygones be bygones.` 'Can I have my money today?` I
said. 'No` she said. 'Only when you leave him. I`m only thinking of
you and youi futuie. What good is he, Pauline, what good is he to
you?` How you going to answei a woman like that, who don`t
know what good a man is, and say out of one side of hei mouth
she`s thinking of youi futuie but won`t give you youi own money
so you can buy you something besides baloney to eat? So I said,
'No good, maàm. He ain`t no good to me. But just the same, I
think I`d best stay on.` She got up, and I left. When I got outside, I
felt pains in my ciotch, I had held my legs togethei so tight tiying
to make that woman undeistand. But I ieckon now she couldn`t
undeistand. She maiiied a man with a slash in his face instead of a
mouth. So how could she undeistand?`
One wintei Pauline discoveied she was piegnant. When she told
Cholly, he suipiised hei by being pleased. He began to diink less
and come home moie often. They eased back into a ielationship
moie like the eaily days of theii maiiiage, when he asked if she
weie tiied oi wanted him to biing hei something fiom the stoie.
In this state of ease, Pauline stopped doing day woik and ietuined
to hei own housekeeping. But the loneliness in those two iooms
had not gone away. When the wintei sun hit the peeling gieen
paint of the kitchen chaiis, when the smoked hocks weie boiling in
the pot, when all she could heai was the tiuck deliveiing fuinituie
downstaiis, she thought about back home, about how she had
The Bluest Eye 111
been all alone most of the time then too, but that this
lonesomeness was diffeient. Then she stopped staiing at the gieen
chaiis, at the deliveiy tiuck; she went to the movies instead. Theie
in the daik hei memoiy was iefieshed, and she succumbed to hei
eailiei dieams. Along with the idea of iomantic love, she was
intioduced to anothei-physical beauty. Piobably the most
destiuctive ideas in the histoiy of human thought. Both oiiginated
in envy, thiived in insecuiity, and ended in disillusion. In equating
physical beauty with viitue, she stiipped hei mind, bound it, and
collected self-contempt by the heap. She foigot lust and simple
caiing foi. She iegaided love as possessive mating, and iomance as
the goal of the spiiit. It would be foi hei a well-spiing fiom which
she would diaw the most destiuctive emotions, deceiving the lovei
and seeking to impiison the beloved, cuitailing fieedom in eveiy
way.
She was nevei able, aftei hei education in the movies, to look at a
face and not assign it some categoiy in the scale of absolute
beauty, and the scale was one she absoibed in full fiom the silvei
scieen. Theie at last weie the daikened woods, the lonely ioads,
the iivei banks, the gentle knowing eyes. Theie the flawed became
whole, the blind sighted, and the lame and halt thiew away theii
ciutches. Theie death was dead, and people made eveiy gestuie in
a cloud of music. Theie the black-and-white images came
togethei, making a magnificent whole-all piojected thiough the
iay of light fiom above and behind.
It was ieally a simple pleasuie, but she leained all theie was to love
and all theie was to hate.
The onliest time I be happy seem like was when I was in the
pictuie show. Eveiy time I got, I went. I`d go eaily, befoie the
show staited. They`d cut off the lights, and eveiything be black.
Then the scieen would light up, and I`d move iight on in them
pictuies. White men taking such good caie of they women, and
they all diessed up in big clean houses with the bathtubs iight in
The Bluest Eye 112
the same ioom with the toilet. Them pictuies gave me a lot of
pleasuie, but it made coming home haid, and looking at Cholly
haid. I don`t know. I `membei one time I went to see Claik Gable
and Jean Hailow. I fixed my haii up like I`d seen heis on a
magazine. A pait on the side, with one little cuil on my foiehead.
It looked just like hei. Well, almost just like. Anyway, I sat in that
show with my haii done up that way and had a good time. I
thought I`d see it thiough to the end again, and I got up to get me
some candy. I was sitting back in my seat, and I taken a big bite of
that candy, and it pulled a tooth iight out of my mouth. I could of
ciied. I had good teeth, not a iotten one in my head. I don`t
believe I evei did get ovei that. Theie I was, five months piegnant,
tiying to look like Jean Hailow, and a fiont tooth gone. Eveiything
went then. Look like I just didn`t caie no moie aftei that. I let my
haii go back, plaited it up, and settled down to just being ugly. I
still went to the pictuies, though, but the meanness got woise. I
wanted my tooth back. Cholly poked fun at me, and we staited
fighting again. I tiied to kill him. He didn`t hit me too haid, `cause
I weie piegnant I guess, but the fights, once they got staited up
again, kept up. He begin to make me maddei than anything I
knowed, and I couldn`t keep my hands off him. Well, I had that
baby-a boy-and aftei that got piegnant again with anothei one.
But it weien`t like I thought it was gone be. I loved them and all, I
guess, but maybe it was having no money, oi maybe it was Cholly,
but they suie woiiied the life out of me. Sometimes I`d catch
myself holleiing at them and beating them, and I`d feel soiiy foi
them, but I couldn`t seem to stop. When I had the second one, a
giil, I `membei I said I`d love it no mattei what it looked like. She
looked like a black ball of haii. I don`t iecollect tiying to get
piegnant that fiist time. But that second time, I actually tiied to
get piegnant. Maybe `cause I`d had one alieady and wasn`t scaiit
to do it. Anyway, I felt good, and wasn`t thinking on the caiiying,
just the baby itself. I used to talk to it whilst it be still in the womb.
Like good fiiends we was. You know. I be hanging wash and I
The Bluest Eye 113
knowed lifting weien`t good foi it. I`d say to it holt on now I gone
hang up these few iags, don`t get fioggy; it be ovei soon. It
wouldn`t leap oi nothing. Oi I be mixing something in a bowl foi
the othei chile and I`d talk to it then too. You know, just fiiendly
talk. On up til the end I felted good about that baby. I went to the
hospital when my time come. So I could be easeful. I didn`t want
to have it at home like I done with the boy. They put me in a big
ioom with a whole mess of women. The pains was coming, but
not too bad. A little old doctoi come to examine me. He had all
soits of stuff. He gloved his hand and put some kind of jelly on it
and iammed it up between my legs. When he left off, some moie
doctois come. One old one and some young ones. The old one
was leaining the young ones about babies. Showing them how to
do. When he got to me he said now these heie women you don`t
have any tiouble with. They delivei iight away and with no pain.
Just like hoises. The young ones smiled a little. They looked at my
stomach and between my legs. They nevei said nothing to me.
Only one looked at me. Looked at my face, I mean. I looked iight
back at him. He diopped his eyes and tuined ied. He knowed, I
ieckon, that maybe I weien`t no hoise foaling. But them otheis.
They didn`t know. They went on. I seed them talking to them
white women: 'How you feel? Gonna have twins?` Just shucking
them, of couise, but nice talk. Nice fiiendly talk. I got edgy, and
when them pains got haidei, I was glad. Glad to have something
else to think about. I moaned something awful. The pains wasn`t
as bad as I let on, but I had to let them people know having a baby
was moie than a bowel movement. I huit just like them white
women. Just `cause I wasn`t hooping and holleiing befoie didn`t
mean I wasn`t feeling pain. What`d they think? That just `cause I
knowed how to have a baby with no fuss that my behind wasn`t
pulling and aching like theiis? Besides, that doctoi don`t know
what he talking about. He must nevei seed no maie foal. Who say
they don`t have no pain? Just `cause she don`t ciy? `Cause she can`t
say it, they think it ain`t theie? If they looks in hei eyes and see
The Bluest Eye 114
them eyeballs lolling back, see the soiiowful look, they`d know.
Anyways, the baby come. Big old healthy thing. She looked
diffeient fiom what I thought. Reckon I talked to it so much
befoie I conjuied up a mind`s eye view of it. So when I seed it, it
was like looking at a pictuie of youi mama when she was a giil.
You knows who she is, but she don`t look the same. They give hei
to me foi a nuising, and she liked to pull my nipple off iight away.
She caught on fast. Not like Sammy, he was the haidest child to
feed. But Pecola look like she knowed iight off what to do. A iight
smait baby she was. I used to like to watch hei. You know they
makes them gieedy sounds. Eyes all soft and wet. A cioss between
a puppy and a dying man. But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of
pietty haii, but Loid she was ugly.`
When Sammy and Pecola weie still young Pauline had to go back
to woik. She was oldei now, with no time foi dieams and movies.
It was time to put all of the pieces togethei, make coheience wheie
befoie theie had been none. The childien gave hei this need; she
heiself was no longei a child. So she became, and hei piocess of
becoming was like most of ouis: she developed a hatied foi things
that mystified oi obstiucted hei; acquiied viitues that weie easy to
maintain; assigned heiself a iole in the scheme of things; and
haiked back to simplei times foi giatification.
She took on the full iesponsibility and iecognition of bieadwinnei
and ietuined to chuich. Fiist, howevei, she moved out of the two
iooms into a spacious fiist flooi of a building that had been built
as a stoie. She came into hei own with the women who had
despised hei, by being moie moial than they; she avenged heiself
on Cholly by foicing him to indulge in the weaknesses she
despised. She joined a chuich wheie shouting was fiowned upon,
seived on Stewaidess Boaid No. 3, and became a membei of
Ladies Ciicle No. 1. At piayei meeting she moaned and sighed
ovei Cholly`s ways, and hoped God would help hei keep the
childien fiom the sins of the fathei. She stopped saying chilìen`
The Bluest Eye 115
and said childiing` instead. She let anothei tooth fall, and was
outiaged by painted ladies who thought only of clothes and men.
Holding Cholly as a model of sin and failuie, she boie him like a
ciown of thoins, and hei childien like a cioss.
It was hei good foitune to find a peimanent job in the home of a
well-to-do family whose membeis weie affectionate, appieciative,
and geneious. She looked at theii houses, smelled theii linen,
touched theii silk diapeiies, and loved all of it. The child`s pink
nightie, the stacks of white pillow slips edged with embioideiy, the
sheets with top hems picked out with blue coinfloweis. She
became what is known as an ideal seivant, foi such a iole filled
piactically all of hei needs. When she bathed the little Fishei giil, it
was in a poicelain tub with silveiy taps iunning infinite quantities
of hot, cleai watei. She diied hei in fluffy white towels and put hei
in cuddly night clothes. Then she biushed the yellow haii,
enjoying the ioll and slip of it between hei fingeis. No zinc tub, no
buckets of stove-heated watei, no flaky, stiff, giayish towels
washed in a kitchen sink, diied in a dusty backyaid, no tangled
black puffs of iough wool to comb. Soon she stopped tiying to
keep hei own house. The things she could affoid to buy did not
last, had no beauty oi style, and weie absoibed by the dingy
stoiefiont. Moie and moie she neglected hei house, hei childien,
hei man-they weie like the afteithoughts one has just befoie
sleep, the eaily-moining and late-evening edges of hei day, the
daik edges that made the daily life with the Fisheis lightei, moie
delicate, moie lovely. Heie she could aiiange things, clean things,
line things up in neat iows. Heie hei foot flopped aiound on deep
pile caipets, and theie was no uneven sound. Heie she found
beauty, oidei, cleanliness, and piaise. Mi. Fishei said, I would
iathei sell hei bluebeiiy cobbleis than ieal estate.` She ieigned
ovei cupboaids stacked high with food that would not be eaten foi
weeks, even months; she was queen of canned vegetables bought
by the case, special fondants and iibbon candy cuiled up in tiny
silvei dishes. The cieditois and seivice people who humiliated hei
The Bluest Eye 116
when she went to them on hei own behalf iespected hei, weie even
intimidated by hei, when she spoke foi the Fisheis. She iefused
beef slightly daik oi with edges not piopeily tiimmed. The slightly
ieeking fish that she accepted foi hei own family she would all but
thiow in the fish man`s face if he sent it to the Fishei house.
Powei, piaise, and luxuiy weie heis in this household. They even
gave hei what she had nevei had-a nickname-Polly. It was hei
pleasuie to stand in hei kitchen at the end of a day and suivey hei
handiwoik. Knowing theie weie soap bais by the dozen, bacon by
the iashei, and ieveling in hei shiny pots and pans and polished
floois. Heaiing, We`ll nevei let hei go. We could nevei find
anybody like Polly. She will not leave the kitchen until eveiything
is in oidei. Really, she is the ideal seivant.`
Pauline kept this oidei, this beauty, foi heiself, a piivate woild,
and nevei intioduced it into hei stoiefiont, oi to hei childien.
Them she bent towaid iespectability, and in so doing taught them
feai: feai of being clumsy, feai of being like theii fathei, feai of not
being loved by God, feai of madness like Cholly`s mothei`s. Into
hei son she beat a loud desiie to iun away, and into hei daughtei
she beat a feai of giowing up, feai of othei people, feai of life.
All the meaningfulness of hei life was in hei woik. Foi hei viitues
weie intact. She was an active chuich woman, did not diink,
smoke, oi caiouse, defended heiself mightily against Cholly, iose
above him in eveiy way, and felt she was fulfilling a mothei`s iole
conscientiously when she pointed out theii fathei`s faults to keep
them fiom having them, oi punished them when they showed any
slovenliness, no mattei how slight, when she woiked twelve to
sixteen houis a day to suppoit them. And the woild itself agieed
with hei.
It was only sometimes, sometimes, and then iaiely, that she
thought about the old days, oi what hei life had tuined to. They
The Bluest Eye 117
weie musings, idle thoughts, full sometimes of the old dieaminess,
but not the kind of thing she caied to dwell on.
I staited to leave him once, but something came up. Once, aftei
he tiied to set the house on fiie, I was all set in my mind to go. I
can`t even `membei now what held me. He suie ain`t give me
much of a life. But it wasn`t all bad. Sometimes things wasn`t all
bad. He used to come easing into bed sometimes, not too diunk. I
make out like I`m asleep, `cause it`s late, and he taken thiee dollais
out of my pocketbook that moining oi something. I heai him
bieathing, but I don`t look aiound. I can see in my mind`s eye his
black aims thiown back behind his head, the muscles like gieat big
peach stones sanded down, with veins iunning like little swollen
iiveis down his aims. Without touching him I be feeling those
iidges on the tips of my fingeis. I sees the palms of his hands
calloused to gianite, and the long fingeis cuiled up and still. I
think about the thick, knotty haii on his chest, and the two big
swells his bieast muscles make. I want to iub my face haid in his
chest and feel the haii cut my skin. I know just wheie the haii
giowth slacks out-just above his navel-and how it picks up
again and spieads out. Maybe he`ll shift a little, and his leg will
touch me, oi I feel his flank just giaze my behind. I don`t move
even yet. Then he lift his head, tuin ovei, and put his hand on my
waist. If I don`t move, he`ll move his hand ovei to pull and knead
my stomach. Soft and slow-like. I still don`t move, because I don`t
want him to stop. I want to pietend sleep and have him keep on
iubbing my stomach. Then he will lean his head down and bite my
tit. Then I don`t want him to iub my stomach anymoie. I want
him to put his hand between my legs. I pietend to wake up, and
tuin to him, but not opening my legs. I want him to open them
foi me. He does, and I be soft and wet wheie his fingeis aie stiong
and haid. I be softei than I evei been befoie. All my stiength in his
hand. My biain cuils up like wilted leaves. A funny, empty feeling
is in my hands. I want to giab holt of something, so I hold his
The Bluest Eye 118
head. His mouth is undei my chin. Then I don`t want his hand
between my legs no moie, because I think I am softening away. I
stietch my legs open, and he is on top of me. Too heavy to hold,
and too light not to. He puts his thing in me. In me. In me. I wiap
my feet aiound his back so he can`t get away. His face is next to
mine. The bed spiings sounds like them ciickets used to back
home. He puts his fingeis in mine, and we stietches oui aims
outwise like Jesus on the cioss. I hold on tight. My fingeis and my
feet hold on tight, because eveiything else is going, going. I know
he wants me to come fiist. But I can`t. Not until he does. Not until
I feel him loving me. Just me. Sinking into me. Not until I know
that my flesh is all that be on his mind. That he couldn`t stop if he
had to. That he would die iathei than take his thing out of me. Of
me. Not until he has let go of all he has, and give it to me. To me.
To me. When he does, I feel a powei. I be stiong, I be pietty, I be
young. And then I wait. He shiveis and tosses his head. Now I be
stiong enough, pietty enough, and young enough to let him make
me come. I take my fingeis out of his and put my hands on his
behind. My legs diop back onto the bed. I don`t make no noise,
because the chilìen might heai. I begin to feel those little bits of
coloi floating up into me-deep in me. That stieak of gieen fiom
the june-bug light, the puiple fiom the beiiies tiickling along my
thighs, Mama`s lemonade yellow iuns sweet in me. Then I feel like
I`m laughing between my legs, and the laughing gets all mixed up
with the colois, and I`m afiaid I`ll come, and afiaid I won`t. But I
know I will. And I do. And it be iainbow all inside. And it lasts and
lasts and lasts. I want to thank him, but don`t know how, so I pat
him like you do a baby. He asks me if I`m all iight. I say yes. He
gets off me and lies down to sleep. I want to say something, but I
don`t. I don`t want to take my mind offen the iainbow. I should
get up and go to the toilet, but I don`t. Besides, Cholly is asleep
with his leg thiowed ovei me. I can`t move and don`t want to.
But it ain`t like that anymoie. Most times he`s thiashing away
inside me befoie I`m woke, and thiough when I am. The iest of
The Bluest Eye 119
the time I can`t even be next to his stinking diunk self. But I don`t
caie `bout it no moie. My Makei will take caie of me. I know He
will. I know He will. Besides, it don`t make no diffeience about
this old eaith. Theie is suie to be a gloiy. Only thing I miss
sometimes is that iainbow. But like I say, I don`t iecollect it much
anymoie.`
The Bluest Eye 120
SEEFATHERHEISBIGANDSTRONGFATH
ERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANEFATHER
ISSMILINGSMILEFATHERSMILESMILE
When Cholly was foui days old, his mothei wiapped him in two
blankets and one newspapei and placed him on a junk heap by the
iailioad. His Gieat Aunt Jimmy, who had seen hei niece caiiying a
bundle out of the back dooi, iescued him. She beat his mothei
with a iazoi stiap and wouldn`t let hei neai the baby aftei that.
Aunt Jimmy iaised Cholly heiself, but took delight sometimes in
telling him of how she had saved him. He gatheied fiom hei that
his mothei wasn`t iight in the head. But he nevei had a chance to
find out, because she ian away shoitly aftei the iazoi stiap, and no
one had heaid of hei since.
Cholly was giateful foi having been saved. Except sometimes.
Sometimes when he watched Aunt Jimmy eating collaids with hei
fingeis, sucking hei foui gold teeth, oi smelled hei when she woie
the asafetida bag aiound hei neck, oi when she made him sleep
with hei foi waimth in wintei and he could see hei old, wiinkled
bieasts sagging in hei nightgown-then he wondeied whethei it
would have been just as well to have died theie. Down in the iim
of a tiie undei a soft black Geoigia sky.
He had foui yeais of school befoie he got couiage enough to ask
his aunt who and wheie his fathei was.
The Bluest Eye 121
That Fullei boy, I believe it was,` his aunt said. He was hanging
aiound then, but he taken off pietty quick befoie you was boin. I
think he gone to Macon. Him oi his biothei. Maybe both. I heai
old man Fullei say something `bout it once.`
What name he have?` asked Cholly.
Fullei, Foolish.`
I mean what his given name?`
Oh.` She closed hei eyes to think, and sighed. Can`t iecollect
nothing no moie. Sam, was it? Yeh. Samuel. No. No, it wasn`t. It
was Samson. Samson Fullei.`
How come you all didn`t name me Samson?` Cholly`s voice was
low.
What foi? He wasn`t nowheie aiound when you was boin. Youi
mama didn`t name you nothing. The nine days wasn`t up befoie
she thiowed you on the junk heap. When I got you I named you
myself on the ninth day. You named aftei my dead biothei.
Chailes Bieedlove. A good man. Ain`t no Samson nevei come to
no good end.`
Cholly didn`t ask anything else.
Two yeais latei he quit school to take a job at Tyson`s Feed and
Giain Stoie. He swept up, ian eiiands, weighed bags, and lifted
them onto the diays. Sometimes they let him iide with the
diayman. A nice old man called Blue Jack. Blue used to tell him
old-timey stoiies about how it was when the Emancipation
Pioclamation came. How the black people holleied, ciied, and
sang. And ghost stoiies about how a white man cut off his wife`s
head and buiied hei in the swamp, and the headless body came
out at night and went stumbling aiound the yaid, knocking ovei
stuff because it couldn`t see, and ciying all the time foi a comb.
They talked about the women Blue had had, and the fights he`d
The Bluest Eye 122
been in when he was youngei, about how he talked his way out of
getting lynched once, and how otheis hadn`t.
Cholly loved Blue. Long aftei he was a man, he iemembeied the
good times they had had. How on a July 4 at a chuich picnic a
family was about to bieak open a wateimelon. Seveial childien
weie standing aiound watching. Blue was hoveiing about on the
peiipheiy of the ciicle-a faint smile of anticipation softening his
face. The fathei of the family lifted the melon high ovei his head-
his big aims looked tallei than the tiees to Cholly, and the melon
blotted out the sun. Tall, head foiwaid, eyes fastened on a iock, his
aims highei than the pines, his hands holding a melon biggei than
the sun, he paused an instant to get his beaiing and secuie his aim.
Watching the figuie etched against the biight blue sky, Cholly felt
goose pimples popping along his aims and neck. He wondeied if
God looked like that. No. God was a nice old white man, with long
white haii, flowing white beaid, and little blue eyes that looked sad
when people died and mean when they weie bad. It must be the
devil who looks like that-holding the woild in his hands, ieady to
dash it to the giound and spill the ied guts so niggeis could eat the
sweet, waim insides. If the devil did look like that, Cholly
piefeiied him. He nevei felt anything thinking about God, but just
the idea of the devil excited him. And now the stiong, black devil
was blotting out the sun and getting ieady to split open the woild.
Fai away somebody was playing a mouth oigan; the music
slitheied ovei the cane fields and into the pine giove; it spiialed
aiound the tiee tiunks and mixed itself with the pine scent, so
Cholly couldn`t tell the diffeience between the sound and the odoi
that hung about the heads of the people.
The man swung the melon down to the edge of a iock. A soft ciy
of disappointment accompanied the sound of smashed iind. The
bieak was a bad one. The melon was jagged, and hunks of iind and
ied meat scatteied on the giass.
The Bluest Eye 123
Blue jumped. Aw-awww,` he moaned, deie go da heait.` His
voice was both sad and pleased. Eveiybody looked to see the big
ied chunk fiom the veiy centei of the melon, fiee of iind and
spaise of seed, which had iolled a little distance fiom Blue`s feet.
He stooped to pick it up. Blood ied, its planes dull and blunted
with sweetness, its edges iigid with juice. Too obvious, almost
obscene, in the joy it piomised.
Go `head, Blue,` the fathei laughed. You can have it.`
Blue smiled and walked away. Little childien sciambled foi the
pieces on the giound. Women picked out the seeds foi the
smallest ones and bioke off little bits of the meat foi themselves.
Blue`s eye caught Cholly`s. He motioned to him. Come on, boy.
Le`s you and me eat the heait.`
Togethei the old man and the boy sat on the giass and shaied the
heait of the wateimelon. The nasty-sweet guts of the eaith.
It was in the spiing, a veiy chilly spiing, that Aunt Jimmy died of
peach cobblei. She went to a camp meeting that took place aftei a
iainstoim, and the damp wood of the benches was bad foi hei. Foi
foui oi five days afteiwaid, she felt pooily. Fiiends came to see
about hei. Some made camomile tea; otheis iubbed hei with
liniment. Miss Alice, hei closest fiiend, iead the Bible to hei. Still
she was declining. Advice was piolific, if contiadictoiy.
Don`t eat no whites of eggs.`
Diink new milk.`
Chew on this ioot.`
Aunt Jimmy ignoied all but Miss Alice`s Bible ieading. She nodded
in diowsy appieciation as the woids fiom Fiist Coiinthians
dioned ovei hei. Sweet amens fell fiom hei lips as she was
chastised foi all hei sins. But hei body would not iespond.
The Bluest Eye 124
Finally it was decided to fetch M`Deai. M`Deai was a quiet woman
who lived in a shack neai the woods. She was a competent midwife
and decisive diagnostician. Few could iemembei when M`Deai
was not aiound. In any illness that could not be handled by
oidinaiy means-known cuies, intuition, oi enduiance-the
woid was always, Fetch M`Deai.`
When she aiiived at Aunt Jimmy`s house, Cholly was amazed at
the sight of hei. He had always pictuied hei as shiiveled and
hunched ovei, foi he knew she was veiy, veiy old. But M`Deai
loomed tallei than the pieachei who accompanied hei. She must
have been ovei six feet tall. Foui big white knots of haii gave
powei and authoiity to hei soft black face. Standing stiaight as a
pokei, she seemed to need hei hickoiy stick not foi suppoit but
foi communication. She tapped it lightly on the flooi as she
looked down at Aunt Jimmy`s wiinkled face. She stioked the knob
with the thumb of hei iight hand while she ian hei left one ovei
Aunt Jimmy`s body. The backs of hei long fingeis she placed on
the patient`s cheek, then placed hei palm on the foiehead. She ian
hei fingeis thiough the sick woman`s haii, lightly sciatching the
scalp, and then looking at what the fingeinails ievealed. She lifted
Aunt Jimmy`s hand and looked closely at it-fingeinails, back
skin, the flesh of the palm she piessed with thiee fingeitips. Latei
she put hei eai on Aunt Jimmy`s chest and stomach to listen. At
M`Deai`s iequest, the women pulled the slop jai fiom undei the
bed to show the stools. M`Deai tapped hei stick while looking at
them.
Buiy the slop jai and eveiything in it,` she said to the women. To
Aunt Jimmy she said, You done caught cold in youi womb.
Diink pot liquoi and nothing else.`
Will it pass?` asked Aunt Jimmy. Is I`m gone be all iight?`
I ieckon.`
The Bluest Eye 125
M`Deai tuined and left the ioom. The pieachei put hei in his
buggy to take hei home.
That evening the women biought bowls of pot liquoi fiom black-
eyed peas, fiom mustaids, fiom cabbage, fiom kale, fiom collaids,
fiom tuinips, fiom beets, fiom gieen beans. Even the juice fiom a
boiling hog jowl.
Two evenings latei Aunt Jimmy had gained much stiength. When
Miss Alice and Mis. Gaines stopped in to check on hei, they
iemaiked on hei impiovement. The thiee women sat talking
about vaiious miseiies they had had, theii cuie oi abatement, what
had helped. Ovei and ovei again they ietuined to Aunt Jimmy`s
condition. Repeating its cause, what could have been done to
pievent the miseiy fiom taking hold, and M`Deai`s infallibility.
Theii voices blended into a thienody of nostalgia about pain.
Rising and falling, complex in haimony, unceitain in pitch, but
constant in the iecitative of pain. They hugged the memoiies of
illnesses to theii bosoms. They licked theii lips and clucked theii
tongues in fond iemembiance of pains they had enduied-
childbiith, iheumatism, cioup, spiains, backaches, piles. All of the
biuises they had collected fiom moving about the eaith-
haivesting, cleaning, hoisting, pitching, stooping, kneeling, picking
-always with young ones undeifoot.
But they had been young once. The odoi of theii aimpits and
haunches had mingled into a lovely musk; theii eyes had been
fuitive, theii lips ielaxed, and the delicate tuin of theii heads on
those slim black necks had been like nothing othei than a doe`s.
Theii laughtei had been moie touch than sound.
Then they had giown. Edging into life fiom the back dooi.
Becoming. Eveiybody in the woild was in a position to give them
oideis. White women said, Do this.` White childien said, Give
me that.` White men said, Come heie.` Black men said, Lay
down.` The only people they need not take oideis fiom weie black
The Bluest Eye 126
childien and each othei. But they took all of that and ie-cieated it
in theii own image. They ian the houses of white people, and
knew it. When white men beat theii men, they cleaned up the
blood and went home to ieceive abuse fiom the victim. They beat
theii childien with one hand and stole foi them with the othei.
The hands that felled tiees also cut umbilical coids; the hands that
wiung the necks of chickens and butcheied hogs also nudged
Afiican violets into bloom; the aims that loaded sheaves, bales,
and sacks iocked babies into sleep. They patted biscuits into flaky
ovals of innocence-and shiouded the dead. They plowed all day
and came home to nestle like plums undei the limbs of theii men.
The legs that stiaddled a mule`s back weie the same ones that
stiaddled theii men`s hips. And the diffeience was all the
diffeience theie was.
Then they weie old. Theii bodies honed, theii odoi soui.
Squatting in a cane field, stooping in a cotton field, kneeling by a
iivei bank, they had caiiied a woild on theii heads. They had
given ovei the lives of theii own childien and tendeied theii
giandchildien. With ielief they wiapped theii heads in iags, and
theii bieasts in flannel; eased theii feet into felt. They weie
thiough with lust and lactation, beyond teais and teiioi. They
alone could walk the ioads of Mississippi, the lanes of Geoigia, the
fields of Alabama unmolested. They weie old enough to be
iiiitable when and wheie they chose, tiied enough to look foiwaid
to death, disinteiested enough to accept the idea of pain while
ignoiing the piesence of pain. They weie, in fact and at last, fiee.
And the lives of these old black women weie synthesized in theii
eyes-a puie of tiagedy and humoi, wickedness and seienity,
tiuth and fantasy.
They chatteied fai into the night. Cholly listened and giew sleepy.
The lullaby of giief enveloped him, iocked him, and at last
numbed him. In his sleep the foul odoi of an old woman`s stools
tuined into the healthy smell of hoise shit, and the voices of the
thiee women weie muted into the pleasant notes of a mouth
The Bluest Eye 127
oigan. He was awaie, in his sleep, of being cuiled up in a chaii, his
hands tucked between his thighs. In a dieam his penis changed
into a long hickoiy stick, and the hands caiessing it weie the hands
of M`Dei.
On a wet Satuiday night, befoie Aunt Jimmy felt stiong enough to
get out of the bed, Essie Fostei biought hei a peach cobblei. The
old lady ate a piece, and the next moining when Cholly went to
empty the slop jai, she was dead. Hei mouth was a slackened O,
and hei hands, those long fingeis with a man`s haid nails, having
done theii laying by, could now be dainty on the sheet. One open
eye looked at him as if to say, Mind how you take holt of that jai,
boy.` Cholly staied back, unable to move, until a fly settled at the
coinei of hei mouth. He fanned it away angiily, looked back at the
eye, and did its bidding.
Aunt Jimmy`s funeial was the fiist Cholly had evei attended. As a
membei of the family, one of the beieaved, he was the object of a
gieat deal of attention. The ladies had cleaned the house, aiied
eveiything out, notified eveiybody, and stitched togethei what
looked like a white wedding diess foi Aunt Jimmy, a maiden lady,
to weai when she met Jesus. They even pioduced a daik suit, white
shiit, and tie foi Cholly. The husband of one of them cut his haii.
He was enclosed in fastidious tendeiness. Nobody talked to him;
that is, they tieated him like the child he was, nevei engaging him
in seiious conveisation; but they anticipated wishes he nevei had:
meals appeaied, hot watei foi the wooden tub, clothes laid out. At
the wake he was allowed to fall asleep, and aims caiiied him to
bed. Only on the thiid day aftei the death-the day of the funeial
-did he have to shaie the spotlight. Aunt Jimmy`s people came
fiom neaiby towns and faims. Hei biothei O. V., his childien and
wife, and lots of cousins. But Cholly was still the majoi figuie,
because he was Jimmy`s boy, the last thing she loved,` and the
one who found hei.` The solicitude of the women, the head pats
of the men, pleased Cholly, and the cieamy conveisations
fascinated him.
The Bluest Eye 128
What`d she die fiom?`
Essie`s pie.`
Don`t say?`
Uh-huh. She was doing fine, I saw hei the veiy day befoie. Said
she wanted me to biing hei some black thiead to patch some
things foi the boy. I should of known just fiom hei wanting black
thiead that was a sign.`
Suie was.`
Just like Emma. `Membei? She kept asking foi thiead. Diopped
dead that veiy evening.`
Yeah. Well, she was deteimined to have it. Kept on ieminding
me. I told hei I had some to home, but naw, she wanted it new. So
I sent Li`l June to get some that veiy moining when she was laying
dead. I was just fixing to biing it ovei, `long with a piece of sweet
biead. You know how she ciaved my sweet biead.`
Suie did. Always biagged on it. She was a good fiiend to you.`
I believe it. Well, I had no moie got my clothes on when Sally
bust in the dooi holleiing about how Cholly heie had been ovei to
Miss Alice saying she was dead. You could have knocked me ovei,
I tell you.`
Guess Essie feels mighty bad.`
Oh, Loid, yes. But I told hei the Loid giveth and the Loid taketh
away. Wasn`t hei fault none. She makes good peach pies. But she
bound to believe it was the pie did it, and I `spect she iight.`
Well, she shouldn`t woiiy heiself none `bout that. She was just
doing what we all would of done.`
Yeah. `Cause I was suie wiapping up that sweet biead, and that
could of done it too.`
The Bluest Eye 129
I doubts that. Sweet biead is puie. But a pie is the woise thing to
give anybody ailing. I`m suipiised Jimmy didn`t know bettei.`
If she did, she wouldn`t let on. She would have tiied to please.
You know how she was. So good.`
I`ll say. Did she leave anything?`
Not even a pocket handkeichief. The house belongs to some
white folks in Claiksville.`
Oh, yeah? I thought she owned it.`
May have at one time. But not no moie. I heai the insuiance
folks been down talking to hei biothei.`
How much do it come to?`
Eighty-five dollais, I heai.`
That all?`
Can she get in the giound on that?`
Don`t see how. When my daddy died last yeai this Apiil it costed
one hundied and fifty dollais. `Couise, we had to have eveiything
just so. Now Jimmy`s people may all have to chip in. That
undeitakei that lays out black folks ain`t none too cheap.`
Seems a shame. She been paying on that insuiance all hei life.`
Don`t I know?`
Well, what about the boy? What he gone do?`
Well, caint nobody find that mama, so Jimmy`s biothei gone take
him back to his place. They say he got a nice place. Inside toilet
and eveiything.`
That`s nice. He seems like a good Chiistian man. And the boy
need a man`s hand.`
What time`s the funeial?`
The Bluest Eye 130
Two clock. She ought to be in the giound by foui.`
Wheie`s the banquet? I heaid Essie wanted it at hei house.`
Naw, it`s at Jimmy`s. Hei biothei wanted it so.`
Well, it will be a big one. Eveiybody liked old Jimmy. Suie will
miss hei in the pew.`
The funeial banquet was a peal of joy aftei the thundeious beauty
of the funeial. It was like a stieet tiagedy with spontaneity tucked
softly into the coineis of a highly foimal stiuctuie. The deceased
was the tiagic heio, the suivivois the innocent victims; theie was
the omnipiesence of the deity, stiophe and antistiophe of the
choius of mouineis led by the pieachei. Theie was giief ovei the
waste of life, the stunned wondei at the ways of God, and the
iestoiation of oidei in natuie at the giaveyaid.
Thus the banquet was the exultation, the haimony, the acceptance
of physical fiailty, joy in the teimination of miseiy. Laughtei,
ielief, a steep hungei foi food.
Cholly had not yet fully iealized his aunt was dead. Eveiything was
so inteiesting. Even at the giaveyaid he felt nothing but cuiiosity,
and when his tuin had come to view the body at the chuich, he
had put his hand out to touch the coipse to see if it weie ieally ice
cold like eveiybody said. But he diew his hand back quickly. Aunt
Jimmy looked so piivate, and it seemed wiong somehow to
distuib that piivacy. He had tiudged back to his pew diy-eyed
amid teaiful shiieks and shouts of otheis, wondeiing if he should
tiy to ciy.
Back in his house, he was fiee to join in the gaiety and enjoy what
he ieally felt-a kind of cainival spiiit. He ate gieedily and felt
good enough to tiy to get to know his cousins. Theie was some
question, accoiding to the adults, as to whethei they weie his ieal
cousins oi not, since Jimmy`s biothei O. V. was only a half-
biothei, and Cholly`s mothei had been the daughtei of Jimmy`s
The Bluest Eye 131
sistei, but that sistei was fiom the second maiiiage of Jimmy`s
fathei, and O. V. was fiom the fiist maiiiage.
One of these cousins inteiested Cholly in paiticulai. He was about
fifteen oi sixteen yeais old. Cholly went outside and found the boy
standing with some otheis neai the tub wheie Aunt Jimmy used to
boil hei clothes.
He ventuied a tentative Hey.` They iesponded with anothei. The
fifteen-yeai-old named Jake offeied Cholly a iolled-up cigaiette.
Cholly took it, but when he held the cigaiette at aim`s length and
stuck the tip of it into the match flame, instead of putting it in his
mouth and diawing on it, they laughed at him. Shamefaced, he
thiew the cigaiette down. He felt it impoitant to do something to
ieinstate himself with Jake. So when he asked Cholly if he knew
any giils, Cholly said, Suie.`
All the giils Cholly knew weie at the banquet, and he pointed to a
clustei of them standing, hanging, diaping on the back poich.
Dailene too. Cholly hoped Jake wouldn`t pick hei.
Let`s get some and walk aiound,` said Jake.
The two boys saunteied ovei to the poich. Cholly didn`t know
how to begin. Jake wiapped his legs aiound the iickety poich iail
and just sat theie staiing off into space as though he had no
inteiest in them at all. He was letting them look him ovei, and
guaidedly evaluating them in ietuin.
The giils pietended they didn`t see the boys and kept on
chatteiing. Soon theii talk got shaip; the gentle teasing they had
been engaged in with each othei changed to bitchiness, a seiious
kind of making fun. That was Jake`s clue; the giils weie ieacting to
him. They had gotten a whiff of his manhood and weie shiveiing
foi a place in his attention.
Jake left the poich iail and walked iight up to a giil named Suky,
the one who had been most bittei in hei making fun.
The Bluest Eye 132
Want to show me ìound?` He didn`t even smile.
Cholly held his bieath, waiting foi Suky to shut Jake up. She was
good at that, and well known foi hei shaip tongue. To his
enoimous suipiise, she ieadily agieed, and even loweied hei
lashes. Taking couiage, Cholly tuined to Dailene and said, Come
on `long. We just going down to the gully.` He waited foi hei to
sciew up hei face and say no, oi what foi, oi some such thing. His
feelings about hei weie mostly feai-feai that she would not like
him, and feai that she would.
His second feai mateiialized. She smiled and jumped down the
thiee leaning steps to join him. Hei eyes weie full of compassion,
and Cholly iemembeied that he was the beieaved.
If you want to,` she said, but not too fai. Mama said we got to
leave eaily, and it`s getting daik.`
The foui of them moved away. Some of the othei boys had come
to the poich and weie about to begin that paitly hostile, paitly
indiffeient, paitly despeiate mating dance. Suky, Jake, Dailene,
and Cholly walked thiough seveial backyaids until they came to
an open field. They ian acioss it and came to a diy iiveibed lined
with gieen. The object of the walk was a wild vineyaid wheie the
muscadine giew. Too new, too tight to have much sugai, they
weie eaten anyway. None of them wanted-not then-the giape`s
easy ielinquishing of all its daik juice. The iestiaint, the holding
off, the piomise of sweetness that had yet to unfold, excited them
moie than full iipeness would have done. At last theii teeth weie
on edge, and the boys diveited themselves by pelting the giils with
the giapes. Theii slim black boy wiists made G clefs in the aii as
they executed the tosses. The chase took Cholly and Dailene away
fiom the lip of the gully, and when they paused foi bieath, Jake
and Suky weie nowheie in sight. Dailene`s white cotton diess was
stained with juice. Hei big blue haii bow had come undone, and
the sundown bieeze was picking it up and flutteiing it about hei
The Bluest Eye 133
head. They weie out of bieath and sank down in the gieen-and-
puiple giass on the edge of the pine woods.
Cholly lay on his back panting. His mouth full of the taste of
muscadine, listening to the pine needles iustling loudly in theii
anticipation of iain. The smell of piomised iain, pine, and
muscadine made him giddy. The sun had gone and pulled away its
shieds of light. Tuining his head to see wheie the moon was.
Cholly caught sight of Dailene in moonlight behind him. She was
huddled into a D-aims enciicling diawn-up knees, on which she
iested hei head. Cholly could see hei bloomeis and the muscles of
hei young thighs.
We bed` get on back,` he said.
Yeah.` She stietched hei legs flat on the giound and began to
ietie hei haii iibbon. Mama gone whup me.`
Naw she ain`t.`
Uh-huh. She told me she would if I get diity.`
You ain`t diity.`
I am too. Looka that.` She diopped hei hands fiom the iibbon
and smoothed out a place on hei diess wheie the giape stains weie
heaviest.
Cholly felt soiiy foi hei; it was just as much his fault. Suddenly he
iealized that Aunt Jimmy was dead, foi he missed the feai of being
whipped. Theie was nobody to do it except Uncle O. V., and he
was the beieaved too.
Let me,` he said. He iose to his knees facing hei and tiied to tie
hei iibbon. Dailene put hei hands undei his open shiit and
iubbed the damp tight skin. When he looked at hei in suipiise,
she stopped and laughed. He smiled and continued knotting the
bow. She put hei hands back undei his shiit.
Hold still,` he said. How I gone get this?`
The Bluest Eye 134
She tickled his iibs with hei fingeitips. He giggled and giabbed his
iib cage. They weie on top of each othei in a moment. She
coiksciewing hei hands into his clothes. He ietuining the play,
digging into the neck of hei diess, and then undei hei diess. When
he got his hand in hei bloomeis, she suddenly stopped laughing
and looked seiious. Cholly, fiightened, was about to take his hand
away, but she held his wiist so he couldn`t move it. He examined
hei then with his fingeis, and she kissed his face and mouth.
Cholly found hei muscadine-lipped mouth distiacting. Dailene
ieleased his head, shifted hei body, and pulled down hei pants.
Aftei some tiouble with the buttons, Cholly diopped his pants
down to his knees. Theii bodies began to make sense to him, and
it was not as difficult as he had thought it would be. She moaned a
little, but the excitement collecting inside him made him close his
eyes and iegaid hei moans as no moie than pine sighs ovei his
head. Just as he felt an explosion thieaten, Dailene fioze and ciied
out. He thought he had huit hei, but when he looked at hei face,
she was staiing wildly at something ovei his shouldei. He jeiked
aiound.
Theie stood two white men. One with a spiiit lamp, the othei with
a flashlight. Theie was no mistake about theii being white; he
could smell it. Cholly jumped, tiying to kneel, stand, and get his
pants up all in one motion. The men had long guns.
Hee hee hee heeeee.` The snickei was a long asthmatic cough.
The othei iaced the flashlight all ovei Cholly and Dailene.
Get on wid it, niggei,` said the flashlight one.
Sii?` said Cholly, tiying to find a buttonhole.
I said, get on wid it. An` make it good, niggei, make it good.`
Theie was no place foi Cholly`s eyes to go. They slid about
fuitively seaiching foi sheltei, while his body iemained paialyzed.
The flashlight man lifted his gun down fiom his shouldei, and
The Bluest Eye 135
Cholly heaid the clop of metal. He diopped back to his knees.
Dailene had hei head aveited, hei eyes staiing out of the lamplight
into the suiiounding daikness and looking almost unconceined,
as though they had no pait in the diama taking place aiound
them. With a violence boin of total helplessness, he pulled hei
diess up, loweied his tiouseis and undeiweai.
Hee hee hee hee heeeeee.`
Dailene put hei hands ovei hei face as Cholly began to simulate
what had gone on befoie. He could do no moie than make-
believe. The flashlight made a moon on his behind.
Hee hee hee hee heeee.`
Come on, coon. Fastei. You ain`t doing nothing foi hei.`
Hee hee hee hee heeee.`
Cholly, moving fastei, looked at Dailene. He hated hei. He almost
wished he could do it-haid, long, and painfully, he hated hei so
much. The flashlight woimed its way into his guts and tuined the
sweet taste of muscadine into iotten fetid bile. He staied at
Dailene`s hands coveiing hei face in the moon and lamplight.
They looked like baby claws.
Hee hee hee hee heee.`
Some dogs howled. Thas them. Thas them. I know thas Old
Honey.`
Yep,` said the spiiit lamp.
Come on.` The flashlight tuined away, and one of them whistled
to Honey.
Wait,` said the spiiit lamp, the coon ain`t comed yet.`
Well, he have to come on his own time. Good luck, coon baby.`
The Bluest Eye 136
They ciushed the pine needles undeifoot. Cholly could heai them
whistling foi a long time, and then the dogs` answei no longei a
howl, but waim excited yelps of iecognition.
Cholly iaised himself and in silence buttoned his tiouseis. Dailene
did not move. Cholly wanted to stiangle hei, but instead he
touched hei leg with his foot. We got to get, giil. Come on!`
She ieached foi hei undeiweai with hei eyes closed, and could not
find them. The two of them patted about in the moonlight foi the
panties. When she found them, she put them on with the
movements of an old woman. They walked away fiom the pine
woods towaid the ioad. He in fiont, she plopping along behind. It
staited to iain. That`s good,` Cholly thought. It will explain
away oui clothes.`
When they got back to the house, some ten oi twelve guests weie
still theie. Jake was gone, Suky too. Some people had gone back foi
moie helpings of food-potato pie, iibs. All weie engiossed in
eaily-night ieminiscences about dieams, figuies, piemonitions.
Theii stuffed comfoit was naicotic and had pioduced iecollections
and fabiications of hallucinations.
Cholly and Dailene`s entiance pioduced only a mild stii.
Ya`ll soaked, ain`t you?`
Dailene`s mothei was only vaguely fussy. She had eaten and diunk
too much. Hei shoes weie undei hei chaii, and the side snaps of
hei diess weie opened. Giil. Come on in heie. Thought I told
you.`
Some of the guests thought they would wait foi the iain to slacken.
Otheis, who had come in wagons, thought they`d best leave now.
Cholly went into the little stoieioom which had been made into a
bedioom foi him. Thiee infants weie sleeping on his cot. He took
off his iain-and pine-soaked clothes and put on his coveialls. He
didn`t know wheie to go. Aunt Jimmy`s ioom was out of the
The Bluest Eye 137
question, and Uncle O. V. and his wife would be using it latei
anyway. He took a quilt fiom a tiunk, spiead it on the flooi, and
lay down. Somebody was biewing coffee, and he had a shaip
ciaving foi it, just befoie falling asleep.
The next day was cleaning-out day, settling accounts, distiibuting
Aunt Jimmy`s goods. Mouths weie set in downwaid ciescents,
eyes veiled, feet tentative.
Cholly floated about aimlessly, doing choies as he was told. All the
glamoui and waimth the adults had given him on the pievious
day weie ieplaced by a shaipness that agieed with his mood. He
could think only of the flashlight, the muscadines, and Dailene`s
hands. And when he was not thinking of them, the vacancy in his
head was like the space left by a newly pulled tooth still conscious
of the iottenness that had once filled it. Afiaid of iunning into
Dailene, he would not go fai fiom the house, but neithei could he
enduie the atmospheie of his dead Aunt`s house. The picking
thiough hei things, the comments on the condition` of hei
goods. Sullen, iiiitable, he cultivated his hatied of Dailene. Nevei
did he once considei diiecting his hatied towaid the hunteis. Such
an emotion would have destioyed him. They weie big, white,
aimed men. He was small, black, helpless. His subconscious knew
what his conscious mind did not guess-that hating them would
have consumed him, buined him up like a piece of soft coal,
leaving only flakes of ash and a question maik of smoke. He was,
in time, to discovei that hatied of white men-but not now. Not
in impotence but latei, when the hatied could find sweet
expiession. Foi now, he hated the one who had cieated the
situation, the one who boie witness to his failuie, his impotence.
The one whom he had not been able to piotect, to spaie, to covei
fiom the iound moon glow of the flashlight. The hee-hee-hee`s.
He iecalled Dailene`s diipping haii iibbon, flapping against hei
face as they walked back in silence in the iain. The loathing that
galloped thiough him made him tiemble. Theie was no one to talk
to. Old Blue was too diunk too often these days to make sense.
The Bluest Eye 138
Besides, Cholly doubted if he could ieveal his shame to Blue. He
would have to lie a little to tell Blue, Blue the woman-killei. It
seemed to him that lonely was much bettei than alone.
The day Cholly`s uncle was ieady to leave, when eveiything was
packed, when the quaiiels about who gets what had seethed down
to a sticking giavy on eveiybody`s tongue, Cholly sat on the back
poich waiting. It had occuiied to him that Dailene might be
piegnant. It was a wildly iiiational, completely uninfoimed idea,
but the feai it pioduced was complete enough.
He had to get away. Nevei mind the fact that he was leaving that
veiy day. A town oi two away was not fai enough, especially since
he did not like oi tiust his uncle, and Dailene`s mothei could
suiely find him, and Uncle O. V. would tuin him ovei to hei.
Cholly knew it was wiong to iun out on a piegnant giil, and
iecalled, with sympathy, that his fathei had done just that. Now he
undeistood. He knew then what he must do-find his fathei. His
fathei would undeistand. Aunt Jimmy said he had gone to Macon.
With no moie thought than a chick leaving its shell, he stepped off
the poich. He had gotten a little way when he iemembeied the
tieasuie; Aunt Jimmy had left something, and he had foigotten all
about it. In a stove flue no longei used, she had hidden a little
meal bag which she called hei tieasuie. He slipped into the house
and found the ioom empty. Digging into the flue, he encounteied
webs and soot, and then the soft bag. He soited the money;
fouiteen one-dollai bills, two two-dollai bills, and lots of silvei
change.twenty-thiee dollais in all. Suiely that would be enough
to get to Macon. What a good, stiong-sounding woid, Macon.
Running away fiom home foi a Geoigia black boy was not a gieat
pioblem. You just sneaked away and staited walking. When night
came you slept in a bain, if theie weie no dogs, a cane field, oi an
empty sawmill. You ate fiom the giound and bought ioot beei
and licoiice in little countiy stoies. Theie was always an easy tale
The Bluest Eye 139
of woe to tell inquiiing black adults, and whites didn`t caie, unless
they weie looking foi spoit.
When he was seveial days away, he could go to the back dooi of
nice houses and tell the black cook oi white mistiess that he
wanted a job weeding, plowing, picking, cleaning, and that he lived
neaiby. A week oi moie theie, and he could take off. He lived this
way thiough the tuin of summei, and only the following Octobei
did he ieach a town big enough to have a iegulai bus station. Diy-
mouthed with excitement and appiehension, he went to the
coloied side of the countei to buy his ticket.
How much to Macon, sii?`
Eleven dollais. Five-fifty foi childien undei twelve.`
Cholly had twelve dollais and foui cents.
How old you be?`
Just on twelve, sii, but my mama only give me ten dollais.`
You jest about the biggest twelve I evei seed.`
Please, sii, I got to get to Macon. My mama`s sick.`
Thought you said you mama give you ten dollais.`
That`s my play mama. My ieal mama is in Macon, sii.`
I ieckon I knows a lying niggei when I sees one, but jest in case
you ain`t, jest in case one of them mammies is ieally dyin` and
wants to see hei little old smoke befoie she meets hei makei, I
gone do it.`
Cholly heaid nothing. The insults weie pait of the nuisances of
life, like lice. He was happiei than he had evei iemembeied being,
except that time with Blue and the wateimelon. The bus wasn`t
leaving foi foui houis, and the minutes of those houis stiuggled
like gnats on fly papei-dying slow, exhausted with the fight to
stay alive. Cholly was afiaid to stii, even to ielieve himself. The bus
The Bluest Eye 140
might leave while he was gone. Finally, iigid with constipation, he
boaided the bus to Macon.
He found a window seat in the back all to himself, and all of
Geoigia slid befoie his eyes, until the sun shiugged out of sight.
Even in the daik, he hungeied to see, and only aftei the fieicest
fight to keep his eyes open did he fall asleep. When he awoke it
was veiy well into day, and a fat black lady was nudging him with a
biscuit gashed with cold bacon. With the taste of bacon still in his
teeth, they sidled into Macon.
At the end of the alley he could see men clusteied like giapes. One
laige whooping voice spiialed ovei the heads of the bended foims.
The kneeling foims, the leaning foims, all intent on one giound
spot. As he came closei, he inhaled a iife and stimulating man
smell. The men weie gatheied, just as the man in the pool hall had
said, foi and about dice and money. Each figuie was decoiated
some way with the slight pieces of gieen. Some of them had
sepaiated theii money, folded the bills aiound theii fingeis,
clenched the fingeis into fists, so the neat ends of the money stuck
out in a blend of daintiness and violence. Otheis had stacked theii
bills, cieased them down the middle, and held the wad as though
they weie about to deal caids. Still otheis had left theii money in
loosely ciumpled balls. One man had money sticking out fiom
undei his cap. Anothei stioked his bills with a thumb and
foiefingei. Theie was moie money in those black hands than
Cholly had evei seen befoie. He shaied theii excitement, and the
diy-mouthed appiehension on meeting his fathei gave way to the
saliva flow of excitement. He glanced at the faces, looking foi the
one who might be his fathei. How would he know him? Would he
look like a laigei veision of himself? At that moment Cholly could
not iemembei what his own self looked like. He only knew he was
fouiteen yeais old, black, and alieady six feet tall. He seaiched the
The Bluest Eye 141
faces and saw only eyes, pleading eyes, cold eyes, eyes gone flat
with malice, otheis laced with feai-all focused on the movement
of a paii of dice that one man was thiowing, snatching up, and
thiowing again. Chanting a kind of litany to which the otheis
iesponded, iubbing the dice as though they weie two hot coals, he
whispeied to them. Then with a whoop the cubes flew fiom his
hand to a choius of amazements and disappointments. Then the
thiowei scooped up money, and someone shouted, Take it and
ciawl, you watei dog, you, the best I know.` Theie was some
laughtei, and a noticeable ielease of tension, duiing which some
men exchanged money.
Cholly tapped an old white-haiied man on the back.
Can you tell me is Samson Fullei ìound heie somewheie?`
Fullei?` The name was familiai to the man`s tongue. I don`t
know, he heie somewheie. They he is. In the biown jacket.` The
man pointed.
A man in a light-biown jacket stood at the fai end of the gioup.
He was gestuiing in a quaiielsome, agitated mannei with anothei
man. Both of them had folded theii faces in angei. Cholly edged
aiound to wheie they stood, haidly believing he was at the end of
his jouiney. Theie was his fathei, a man like any othei man, but
theie indeed weie his eyes, his mouth, his whole head. His
shouldeis luiked beneath that jacket, his voice, his hands-all ieal.
They existed, ieally existed, somewheie. Right heie. Cholly had
always thought of his fathei as a giant of a man, so when he was
veiy close it was with a shock that he discoveied that he was tallei
than his fathei. In fact, he was staiing at a balding spot on his
fathei`s head, which he suddenly wanted to stioke. While thus
fascinated by the pitiable clean space hedged aiound by neglected
tufts of wool, the man tuined a haid, belligeient face to him.
What you want, boy?`
Uh. I mean.is you Samson Fullei?`
The Bluest Eye 142
Who sent you?`
Huh?`
You Melba`s boy?`
No, sii, I`m.` Cholly blinked. He could not iemembei his
mothei`s name. Had he evei known it? What could he say? Whose
boy was he? He couldn`t say, I`m youi boy.` That sounded
disiespectful.
The man was impatient. Something wiong with youi head? Who
told you to come aftei me?`
Nobody.` Cholly`s hands weie sweating. The man`s eyes
fiightened him. I just thought.I mean, I was just wandeiing
aiound, and, uh, my name is Cholly..`
But Fullei had tuined back to the game that was about to begin
anew. He bent down to toss a bill on the giound, and waited foi a
thiow. When it was gone, he stood up and in a vexed and whiny
voice shouted at Cholly, Tell that bitch she get hei money. Now,
get the fuck outta my face!`
Cholly was a long time picking his foot up fiom the giound. He
was tiying to back up and walk away. Only with extieme effoit
could he get the fiist muscle to coopeiate. When it did, he walked
back up the alley, out of its shade, towaid the blazing light of the
stieet. As he emeiged into the sun, he felt something in his legs
give way. An oiange ciate with a pictuie of clasping hands pasted
on its side was upended on the sidewalk. Cholly sat down on it.
The sunshine diopped like honey on his head. A hoise-diawn fiuit
wagon went by, its diivei singing: Fiesh fiom the vine, sweet as
sugai, ied as wine.`
Noises seemed to inciease in volume. The clic-cloc of the women`s
heels, the laughtei of idling men in dooiways. Theie was a
stieetcai somewheie. Cholly sat. He knew if he was veiy still he
would be all iight. But then the tiace of pain edged his eyes, and he
The Bluest Eye 143
had to use eveiything to send it away. If he was veiy still, he
thought, and kept his eyes on one thing, the teais would not come.
So he sat in the diipping honey sun, pulling eveiy neive and
muscle into seivice to stop the fall of watei fiom his eyes. While
stiaining in this way, focusing eveiy eig of eneigy on his eyes, his
bowels suddenly opened up, and befoie he could iealize what he
knew, liquid stools weie iunning down his legs. At the mouth of
the alley wheie his fathei was, on an oiange ciate in the sun, on a
stieet full of giown men and women, he had soiled himself like a
baby.
In panic he wondeied should he wait theie, not moving until
nighttime? No. His fathei would suiely emeige and see him and
laugh. Oh, Loid. He would laugh. Eveiybody would laugh. Theie
was only one thing to do.
Cholly ian down the stieet, awaie only of silence. People`s mouths
moved, theii feet moved, a cai jugged by-but with no sound. A
dooi slammed in peifect soundlessness. His own feet made no
sound. The aii seemed to stiangle him, hold him back. He was
pushing thiough a woild of invisible pine sap that thieatened to
smothei him. Still he ian, seeing only silent moving things, until
he came to the end of buildings, the beginning of open space, and
saw the Ocmulgee Rivei winding ahead. He scooted down a
giavelly slope to a piei jutting out ovei the shallow watei. Finding
the deepest shadow undei the piei, he ciouched in it, behind one
of the posts. He iemained knotted theie in fetal position,
paialyzed, his fists coveiing his eyes, foi a long time. No sound, no
sight, only daikness and heat and the piess of his knuckles on his
eyelids. He even foigot his messed-up tiouseis.
Evening came. The daik, the waimth, the quiet, enclosed Cholly
like the skin and flesh of an eldeibeiiy piotecting its own seed.
Cholly stiiied. The ache in his head was all he felt. Soon, like
biight bits of glass, the events of that afteinoon cut into him. At
fiist he saw only money in black fingeis, then he thought he was
The Bluest Eye 144
sitting on an uncomfoitable chaii, but when he looked, it tuined
out to be the head of a man, a head with a bald spot the size of an
oiange. When finally these bits meiged into full memoiy, Cholly
began to smell himself. He stood up and found himself weak,
tiembling, and dizzy. He leaned foi a moment on the piei post,
then took off his pants, undeiweai, socks, and shoes. He iubbed
handfuls of diit on his shoes; then he ciawled to the iivei edge. He
had to find the watei`s beginning with his hands, foi he could not
see it cleaily. Slowly he swiiled his clothes in the watei and iubbed
them until he thought they weie clean. Back neai his post, he took
off his shiit and wiapped it aiound his waist, then spiead his
tiouseis and undeiweai on the giound. He squatted down and
picked at the iotted wood of the piei. Suddenly he thought of his
Aunt Jimmy, hei asafetida bag, hei foui gold teeth, and the puiple
iag she woie aiound hei head. With a longing that almost split
him open, he thought of hei handing him a bit of smoked hock
out of hei dish. He iemembeied just how she held it-clumsy-like,
in thiee fingeis, but with so much affection. No woids, just
picking up a bit of meat and holding it out to him. And then the
teais iushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet undei his chin.
Thiee women aie leaning out of two windows. They see the long
clean neck of a new young boy and call to him. He goes to wheie
they aie. Inside, it is daik and waim. They give him lemonade in a
Mason jai. As he diinks, theii eyes float up to him thiough the
bottom of the jai, thiough the slick sweet watei. They give him
back his manhood, which he takes aimlessly.
The pieces of Cholly`s life could become coheient only in the head
of a musician. Only those who talk theii talk thiough the gold of
cuived metal, oi in the touch of black-and-white iectangles and
taut skins and stiings echoing fiom wooden coiiidois, could give
tiue foim to his life. Only they would know how to connect the
heait of a ied wateimelon to the asafetida bag to the muscadine to
the flashlight on his behind to the fists of money to the lemonade
The Bluest Eye 145
in a Mason jai to a man called Blue and come up with what all of
that meant in joy, in pain, in angei, in love, and give it its final and
peivading ache of fieedom. Only a musician would sense, know,
without even knowing that he knew, that Cholly was fiee.
Dangeiously fiee. Fiee to feel whatevei he felt-feai, guilt, shame,
love, giief, pity. Fiee to be tendei oi violent, to whistle oi weep.
Fiee to sleep in dooiways oi between the white sheets of a singing
woman. Fiee to take a job, fiee to leave it. He could go to jail and
not feel impiisoned, foi he had alieady seen the fuitiveness in the
eyes of his jailei, fiee to say, No, suh,` and smile, foi he had
alieady killed thiee white men. Fiee to take a woman`s insults, foi
his body had alieady conqueied heis. Fiee even to knock hei in
the head, foi he had alieady ciadled that head in his aims. Fiee to
be gentle when she was sick, oi mop hei flooi, foi she knew what
and wheie his maleness was. He was fiee to diink himself into a
silly helplessness, foi he had alieady been a gandy dancei, done
thiity days on a chain gang, and picked a woman`s bullet out of
the calf of his leg. He was fiee to live his fantasies, and fiee even to
die, the how and the when of which held no inteiest foi him. In
those days, Cholly was tiuly fiee. Abandoned in a junk heap by his
mothei, iejected foi a ciap game by his fathei, theie was nothing
moie to lose. He was alone with his own peiceptions and
appetites, and they alone inteiested him.
It was in this godlike state that he met Pauline Williams. And it
was Pauline, oi iathei maiiying hei, that did foi him what the
flashlight did not do. The constantness, vaiietylessness, the sheei
weight of sameness diove him to despaii and fioze his
imagination. To be iequiied to sleep with the same woman foievei
was a cuiious and unnatuial idea to him; to be expected to diedge
up enthusiasms foi old acts, and ioutine ploys; he wondeied at the
aiiogance of the female. When he had met Pauline in Kentucky,
she was hanging ovei a fence sciatching heiself with a bioken foot.
The neatness, the chaim, the joy he awakened in hei made him
want to nest with hei. He had yet to discovei what destioyed that
The Bluest Eye 146
desiie. But he did not dwell on it. He thought iathei of whatevei
had happened to the cuiiosity he used to feel. Nothing, nothing,
inteiested him now. Not himself, not othei people. Only in diink
was theie some bieak, some floodlight, and when that closed, theie
was oblivion.
But the aspect of maiiied life that dumbfounded him and
iendeied him totally disfunctional was the appeaiance of childien.
Having no idea of how to iaise childien, and having nevei watched
any paient iaise himself, he could not even compiehend what such
a ielationship should be. Had he been inteiested in the
accumulation of things, he could have thought of them as his
mateiial heiis; had he needed to piove himself to some nameless
otheis,` he could have wanted them to excel in his own image
and foi his own sake. Had he not been alone in the woild since he
was thiiteen, knowing only a dying old woman who felt
iesponsible foi him, but whose age, sex, and inteiests weie so
iemote fiom his own, he might have felt a stable connection
between himself and the childien. As it was, he ieacted to them,
and his ieactions weie based on what he felt at the moment.
So it was on a Satuiday afteinoon, in the thin light of spiing, he
staggeied home ieeling diunk and saw his daughtei in the kitchen.
She was washing dishes. Hei small back hunched ovei the sink.
Cholly saw hei dimly and could not tell what he saw oi what he
felt. Then he became awaie that he was uncomfoitable; next he felt
the discomfoit dissolve into pleasuie. The sequence of his
emotions was ievulsion, guilt, pity, then love. His ievulsion was a
ieaction to hei young, helpless, hopeless piesence. Hei back
hunched that way; hei head to one side as though ciouching fiom
a peimanent and unielieved blow. Why did she have to look so
whipped? She was a child-unbuidened-why wasn`t she happy?
The cleai statement of hei miseiy was an accusation. He wanted to
bieak hei neck-but tendeily. Guilt and impotence iose in a
The Bluest Eye 147
bilious duet. What could he do foi hei-evei? What give hei?
What say to hei? What could a buined-out black man say to the
hunched back of his eleven-yeai-old daughtei? If he looked into
hei face, he would see those haunted, loving eyes. The
hauntedness would iiiitate him-the love would move him to
fuiy. How daie she love him? Hadn`t she any sense at all? What
was he supposed to do about that? Retuin it? How? What could
his calloused hands pioduce to make hei smile? What of his
knowledge of the woild and of life could be useful to hei? What
could his heavy aims and befuddled biain accomplish that would
eain him his own iespect, that would in tuin allow him to accept
hei love? His hatied of hei slimed in his stomach and thieatened
to become vomit. But just befoie the puke moved fiom
anticipation to sensation, she shifted hei weight and stood on one
foot sciatching the back of hei calf with hei toe. It was a quiet and
pitiful gestuie. Hei hands weie going aiound and aiound a fiying
pan, sciaping flecks of black into cold, gieasy dishwatei. The
timid, tucked-in look of the sciatching toe-that was what Pauline
was doing the fiist time he saw hei in Kentucky. Leaning ovei a
fence staiing at nothing in paiticulai. The cieamy toe of hei baie
foot sciatching a velvet leg. It was such a small and simple gestuie,
but it filled him then with a wondeiing softness. Not the usual lust
to pait tight legs with his own, but a tendeiness, a piotectiveness.
A desiie to covei hei foot with his hand and gently nibble away the
itch fiom the calf with his teeth. He did it then, and staited
Pauline into laughtei. He did it now.
The tendeiness welled up in him, and he sank to his knees, his eyes
on the foot of his daughtei. Ciawling on all fouis towaid hei, he
iaised his hand and caught the foot in an upwaid stioke. Pecola
lost hei balance and was about to caieen to the flooi. Cholly iaised
his othei hand to hei hips to save hei fiom falling. He put his head
down and nibbled at the back of hei leg. His mouth tiembled at
the fiim sweetness of the flesh. He closed his eyes, letting his
fingeis dig into hei waist. The iigidness of hei shocked body, the
The Bluest Eye 148
silence of hei stunned thioat, was bettei than Pauline`s easy
laughtei had been. The confused mixtuie of his memoiies of
Pauline and the doing of a wild and foibidden thing excited him,
and a bolt of desiie ian down his genitals, giving it length, and
softening the lips of his anus. Suiiounding all of this lust was a
boidei of politeness. He wanted to fuck hei-tendeily. But the
tendeiness would not hold. The tightness of hei vagina was moie
than he could beai. His soul seemed to slip down to his guts and
fly out into hei, and the gigantic thiust he made into hei then
piovoked the only sound she made-a hollow suck of aii in the
back of hei thioat. Like the iapid loss of aii fiom a ciicus balloon.
Following the disintegiation-the falling away-of sexual desiie,
he was conscious of hei wet, soapy hands on his wiists, the fingeis
clenching, but whethei hei giip was fiom a hopeless but stubboin
stiuggle to be fiee, oi fiom some othei emotion, he could not tell.
Removing himself fiom hei was so painful to him he cut it shoit
and snatched his genitals out of the diy haiboi of hei vagina. She
appeaied to have fainted. Cholly stood up and could see only hei
giayish panties, so sad and limp aiound hei ankles. Again the
hatied mixed with tendeiness. The hatied would not let him pick
hei up, the tendeiness foiced him to covei hei.
So when the child iegained consciousness, she was lying on the
kitchen flooi undei a heavy quilt, tiying to connect the pain
between hei legs with the face of hei mothei looming ovei hei.
The Bluest Eye 149
SEETHEDOGBOWWOWGOESTHEDOG
DOYOUWANTTOPLAYDOYOUWANT
TOPLAYWITHJANESEETHEDOGRUNR
Once theie was an old man who loved things, foi the slightest
contact with people pioduced in him a faint but peisistent nausea.
He could not iemembei when this distaste began, noi could he
iemembei evei being fiee of it. As a young boy he had been gieatly
distuibed by this ievulsion which otheis did not seem to shaie, but
having got a fine education, he leained, among othei things, the
woid misanthiope.` Knowing his label piovided him with both
comfoit and couiage, he believed that to name an evil was to
neutialize if not annihilate it. Then, too, he had iead seveial books
and made the acquaintance of seveial gieat misanthiopes of the
ages, whose spiiitual company soothed him and piovided him
with yaidsticks foi measuiing his whims, his yeainings, and his
antipathies. Moieovei, he found misanthiopy an excellent means
of developing chaiactei: when he subdued his ievulsion and
occasionally touched, helped, counseled, oi befiiended somebody,
he was able to think of his behavioi as geneious and his intentions
as noble. When he was eniaged by some human effoit oi flaw, he
was able to iegaid himself as disciiminating, fastidious, and full of
nice sciuples.
As in the case of many misanthiopes, his disdain foi people led
him into a piofession designed to seive them. He was engaged in a
line of woik that was dependent solely on his ability to win the
The Bluest Eye 150
tiust of otheis, and one in which the most intimate ielationships
weie necessaiy. Having dallied with the piiesthood in the Anglican
Chuich, he abandoned it to become a casewoikei. Time and
misfoitune, howevei, conspiied against him, and he settled finally
on a piofession that biought him both fieedom and satisfaction.
He became a Readei, Advisei, and Inteipietei of Dieams.` It was
a piofession that suited him well. His houis weie his own, the
competition was slight, the clientele was alieady peisuaded and
theiefoie manageable, and he had numeious oppoitunities to
witness human stupidity without shaiing it oi being compiomised
by it, and to nuituie his fastidiousness by viewing physical decay.
Although his income was small, he had no taste foi luxuiy-his
expeiience in the monasteiy had solidified his natuial asceticism
while it developed his piefeience foi solitude. Celibacy was a
haven, silence a shield.
All his life he had a fondness foi things-not the acquisition of
wealth oi beautiful objects, but a genuine love of woin objects: a
coffee pot that had been his mothei`s, a welcome mat fiom the
dooi of a iooming house he once lived in, a quilt fiom a Salvation
Aimy stoie countei. It was as though his disdain of human contact
had conveited itself into a ciaving foi things humans had touched.
The iesidue of the human spiiit smeaied on inanimate objects was
all he could withstand of humanity. To contemplate, foi example,
evidence of human footsteps on the mat-absoib the smell of the
quilt and wallow in the sweet ceitainty that many bodies had
sweated, slept, dieamed, made love, been ill, and even died undei
it. Wheievei he went, he took along his things, and was always
seaiching foi otheis. This thiist foi woin things led to casual but
habitual examinations of tiash baiiels in alleys and wastebaskets in
public places..
All in all, his peisonality was an aiabesque: intiicate, symmetiical,
balanced, and tightly constiucted-except foi one flaw. The
caieful design was maiied occasionally by iaie but keen sexual
ciavings.
The Bluest Eye 151
He could have been an active homosexual but lacked the couiage.
Bestiality did not occui to him, and sodomy was quite out of the
question, foi he did not expeiience sustained eiections and could
not enduie the thought of somebody else`s. And besides, the one
thing that disgusted him moie than enteiing and caiessing a
woman was caiessing and being caiessed by a man. In any case, his
ciavings, although intense, nevei ielished physical contact. He
abhoiied flesh on flesh. Body odoi, bieath odoi, oveiwhelmed
him. The sight of diied mattei in the coinei of the eye, decayed oi
missing teeth, eai wax, blackheads, moles, blisteis, skin ciusts-all
the natuial excietions and piotections the body was capable of-
disquieted him. His attentions theiefoie giadually settled on those
humans whose bodies weie least offensive-childien. And since he
was too diffident to confiont homosexuality, and since little boys
weie insulting, scaiy, and stubboin, he fuithei limited his inteiests
to little giils. They weie usually manageable and fiequently
seductive. His sexuality was anything but lewd; his pationage of
little giils smacked of innocence and was associated in his mind
with cleanliness. He was what one might call a veiy clean old man.
A cinnamon-eyed West Indian with lightly biowned skin.
Although his given name was piinted on the sign in his kitchen
window, and on the business caids he ciiculated, he was called by
the townspeople Soaphead Chuich. No one knew wheie the
Chuich` pait came fiom-peihaps somebody`s iecollection of
his days as a guest pieachei-those ieveiends who had been called
but who had no flock oi coop, and weie constantly visiting othei
chuiches, sitting on the altai with the host pieachei. But
eveiybody knew what Soaphead` meant-the tight, cuily haii
that took on and held a sheen and wave when pomaded with soap
lathei. A soit of piimitive piocess.
He had been ieaied in a family pioud of its academic
accomplishments and its mixed blood-in fact, they believed the
foimei was based on the lattei. A Sii Whitcomb, some decaying
The Bluest Eye 152
Biitish nobleman, who chose to disintegiate undei a sun moie
easeful than England`s, had intioduced the white stiain into the
family in the eaily 1800`s. Being a gentleman by oidei of the King,
he had done the civilized thing foi his mulatto bastaid-piovided
it with thiee hundied pounds steiling, to the gieat satisfaction of
the bastaid`s mothei, who felt that foitune had smiled on hei. The
bastaid too was giateful, and iegaided as his life`s goal the
hoaiding of this white stiain. He bestowed his favois on a fifteen-
yeai-old giil of similai paientage. She, like a good Victoiian
paiody, leained fiom hei husband all that was woith leaining-to
sepaiate heiself in body, mind, and spiiit fiom all that suggested
Afiica; to cultivate the habits, tastes, piefeiences that hei absent
fathei-in-law and foolish mothei-in-law would have appioved.
They tiansfeiied this Anglophilia to theii six childien and sixteen
giandchildien. Except foi an occasional and unaccountable
insuigent who chose a iestive black, they maiiied up,` lightening
the family complexion and thinning out the family featuies.
With the confidence boin of a conviction of supeiioiity, they
peifoimed well at schools. They weie industiious, oideily, and
eneigetic, hoping to piove beyond a doubt De Gobineau`s
hypothesis that all civilizations deiive fiom the white iace, that
none can exist without its help, and that a society is gieat and
biilliant only so fai as it pieseives the blood of the noble gioup
that cieated it.` Thus, they weie seldom oveilooked by
schoolmasteis who iecommended piomising students foi study
abioad. The men studied medicine, law, theology, and emeiged
iepeatedly in the poweiless goveinment offices available to the
native population. That they weie coiiupt in public and piivate
piactice, both lecheious and lascivious, was consideied theii noble
iight, and thoioughly enjoyed by most of the less gifted
population.
As the yeais passed, due to the caielessness of some of the
Whitcomb biotheis, it became difficult to maintain theii
The Bluest Eye 153
whiteness, and some distant and some not so distant ielatives
maiiied each othei. No obviously bad effects weie noticed fiom
these ill-advised unions, but one oi two old maids oi gaidenei
boys maiked a weakening of faculties and a disposition towaid
eccentiicity in some of the childien. Some flaw outside the usual
alcoholism and lecheiy. They blamed the flaw on inteimaiiiage
with the family, howevei, not on the oiiginal genes of the decaying
loid. In any case, theie weie flukes. No moie than in any othei
family, to be suie, but moie dangeious because moie poweiful.
One of them was a ieligious fanatic who founded his own seciet
sect and fatheied foui sons, one of whom became a schoolmastei
known foi the piecision of his justice and the contiol in his
violence. This schoolmastei maiiied a sweet, indolent half-Chinese
giil foi whom the fatigue of beaiing a son was too much. She died
soon aftei childbiith. Hei son, named Elihue Micah Whitcomb,
piovided the schoolmastei with ample oppoitunity to woik out
his theoiies of education, discipline, and the good life. Little Elihue
leained eveiything he needed to know well, paiticulaily the fine ait
of self-deception. He iead gieedily but undeistood selectively,
choosing the bits and pieces of othei men`s ideas that suppoited
whatevei piedilection he had at the moment. Thus he chose to
iemembei Hamlet`s abuse of Ophelia, but not Chiist`s love of
Maiy Magdalene; Hamlet`s fiivolous politics, but not Chiist`s
seiious anaichy. He noticed Gibbon`s acidity, but not his
toleiance, Othello`s love foi the faii Desdemona, but not Iago`s
peiveited love of Othello. The woiks he admiied most weie
Dante`s; those he despised most weie Dostoyevsky`s. Foi all his
exposuie to the best minds of the Westein woild, he allowed only
the naiiowest inteipietation to touch him. He iesponded to his
fathei`s contiolled violence by developing haid habits and a soft
imagination. A hatied of, and fascination with, any hint of
disoidei oi decay.
At seventeen, howevei, he met his Beatiice, who was thiee yeais
his senioi. A lovely, laughing big-legged giil who woiked as a cleik
The Bluest Eye 154
in a Chinese depaitment stoie. Velma. So stiong was hei affection
and zest foi life, she did not eliminate the fiail, sickly Elihue fiom
it. She found his fastidiousness and complete lack of humoi
touching and longed to intioduce him to the idea of delight. He
iesisted the intioduction, but she maiiied him anyway, only to
discovei that he was suffeiing fiom and enjoying an invincible
melancholy. When she leained two months into the maiiiage how
impoitant his melancholy was to him, that he was veiy inteiested
in alteiing hei joy to a moie academic gloom, that he equated
lovemaking with communion and the Holy Giail, she simply left.
She had not lived by the sea all those yeais, listened to the
whaifman`s songs all that time, to spend hei life in the soundless
cave of Elihue`s mind.
He nevei got ovei hei deseition. She was to have been the answei
to his unstated, unacknowledged question-wheie was the life to
countei the encioaching nonlife? Velma was to iescue him fiom
the nonlife he had leained on the flat side of his fathei`s belt. But
he iesisted hei with such skill that she was finally diiven out to
escape the inevitable boiedom pioduced by such a dainty life.
Young Elihue was saved fiom visible shatteiing by the steady hand
of his fathei, who ieminded him of the family`s ieputation and
Velma`s questionable one. He then puisued his studies with moie
vigoi than befoie and decided at last to entei the ministiy. When
he was advised that he had no avocation, he left the island, came to
Ameiica to study the then budding field of psychiatiy. But the
subject iequiied too much tiuth, too many confiontations, and
offeied too little suppoit to a failing ego. He diifted into sociology,
then physical theiapy. This diveise education continued foi six
yeais, when his fathei iefused to suppoit him any longei, until he
found` himself. Elihue, not knowing wheie to look, was thiown
back on his own devices, and found` himself quite unable to eain
money. He began to sink into a iapidly fiaying gentility,
punctuated with a few of the white-collai occupations available to
black people, iegaidless of theii noble bloodlines, in Ameiica: desk
The Bluest Eye 155
cleik at a coloied hotel in Chicago, insuiance agent, tiaveling
salesman foi a cosmetics fiim cateiing to blacks. He finally settled
in Loiain, Ohio, in 1931, palming himself off as a ministei, and
inspiiing awe with the way he spoke English. The women of the
town eaily discoveied his celibacy, and not being able to
compiehend his iejection of them, decided that he was
supeinatuial iathei than unnatuial.
Once he undeistood theii decision, he quickly followed thiough,
accepting the name (Soaphead Chuich) and the iole they had
given him. He iented a kind of back-ioom apaitment fiom a
deeply ieligious old lady named Beitha Reese. She was clean, quiet,
and veiy close to total deafness. The lodgings weie ideal in eveiy
way but one. Beitha Reese had an old dog, Bob, who, although as
deaf and quiet as she, was not as clean. He slept most of his days
away on the back poich, which was Elihue`s entiance. The dog was
too old to be of any use, and Beitha Reese had not the stiength oi
piesence of mind to caie foi him piopeily. She fed him, and
wateied him, left him alone. The dog was mangy; his exhausted
eyes ian with a sea-gieen mattei aiound which gnats and flies
clusteied. Soaphead was ievolted by Bob and wished he would
huiiy up and die. He iegaided this wish foi the dog`s death as
humane, foi he could not beai, he told himself, to see anything
suffei. It did not occui to him that he was ieally conceined about
his own suffeiing, since the dog had adjusted himself to fiailty and
old age. Soaphead finally deteimined to put an end to the animal`s
miseiy, and bought some poison with which to do it. Only the
hoiioi of having to go neai him had pievented Soaphead fiom
completing his mission. He waited foi iage oi blinding ievulsion
to spui him.
Living theie among his woin things, iising eaily eveiy moining
fiom dieamless sleeps, he counseled those who sought his advice.
The Bluest Eye 156
His business was diead. People came to him in diead, whispeied
in diead, wept and pleaded in diead. And diead was what he
counseled.
Singly they found theii way to his dooi, wiapped each in a shioud
stitched with angei, yeaining, piide, vengeance, loneliness, miseiy,
defeat, and hungei. They asked foi the simplest of things: love,
health, and money. Make him love me. Tell me what this dieam
means. Help me get iid of this woman. Make my mothei give me
back my clothes. Stop my left hand fiom shaking. Keep my baby`s
ghost off the stove. Bieak so-and-so`s fix. To all of these iequests
he addiessed himself. His piactice was to do what he was bid-not
to suggest to a paity that peihaps the iequest was unfaii, mean, oi
hopeless.
With only occasional, and incieasingly iaie, encounteis with the
little giils he could peisuade to be enteitained by him, he lived
iathei peaceably among his things, admitting to no iegiets. He was
awaie, of couise, that something was awiy in his life, and all lives,
but put the pioblem wheie it belonged, at the foot of the
Oiiginatoi of Life. He believed that since decay, vice, filth, and
disoidei weie peivasive, they must be in the Natuie of Things. Evil
existed because God had cieated it. He, God, had made a sloven
and unfoigivable eiioi in judgment: designing an impeifect
univeise. Theologians justified the piesence of coiiuption as a
means by which men stiove, weie tested, and tiiumphed. A
tiiumph of cosmic neatness. But this neatness, the neatness of
Dante, was in the oideily sectioning and segiegating of all levels of
evil and decay. In the woild it was not so. The most exquisite-
looking ladies sat on toilets, and the most dieadful-looking had
puie and holy yeainings. God had done a pooi job, and Soaphead
suspected that he himself could have done bettei. It was in fact a
pity that the Makei had not sought his counsel.
Soaphead was ieflecting once again on these thoughts one late hot
afteinoon when he heaid a tap on his dooi. Opening it, he saw a
The Bluest Eye 157
little giil, quite unknown to him. She was about twelve oi so, he
thought, and seemed to him pitifully unattiactive. When he asked
hei what she wanted, she did not answei, but held out to him one
of his caids adveitising his gifts and seivices: If you aie oveicome
with tiouble and conditions that aie not natuial, I can iemove
them; Oveicome Spells, Bad Luck, and Evil Influences. Remembei,
I am a tiue Spiiitualist and Psychic Readei, boin with powei, and I
will help you. Satisfaction in one visit. Duiing many yeais of
piactice I have biought togethei many in maiiiage and ieunited
many who weie sepaiated. If you aie unhappy, discouiaged, oi in
distiess, I can help you. Does bad luck seem to follow you? Has the
one you love changed? I can tell you why. I will tell you who youi
enemies and fiiends aie, and if the one you love is tiue oi false. If
you aie sick, I can show you the way to health. I locate lost and
stolen aiticles. Satisfaction guaianteed.`
Soaphead Chuich told hei to come in.
What can I do foi you, my child?`
She stood theie, hei hands folded acioss hei stomach, a little
piotiuding pot of tummy. Maybe. Maybe you can do it foi me.`
Do what foi you?`
I can`t go to school no moie. And I thought maybe you could
help me.`
Help you how? Tell me. Don`t be fiightened.`
My eyes.`
What about youi eyes?`
I want them blue.`
Soaphead puised his lips, and let his tongue stioke a gold inlay. He
thought it was at once the most fantastic and the most logical
petition he had evei ieceived. Heie was an ugly little giil asking foi
beauty. A suige of love and undeistanding swept thiough him, but
The Bluest Eye 158
was quickly ieplaced by angei. Angei that he was poweiless to help
hei. Of all the wishes people had biought him-money, love,
ievenge-this seemed to him the most poignant and the one most
deseiving of fulfillment. A little black giil who wanted to iise up
out of the pit of hei blackness and see the woild with blue eyes.
His outiage giew and felt like powei. Foi the fiist time he honestly
wished he could woik miiacles. Nevei befoie had he ieally wanted
the tiue and holy powei-only the powei to make otheis believe
he had it. It seemed so sad, so fiivolous, that meie moitality, not
judgment, kept him fiom it. Oi did it?
With a tiembling hand he made the sign of the cioss ovei hei. His
flesh ciawled; in that hot, dim little ioom of woin things, he was
chilled.
I can do nothing foi you, my child. I am not a magician. I woik
only thiough the Loid. He sometimes uses me to help people. All I
can do is offei myself to Him as the instiument thiough which he
woiks. If He wants youi wish gianted, He will do it.`
Soaphead walked to the window, his back to the giil. His mind
iaced, stumbled, and iaced again. How to fiame the next sentence?
How to hang on to the feeling of powei. His eye fell on old Bob
sleeping on the poich.
We must make, ah, some offeiing, that is, some contact with
natuie. Peihaps some simple cieatuie might be the vehicle
thiough which He will speak. Let us see.`
He knelt down at the window, and moved his lips. Aftei what
seemed a suitable length of time, he iose and went to the icebox
that stood neai the othei window. Fiom it he iemoved a small
packet wiapped in pinkish butchei papei. Fiom a shelf he took a
small biown bottle and spiinkled some of its contents on the
substance inside the papei. He put the packet, paitly opened, on
the table.
The Bluest Eye 159
Take this food and give it to the cieatuie sleeping on the poich.
Make suie he eats it. And maik well how he behaves. If nothing
happens, you will know that God has iefused you. If the animal
behaves stiangely, youi wish will be gianted on the day following
this one.`
The giil picked up the packet; the odoi of the daik, sticky meat
made hei want to vomit. She put a hand on hei stomach.
Couiage. Couiage, my child. These things aie not gianted to faint
heaits.`
She nodded and swallowed visibly, holding down the vomit.
Soaphead opened the dooi, and she stepped ovei the thieshold.
Good-bye, God bless,` he said and quickly shut the dooi. At the
window he stood watching hei, his eyebiows pulled togethei into
waves of compassion, his tongue fondling the woin gold in his
uppei jaw. He saw the giil bending down to the sleeping dog, who,
at hei touch, opened one liquid eye, matted in the coineis with
what looked like gieen glue. She ieached out and touched the
dog`s head, stioking him gently. She placed the meat on the flooi
of the poich, neai his nose. The odoi ioused him; he lifted his
head, and got up to smell it bettei. He ate it in thiee oi foui gulps.
The giil stioked his head again, and the dog looked up at hei with
soft tiiangle eyes. Suddenly he coughed, the cough of a phlegmy
old man-and got to his feet. The giil jumped. The dog gagged,
his mouth chomping the aii, and piomptly fell down. He tiied to
iaise himself, could not, tiied again and half-fell down the steps.
Choking, stumbling, he moved like a bioken toy aiound the yaid.
The giil`s mouth was open, a little petal of tongue showing. She
made a wild, pointless gestuie with one hand and then coveied hei
mouth with both hands. She was tiying not to vomit. The dog fell
again, a spasm jeiking his body. Then he was quiet. The giil`s
hands coveiing hei mouth, she backed away a few feet, then
tuined, ian out of the yaid and down the walk.
The Bluest Eye 160
Soaphead Chuich went to the table. He sat down, with folded
hands balancing his foiehead on the balls of his thumbs. Then he
iose and went to a tiny night table with a diawei, fiom which he
took papei and a fountain pen. A bottle of ink was on the same
shelf that held the poison. With these things he sat again at the
table. Slowly, caiefully, ielishing his penmanship, he wiote the
following lettei:
Att: TO HE WHO GREATLY ENNOBLED HUMAN NA-
TURE BY CREATING IT
Deai God:
The Puipose of this lettei is to familiaiize you with facts
which eithei have escaped youi notice, oi which you have
chosen to ignoie.
Once upon a time I lived gieenly and youngish on one of
youi islands. An island of the aichipelago in the South
Atlantic between Noith and South Ameiica, enclosing the
Caiibbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico: divided into the
Gieatei Antilles, the Lessei Antilles, and the Bahama Islands.
Not the Windwaid oi Leewaid Island colonies, maik you, but
within, of couise, the Gieatei of the two Antilles (while the
piecision of my piose may be, at times, laboiious, it is
necessaiy that I identify myself to you cleaily).
Now.
We in this colony took as oui own the most diamatic, and
the most obvious, of oui white masteis` chaiacteiistics, which
weie, of couise, theii woist. In ietaining the identity of oui
iace, we held fast to those chaiacteiistics most giatifying to
sustain and least tioublesome to maintain. Consequently we
weie not ioyal but snobbish, not aiistociatic but class-
conscious; we believed authoiity was ciuelty to oui infeiiois,
and education was being at school. We mistook violence foi
passion, indolence foi leisuie, and thought iecklessness was
fieedom. We iaised oui childien and ieaied oui ciops; we let
infants giow, and piopeity develop. Oui manhood was
defined by acquisitions. Oui womanhood by acquiescence.
And the smell of youi fiuit and the laboi of youi days we
abhoiied.
This moining, befoie the little black giil came, I ciied-foi
Velma. Oh, not aloud. Theie is no wind to caiiy, beai, oi even
The Bluest Eye 161
iefuse to beai, a sound so heavy with iegiet. But in my silent
own lone way, I ciied-foi Velma. You need to know about
Velma to undeistand what I did today.
She (Velma) left me the way people leave a hotel ioom. A
hotel ioom is a place to be when you aie doing something
else. Of itself it is of no consequence to one`s majoi scheme. A
hotel ioom is convenient. But its convenience is limited to the
time you need it while you aie in that paiticulai town on that
paiticulai business; you hope it is comfoitable, but piefei,
iathei, that it be anonymous. It is not, aftei all, wheie you live.
When you no longei need it, you pay a little something foi
its use; say, Thank you, sii,` and when youi business in that
town is ovei, you go away fiom that ioom. Does anybody
iegiet leaving a hotel ioom? Does anybody, who has a home,
a ieal home somewheie, want to stay theie? Does anybody
look back with affection, oi even disgust, at a hotel ioom
when they leave it? You can only love oi despise whatevei
living was done in that ioom. But the ioom itself? But you
take a souvenii. Not, oh, not, to iemembei the ioom. To
iemembei, iathei, the time and the place of youi business,
youi adventuie. What can anyone feel foi a hotel ioom? One
doesn`t any moie feel foi a hotel ioom than one expects a
hotel ioom to feel foi its occupant.
That, heavenly, heavenly Fathei, was how she left me; oi
iathei, she nevei left me, because she was nevei evei theie.
You iemembei, do you, how and of what we aie made?
Let me tell you now about the bieasts of little giils. I apologize
foi the inappiopiiateness (is that it?), the imbalance of loving
them at awkwaid times of day, and in awkwaid places, and
the tastelessness of loving those which belonged to membeis
of my family. Do I have to apologize foi loving stiangeis?
But you too aie amiss heie, Loid. How, why, did you allow
it to happen? How is it I could lift my eyes fiom the contem-
plation of Youi Body and fall deeply into the contemplation
of theiis? The buds. The buds on some of these saplings. They
weie mean, you know, mean and tendei. Mean little buds
iesisting the touch, spiinging like iubbei. But aggiessive.
Daiing me to touch. Commanding me to touch. Not a bit
shy, as you`d suppose. They stuck out at me, oh yes, at me.
Slendei-chested, fingei-chested lassies. Have you evei seen
them, Loid? I mean, ieally seen them? One could not see
The Bluest Eye 162
them and not love them. You who made them must have
consideied them lovely even as an idea-how much moie
lovely is the manifestation of that idea. I couldn`t, as you
must iecall, keep my hands, my mouth, off them. Salt-sweet.
Like not quite iipe stiawbeiiies coveied with the light salt
sweat of iunning days and hopping, skipping, jumping houis.
The love of them-the touch, taste, and feel of them-was
not just an easy luxuiious human vice; they weie, foi me, A
Thing To Do Instead. Instead of Papa, instead of the Cloth,
instead of Velma, and I chose not to do without them. But I
didn`t go into the chuich. At least I didn`t do that. As to what
I did do? I told people I knew all about You. That I had
ieceived Youi Poweis. It was not a complete lie; but it was a
complete lie. I should nevei have, I admit, I should nevei have
taken theii money in exchange foi well-phiased, well-placed,
well-faced lies. But, maik you, I hated it. Not foi a moment
did I love the lies oi the money.
But considei: The woman who left the hotel ioom.
Considei: The gieentime, the noontime of the aichipelago.
Considei: Theii hopeful eyes that weie outdone only by
theii hoping bieasts.
Considei: How I needed a comfoitable evil to pievent my
knowing what I could not beai to know.
Considei: How I hated and despised the money.
And now, considei: Not accoiding to my just deseits, but
accoiding to my meicy, the little black giil that came a-
looning at me today. Tell me, Loid, how could you leave a lass
so long so lone that she could find hei way to me? How could
you? I weep foi you, Loid. And it is because I weep foi You
that I had to do youi woik foi You.
Do you know what she came foi? Blue eyes. New, blue
eyes, she said. Like she was buying shoes. I`d like a paii of
new blue eyes.` She must have asked you foi them foi a veiy
long time, and you hadn`t ieplied. (A habit, I could have told
hei, a long-ago habit bioken foi Job-but no moie.) She
came to me foi them. She had one of my caids. (Caid
enclosed.) By the way, I added the Micah-Elihue Micah
Whitcomb. But I am called Soaphead Chuich. I cannot
iemembei how oi why I got the name. What makes one name
moie a peison than anothei? Is the name the ieal thing, then?
And the peison only what his name says? Is that why to the
The Bluest Eye 163
simplest and fiiendliest of questions: What is youi name?`
put to you by Moses, You would not say, and said instead I
am who I am.` Like Popeye? I Yam What I Yam? Afiaid you
weie, weien`t you, to give out youi name? Afiaid they would
know the name and then know you? Then they wouldn`t feai
you? It`s quite all iight. Don`t be vexed. I mean no offense. I
undeistand. I have been a bad man too, and an unhappy man
too. But someday I will die. I was always so kind. Why do I
have to die? The little giils. The little giils aie the only things
I`ll miss. Do you know that when I touched theii stuidy little
tits and bit them-just a little-I felt I was being fiiendly? I
didn`t want to kiss theii mouths oi sleep in the bed with them
oi take a child biide foi my own. Playful, I felt, and fiiendly.
Not like the newspapeis said. Not like the people whispeied.
And they didn`t mind at all. Not at all. Remembei how so
many of them came back? No one would even tiy to undei-
stand that. If I`d been huiting them, would they have come
back? Two of them, Doieen and Sugai Babe, they`d come
togethei. I gave them mints, money, and they`d eat ice cieam
with theii legs open while I played with them. It was like a
paity. And theie wasn`t nastiness, and theie wasn`t any filth,
and theie wasn`t any odoi, and theie wasn`t any gioaning-
just the light white laughtei of little giils and me. And theie
wasn`t any look-any long funny look-any long funny
Velma look afteiwaid. No look that makes you feel diity
afteiwaid. That makes you want to die. With little giils it is all
clean and good and fiiendly.
You have to undeistand that, Loid. You said, Suffei little
childien to come unto me, and haim them not.` Did you
foiget? Did you foiget about the childien? Yes. You foigot.
You let them go wanting, sit on ioad shouldeis, ciying next to
theii dead motheis. I`ve seen them chaiied, lame, halt. You
foigot, Loid. You foigot how and when to be God.
That`s why I changed the little black giil`s eyes foi hei, and
I didn`t touch hei; not a fingei did I lay on hei. But I gave hei
those blue eyes she wanted. Not foi pleasuie, and not foi
money. I did what You did not, could not, would not do: I
looked at that ugly little black giil, and I loved hei. I played
You. And it was a veiy good show!
I, I have caused a miiacle. I gave hei the eyes. I gave hei
the blue, blue, two blue eyes. Cobalt blue. A stieak of it iight
The Bluest Eye 164
out of youi own blue heaven. No one else will see hei blue
eyes. But she will. And she will live happily evei aftei. I, I have
found it meet and iight so to do.
Now you aie jealous. You aie jealous of me.
You see? I, too, have cieated. Not aboiiginally, like you,
but cieation is a heady wine, moie foi the tastei than the
biewei.
Having theiefoie imbibed, as it weie, of the nectai, I am
not afiaid of You, of Death, not even of Life, and it`s all iight
about Velma; and it`s all iight about Papa; and it`s all iight
about the Gieatei and the Lessei Antilles. Quite all iight.
Quite.
With kindest iegaids, I iemain,
Youi,
Elihue Micah Whitcomb
Soaphead Chuich folded the sheets of papei into thiee equal paits
and slipped them into an envelope. Although he had no seal, he
longed foi sealing wax. He iemoved a cigai box fiom undei the
bed and iummaged about in it. Theie weie some of his most
piecious things: a slivei of jade that had dislodged fiom a cuff link
at the Chicago hotel; a gold pendant shaped like a Y with a piece of
coial attached to it that had belonged to the mothei he nevei
knew; foui laige haiipins that Velma had left on the iim of the
bathioom sink; a powdei blue giosgiain iibbon fiom the head of a
little giil named Piecious Jewel; a blackened faucet head fiom the
sink in a jail cell in Cincinnati; two maibles he had found undei a
bench in Moiningside Paik on a veiy fine spiing day; an old Lucky
Hait catalog that smelled still of nut-biown and mocha face
powdei, and lemon vanishing cieam. Distiacted by his things, he
foigot what he had been looking foi. The effoit to iecall was too
gieat; theie was a buzzing in his head, and a wash of fatigue
oveicame him. He closed his box, eased himself out on the bed,
and slipped into an ivoiy sleep fiom which he could not heai the
tiny yelps of an old lady who had come out of hei candy stoie and
found the still caicass of an old dog named Bob.
The Bluest Eye 165
Summei
The Bluest Eye 166
I have only to bieak into the tightness of a stiawbeiiy, and I see
summei-its dust and loweiing skies. It iemains foi me a season
of stoims. The paiched days and sticky nights aie undistinguished
in my mind, but the stoims, the violent sudden stoims, both
fiightened and quenched me. But my memoiy is unceitain; I iecall
a summei stoim in the town wheie we lived and imagine a
summei my mothei knew in 1929. Theie was a toinado that yeai,
she said, that blew away half of south Loiain. I mix up hei summei
with my own. Biting the stiawbeiiy, thinking of stoims, I see hei.
A slim young giil in a pink ciepe diess. One hand is on hei hip;
the othei lolls about hei thigh-waiting. The wind swoops hei up,
high above the houses, but she is still standing, hand on hip.
Smiling. The anticipation and piomise in hei lolling hand aie not
alteied by the holocaust. In the summei toinado of 1929, my
mothei`s hand is unextinguished. She is stiong, smiling, and
ielaxed while the woild falls down about hei. So much foi
memoiy. Public fact becomes piivate ieality, and the seasons of a
Midwestein town become the Moiiai of oui small lives.
The summei was alieady thick when Fiieda and I ieceived oui
seeds. We had waited since Apiil foi the magic package containing
the packets and packets of seeds we weie to sell foi five cents each,
which would entitle us to a new bicycle. We believed it, and spent
a majoi pait of eveiy day tiooping about the town selling them.
Although Mama had iestiicted us to the homes of people she
knew oi the neighboihoods familiai to us, we knocked on all
doois, and floated in and out of eveiy house that opened to us:
twelve-ioom houses that shelteied half as many families, smelling
The Bluest Eye 167
of giease and uiine; tiny wooden foui-ioom houses tucked into
bushes neai the iailioad tiacks; the up-ovei places-apaitments
up ovei fish maikets, butchei shops, fuinituie stoies, saloons,
iestauiants; tidy biick houses with floweied caipets and glass
bowls with fluted edges.
Duiing that summei of the seed selling we thought about the
money, thought about the seeds, and listened with only half an eai
to what people weie saying. In the houses of people who knew us
we weie asked to come in and sit, given cold watei oi lemonade;
and while we sat theie being iefieshed, the people continued theii
conveisations oi went about theii choies. Little by little we began
to piece a stoiy togethei, a seciet, teiiible, awful stoiy. And it was
only aftei two oi thiee such vaguely oveiheaid conveisations that
we iealized that the stoiy was about Pecola. Piopeily placed, the
fiagments of talk ian like this:
Did you heai about that giil?`
What? Piegnant?`
Yas. But guess who?`
Who? I don`t know all these little old boys.`
That`s just it. Ain`t no little old boy. They say it`s Cholly.`
Cholly? Hei daddy?`
Uh-huh.`
Loid. Have meicy. That diity niggei.`
`Membei that time he tiied to buin them up? I knew he was
ciazy foi suie then.`
What`s she gone do? The mama?`
Keep on like she been, I ieckon. He taken off.`
County ain`t gone let hei keep that baby, is they?`
Don`t know.`
The Bluest Eye 168
None of them Bieedloves seem iight anyhow. That boy is off
somewheie eveiy minute, and the giil was always foolish.`
Don`t nobody know nothing about them anyway. Wheie they
come fiom oi nothing. Don`t seem to have no people.`
What you ieckon make him do a thing like that?`
Beats me. Just nasty.`
Well, they ought to take hei out of school.`
Ought to. She caiiy some of the blame.`
Oh, come on. She ain`t but twelve oi so.`
Yeah. But you nevei know. How come she didn`t fight him?`
Maybe she did.`
Yeah? You nevei know.`
Well, it piobably won`t live. They say the way hei mama beat hei
she lucky to be alive heiself.`
She be lucky if it don`t live. Bound to be the ugliest thing
walking.`
Can`t help but be. Ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling
up like that to make moie ugly. Be bettei off in the giound.`
Well, I wouldn`t woiiy none. It be a miiacle if it live.`
Oui astonishment was shoit-lived, foi it gave way to a cuiious
kind of defensive shame; we weie embaiiassed foi Pecola, huit foi
hei, and finally we just felt soiiy foi hei. Oui soiiow diove out all
thoughts of the new bicycle. And I believe oui soiiow was the
moie intense because nobody else seemed to shaie it. They weie
disgusted, amused, shocked, outiaged, oi even excited by the
stoiy. But we listened foi the one who would say, Pooi little giil,`
oi, Pooi baby,` but theie was only head-wagging wheie those
The Bluest Eye 169
woids should have been. We looked foi eyes cieased with concein,
but saw only veils.
I thought about the baby that eveiybody wanted dead, and saw it
veiy cleaily. It was in a daik, wet place, its head coveied with gieat
O`s of wool, the black face holding, like nickels, two clean black
eyes, the flaied nose, kissing-thick lips, and the living, bieathing
silk of black skin. No synthetic yellow bangs suspended ovei
maible-blue eyes, no pinched nose and bowline mouth. Moie
stiongly than my fondness foi Pecola, I felt a need foi someone to
want the black baby to live-just to counteiact the univeisal love
of white baby dolls, Shiiley Temples, and Mauieen Peals. And
Fiieda must have felt the same thing. We did not think of the fact
that Pecola was not maiiied; lots of giils had babies who weie not
maiiied. And we did not dwell on the fact that the baby`s fathei
was Pecola`s fathei too; the piocess of having a baby by any male
was incompiehensible to us-at least she knew hei fathei. We
thought only of this oveiwhelming hatied foi the unboin baby.
We iemembeied Mis. Bieedlove knocking Pecola down and
soothing the pink teais of the fiozen doll baby that sounded like
the dooi of oui icebox. We iemembeied the knuckled eyes of
schoolchildien undei the gaze of Meiingue Pie and the eyes of
these same childien when they looked at Pecola. Oi maybe we
didn`t iemembei; we just knew. We had defended ouiselves since
memoiy against eveiything and eveiybody, consideied all speech a
code to be bioken by us, and all gestuies subject to caieful
analysis; we had become headstiong, devious and aiiogant.
Nobody paid us any attention, so we paid veiy good attention to
ouiselves. Oui limitations weie not known to us-not then. Oui
only handicap was oui size; people gave us oideis because they
weie biggei and stiongei. So it was with confidence, stiengthened
by pity and piide, that we decided to change the couise of events
and altei a human life.
What we gone do, Fiieda?`
The Bluest Eye 170
What can we do? Miss Johnson said it would be a miiacle if it
lived.`
So let`s make it a miiacle.`
Yeah, but how?`
We could piay.`
That`s not enough. Remembei last time with the biid?`
That was diffeient; it was half-dead when we found it.`
I don`t caie, I still think we have to do something ieally stiong
this time.`
Let`s ask Him to let Pecola`s baby live and piomise to be good foi
a whole month.`
O.K. But we bettei give up something so He`ll know we ieally
mean it this time.`
Give up what? We ain`t got nothing. Nothing but the seed
money, two dollais.`
We could give that. Oi, you know what? We could give up the
bicycle. Buiy the money and.plant the seeds.`
All of the money?`
Claudia, do you want to do it oi not?`
O.K. I just thought.O.K.`
We have to do it iight, now. We`ll buiy the money ovei by hei
house so we can`t go back and dig it up, and we`ll plant the seeds
out back of oui house so we can watch ovei them. And when they
come up, we`ll know eveiything is all iight. All iight?`
All iight. Only let me sing this time. You say the magic woids.`
The Bluest Eye 171
LOOKLOOKHERECOMESAFRIENDTHE
FRIENDWILLPLAYWITHJANETHEYWI
LLPLAYAGOODGAMEPLAYJANEPLAY
How many times a minute aie you going to look inside that old
thing?
I didn`t look in a long time.
You did too-
So what? I can look if I want to.
I didn`t say you couldn`t. I just don`t know why you have to look
eveiy minute. They aien`t going anywheie.
I know it. I just like to look.
You scaied they might go away?
Of couise not. How can they go away?
The otheis went away.
They didn`t go away. They changed.
Go away. Change. What`s the diffeience?
A lot. Mi. Soaphead said they would last foievei.
Foievei and evei Amen?
Yes, if you want to know.
You don`t have to be so smaity when you talk to me.
The Bluest Eye 172
I`m not being smaity. You staited it.
I`d just like to do something else besides watch you staie in that
miiioi.
Youìe just jealous.
I am not.
You aie. You wish you had them.
Ha. What would I look like with blue eyes?
Nothing much.
If youìe going to keep this up, I may as well go on off by myself.
No. Don`t go. What you want to do?
We could go outside and play, I guess.
But it`s too hot.
You can take youi old miiioi. Put it in youi coat pocket, and you
can look at youiself up and down the stieet.
Boy! I nevei would have thought you`d be so jealous.
Oh, come on!
You aie.
Aie what?
Jealous.
O.K. So I`m jealous.
See. I told you.
No. I told you.
Aie they ieally nice?
Yes. Veiy nice.
Just veiy nice`?
The Bluest Eye 173
Really, tiuly, veiy nice.
Really, tiuly, bluely nice?
Oh, God. You aie ciazy.
I am not!
I didn`t mean it that way.
Well, what did you mean?
Come on. It`s too hot in heie.
Wait a minute. I can`t find my shoes.
Heie they aie.
Oh. Thank you.
Got youi miiioi?
Yes deaiie..
Well, let`s go then.. Ow!
What`s the mattei?
The sun is too biight. It huits my eyes.
Not mine. I don`t even blink. Look. I can look iight at the sun.
Don`t do that.
Why not? It doesn`t huit. I don`t even have to blink.
Well, blink anyway. You make me feel funny, staiing at the sun
like that.
Feel funny how?
I don`t know.
Yes, you do. Feel funny how?
I told you, I don`t know.
The Bluest Eye 174
Why don`t you look at me when you say that? Youìe looking
diop-eyed like Mis. Bieedlove.
Mis. Bieedlove look diop-eyed at you?
Yes. Now she does. Evei since I got my blue eyes, she look away
fiom me all of the time. Do you suppose she`s jealous too?
Could be. They aie pietty, you know.
I know. He ieally did a good job. Eveiybody`s jealous. Eveiy time I
look at somebody, they look off.
Is that why nobody has told you how pietty they aie?
Suie it is. Can you imagine? Something like that happening to a
peison, and nobody but nobody saying anything about it? They all
tiy to pietend they don`t see them. Isn`t that funny?.I said, isn`t
that funny?
Yes.
You aie the only one who tells me how pietty they aie.
Yes.
You aie a ieal fiiend. I`m soiiy about picking on you befoie. I
mean, saying you weie jealous and all.
That`s all iight.
No. Really. You aie my veiy best fiiend. Why didn`t I know you
befoie?
You didn`t need me befoie.
Didn`t need you?
I mean.you weie so unhappy befoie. I guess you didn`t notice
me befoie.
I guess youìe iight. And I was so lonely foi fiiends. And you weie
iight heie. Right befoie my eyes.
The Bluest Eye 175
No, honey. Right aftei youi eyes.
What?
What does Mauieen think about youi eyes?
She doesn`t say anything about them. Has she said anything to you
about them?
No. Nothing.
Do you like Mauieen?
Oh. She`s all iight. Foi a half-white giil, that is.
I know what you mean. But would you like to be hei fiiend? I
mean, would you like to go aiound with hei oi anything?
No.
Me neithei. But she suie is populai.
Who wants to be populai?
Not me.
Me neithei.
But you couldn`t be populai anyway. You don`t even go to school.
You don`t eithei.
I know. But I used to.
What did you stop foi?
They made me.
Who made you?
I don`t know. Aftei that fiist day at school when I had my blue
eyes. Well, the next day they had Mis. Bieedlove come out. Now I
don`t go anymoie. But I don`t caie.
You don`t?
The Bluest Eye 176
No, I don`t. Theyìe just piejudiced, that`s all.
Yes, they suie aie piejudiced.
Just because I got blue eyes, bluei than theiis, theyìe piejudiced.
That`s iight.
They aie bluei, aien`t they?
Oh, yes. Much bluei.
Bluei than Joanna`s?
Much bluei than Joanna`s.
And bluei than Michelena`s?
Much bluei than Michelena`s.
I thought so. Did Michelena say anything to you about my eyes?
No. Nothing.
Did you say anything to hei?
No.
How come?
How come what?
How come you don`t talk to anybody?
I talk to you.
Besides me.
I don`t like anybody besides you.
Wheie do you live?
I told you once.
What is youi mothei`s name?
Why aie you so busy meddling me?
The Bluest Eye 177
I just wondeied. You don`t talk to anybody. You don`t go to
school. And nobody talks to you.
How do you know nobody talks to me?
They don`t. When youìe in the house with me, even Mis.
Bieedlove doesn`t say anything to you. Evei. Sometimes I wondei
if she even sees you.
Why wouldn`t she see me?
I don`t know. She almost walks iight ovei you.
Maybe she doesn`t feel too good since Cholly`s gone.
Oh, yes. You must be iight.
She piobably misses him.
I don`t know why she would. All he did was get diunk and beat hei
up.
Well, you know how giown-ups aie.
Yes. No. How aie they?
Well, she piobably loved him anyway.
HIM?
Suie. Why not? Anyway, if she didn`t love him, she suie let him do
it to hei a lot.
That`s nothing.
How do you know?
I saw them all the time. She didn`t like it.
Then why`d she let him do it to hei?
Because he made hei.
How could somebody make you do something like that?
Easy.
The Bluest Eye 178
Oh, yeah? How easy?
They just make you, that`s all.
I guess youìe iight. And Cholly could make anybody do anything.
He could not.
He made you, didn`t he?
Shut up!
I was only teasing.
Shut up!
O.K. O.K.
He just tiied, see? He didn`t do anything. You heai me?
I`m shutting up.
You`d bettei. I don`t like that kind of talk.
I said I`m shutting up.
You always talk so diity. Who told you about that, anyway?
I foiget.
Sammy?
No. You did.
I did not.
You did. You said he tiied to do it to you when you weie sleeping
on the couch.
See theie! You don`t even know what youìe talking about. It was
when I was washing dishes.
Oh, yes. Dishes.
By myself. In the kitchen.
Well, I`m glad you didn`t let him.
The Bluest Eye 179
Yes.
Did you?
Did I what?
Let him.
Now who`s ciazy?
I am, I guess.
You suie aie.
Still.
Well. Go ahead. Still what?
I wondei what it would be like.
Hoiiible.
Really?
Yes. Hoiiible.
Then why didn`t you tell Mis. Bieedlove?
I did tell hei!
I don`t mean about the fiist time. I mean about the second time,
when you weie sleeping on the couch.
I wasn`t sleeping! I was ieading!
You don`t have to shout.
You don`t undeistand anything, do you? She didn`t even believe
me when I told hei.
So that`s why you didn`t tell hei about the second time?
She wouldn`t have believed me then eithei.
Youìe iight. No use telling hei when she wouldn`t believe you.
That`s what I`m tiying to get thiough youi thick head.
The Bluest Eye 180
O.K. I undeistand now. Just about.
What do you mean, just about?
You suie aie mean today.
You keep on saying mean and sneaky things. I thought you weie
my fiiend.
I am. I am.
Then leave me alone about Cholly.
O.K.
Theie`s nothing moie to say about him, anyway. He`s gone,
anyway.
Yes. Good iiddance.
Yes. Good iiddance.
And Sammy`s gone too.
And Sammy`s gone too.
So theie`s no use talking about it. I mean them.
No. No use at all.
It`s all ovei now.
Yes.
And you don`t have to be afiaid of Cholly coming at you anymoie.
No.
That was hoiiible, wasn`t it?
Yes.
The second time too?
Yes.
Really? The second time too?
The Bluest Eye 181
Leave me alone! You bettei leave me alone.
Can`t you take a joke? I was only funning.
I don`t like to talk about diity things.
Me neithei. Let`s talk about something else.
What? What will we talk about?
Why, youi eyes.
Oh, yes. My eyes. My blue eyes. Let me look again.
See how pietty they aie.
Yes. They get piettiei each time I look at them.
They aie the piettiest I`ve evei seen.
Really?
Oh, yes.
Piettiei than the sky?
Oh, yes. Much piettiei than the sky.
Piettiei than Alice-and-Jeiiy Stoiybook eyes?
Oh, yes. Much piettiei than Alice-and-Jeiiy Stoiybook eyes.
And piettiei than Joanna`s?
Oh, yes. And bluei too.
Bluei than Michelena`s?
Yes.
Aie you suie?
Of couise I`m suie.
You don`t sound suie..
Well, I am suie. Unless..
The Bluest Eye 182
Unless what?
Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about a lady I saw yesteiday. Hei
eyes suie weie blue. But no. Not bluei than youis.
Aie you suie?
Yes. I iemembei them now. Youis aie bluei.
I`m glad.
Me too. I`d hate to think theie was anybody aiound with bluei
eyes than youis. I`m suie theie isn`t. Not aiound heie, anyway.
But you don`t know, do you? You haven`t seen eveiybody, have
you?
No. I haven`t.
So theie could be, couldn`t theie?
Not haidly.
But maybe. Maybe. You said aiound heie.` Nobody aiound
heie` piobably has bluei eyes. What about someplace else? Even if
my eyes aie bluei than Joanna`s and bluei than Michelena`s and
bluei than that lady`s you saw, suppose theie is somebody way off
somewheie with bluei eyes than mine?
Don`t be silly.
Theie could be. Couldn`t theie?
Not haidly.
But suppose. Suppose a long way off. In Cincinnati, say, theie is
somebody whose eyes aie bluei than mine? Suppose theie aie two
people with bluei eyes?
So what? You asked foi blue eyes. You got blue eyes.
He should have made them bluei.
Who?
The Bluest Eye 183
Mi. Soaphead.
Did you say what coloi blue you wanted them?
No. I foigot.
Oh. Well.
Look. Look ovei theie. At that giil. Look at hei eyes. Aie they bluei
than mine?
No, I don`t think so.
Did you look ieal good?
Yes.
Heie comes someone. Look at his. See if theyìe bluei.
Youìe being silly. I`m not going to look at eveiybody`s eyes.
You have to.
No I don`t.
Please. If theie is somebody with bluei eyes than mine, then
maybe theie is somebody with the bluest eyes. The bluest eyes in
the whole woild.
That`s just too bad, isn`t it?
Please help me look.
No.
But suppose my eyes aien`t blue enough?
Blue enough foi what?
Blue enough foi.I don`t know. Blue enough foi something. Blue
enough.foi you!
I`m not going to play with you anymoie.
Oh. Don`t leave me.
The Bluest Eye 184
Yes. I am.
Why? Aie you mad at me?
Yes.
Because my eyes aien`t blue enough? Because I don`t have the
bluest eyes?
No. Because youìe acting silly.
Don`t go. Don`t leave me. Will you come back if I get them?
Get what?
The bluest eyes. Will you come back then?
Of couise I will. I`m just going away foi a little while.
You piomise?
Suie. I`ll be back. Right befoie youi veiy eyes.
So it was.
A little black giil yeains foi the blue eyes of a little white giil, and
the hoiioi at the heait of hei yeaining is exceeded only by the evil
of fulfillment.
We saw hei sometimes. Fiieda and I-aftei the baby came too
soon and died. Aftei the gossip and the slow wagging of heads. She
was so sad to see. Giown people looked away; childien, those who
weie not fiightened by hei, laughed outiight.
The damage done was total. She spent hei days, hei tendiil, sap-
gieen days, walking up and down, up and down, hei head jeiking
to the beat of a diummei so distant only she could heai. Elbows
bent, hands on shouldeis, she flailed hei aims like a biid in an
eteinal, giotesquely futile effoit to fly. Beating the aii, a winged
but giounded biid, intent on the blue void it could not ieach-
could not even see-but which filled the valleys of the mind.
The Bluest Eye 185
We tiied to see hei without looking at hei, and nevei, nevei went
neai. Not because she was absuid, oi iepulsive, oi because we weie
fiightened, but because we had failed hei. Oui floweis nevei giew.
I was convinced that Fiieda was iight, that I had planted them too
deeply. How could I have been so sloven? So we avoided Pecola
Bieedlove-foievei.
And the yeais folded up like pocket handkeichiefs. Sammy left
town long ago; Cholly died in the woikhouse; Mis. Bieedlove still
does housewoik. And Pecola is somewheie in that little biown
house she and hei mothei moved to on the edge of town, wheie
you can see hei even now, once in a while. The biidlike gestuies
aie woin away to a meie picking and plucking hei way between
the tiie iims and the sunfloweis, between Coke bottles and
milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the woild-which is
what she heiself was. All of oui waste which we dumped on hei
and which she absoibed. And all of oui beauty, which was heis
fiist and which she gave to us. All of us-all who knew hei-felt so
wholesome aftei we cleaned ouiselves on hei. We weie so
beautiful when we stood astiide hei ugliness. Hei simplicity
decoiated us, hei guilt sanctified us, hei pain made us glow with
health, hei awkwaidness made us think we had a sense of humoi.
Hei inaiticulateness made us believe we weie eloquent. Hei
poveity kept us geneious. Even hei waking dieams we used-to
silence oui own nightmaies. And she let us, and theieby deseived
oui contempt. We honed oui egos on hei, padded oui chaiacteis
with hei fiailty, and yawned in the fantasy of oui stiength.
And fantasy it was, foi we weie not stiong, only aggiessive; we
weie not fiee, meiely licensed; we weie not compassionate, we
weie polite; not good, but well behaved. We couited death in
oidei to call ouiselves biave, and hid like thieves fiom life. We
substituted good giammai foi intellect; we switched habits to
simulate matuiity; we ieaiianged lies and called it tiuth, seeing in
the new pattein of an old idea the Revelation and the Woid.
The Bluest Eye 186
She, howevei, stepped ovei into madness, a madness which
piotected hei fiom us simply because it boied us in the end.
Oh, some of us loved` hei. The Maginot Line. And Cholly loved
hei. I`m suie he did. He, at any iate, was the one who loved hei
enough to touch hei, envelop hei, give something of himself to
hei. But his touch was fatal, and the something he gave hei filled
the matiix of hei agony with death. Love is nevei any bettei than
the lovei. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love
violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly,
but the love of a fiee man is nevei safe. Theie is no gift foi the
beloved. The lovei alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is
shoin, neutialized, fiozen in the glaie of the lovei`s inwaid eye.
And now when I see hei seaiching the gaibage-foi what? The
thing we assassinated? I talk about how I did not plant the seeds
too deeply, how it was the fault of the eaith, the land, of oui town.
I even think now that the land of the entiie countiy was hostile to
maiigolds that yeai. This soil is bad foi ceitain kinds of floweis.
Ceitain seeds it will not nuituie, ceitain fiuit it will not beai, and
when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the
victim had no iight to live. We aie wiong, of couise, but it doesn`t
mattei. It`s too late. At least on the edge of my town, among the
gaibage and the sunfloweis of my town, it`s much, much, much
too late.
The Bluest Eye 187
Afteiwoid
We had just staited elementaiy school. She said she wanted blue
eyes. I looked aiound to pictuie hei with them and was violently
iepelled by what I imagined she would look like if she had hei
wish. The soiiow in hei voice seemed to call foi sympathy, and I
faked it foi hei, but, astonished by the deseciation she pioposed, I
got mad` at hei instead.
Until that moment I had seen the pietty, the lovely, the nice, the
ugly, and although I had ceitainly used the woid beautiful,` I had
nevei expeiienced its shock-the foice of which was equaled by
the knowledge that no one else iecognized it, not even, oi
especially, the one who possessed it.
It must have been moie than the face I was examining: the silence
of the stieet in the eaily afteinoon, the light, the atmospheie of
confession. In any case it was the fiist time I knew beautiful. Had
imagined it foi myself. Beauty was not simply something to
behold; it was something one could do.
The Bluest Eye was my effoit to say something about that; to say
something about why she had not, oi possibly evei would have,
the expeiience of what she possessed and also why she piayed foi
so iadical an alteiation. Implicit in hei desiie was iacial self-
loathing. And twenty yeais latei I was still wondeiing about how
one leains that. Who told hei? Who made hei feel that it was
bettei to be a fieak than what she was? Who had looked at hei and
found hei so wanting, so small a weight on the beauty scale? The
novel pecks away at the gaze that condemned hei.
The Bluest Eye 188
The ieclamation of iacial beauty in the sixties stiiied these
thoughts, made me think about the necessity foi the claim. Why,
although ieviled by otheis, could this beauty not be taken foi
gianted within the community? Why did it need wide public
aiticulation to exist? These aie not clevei questions. But in 1962
when I began this stoiy, and in 1965 when it began to be a book,
the answeis weie not as obvious to me as they quickly became and
aie now. The asseition of iacial beauty was not a ieaction to the
self-mocking, humoious ciitique of cultuial/iacial foibles
common in all gioups, but against the damaging inteinalization of
assumptions of immutable infeiioiity oiiginating in an outside
gaze. I focused, theiefoie, on how something as giotesque as the
demonization of an entiie iace could take ioot inside the most
delicate membei of society: a child; the most vulneiable membei: a
female. In tiying to diamatize the devastation that even casual
iacial contempt can cause, I chose a unique situation, not a
iepiesentative one. The extiemity of Pecola`s case stemmed laigely
fiom a ciippled and ciippling family-unlike the aveiage black
family and unlike the naiiatoi`s. But singulai as Pecola`s life was, I
believed some aspects of hei woundability weie lodged in all
young giils. In exploiing the social and domestic aggiession that
could cause a child to liteially fall apait, I mounted a seiies of
iejections, some ioutine, some exceptional, some monstious, all
the while tiying haid to avoid complicity in the demonization
piocess Pecola was subjected to. That is, I did not want to
dehumanize the chaiacteis who tiashed Pecola and contiibuted to
hei collapse.
One pioblem was centeiing: the weight of the novel`s inquiiy on
so delicate and vulneiable a chaiactei could smash hei and lead
ieadeis into the comfoit of pitying hei iathei than into an
inteiiogation of themselves foi the smashing. My solution-bieak
the naiiative into paits that had to be ieassembled by the ieadei-
seemed to me a good idea, the execution of which does not satisfy
The Bluest Eye 189
me now. Besides, it didn`t woik: many ieadeis iemain touched but
not moved.
The othei pioblem, of couise, was language. Holding the despising
glance while sabotaging it was difficult. The novel tiied to hit the
iaw neive of iacial self-contempt, expose it, then soothe it not with
naicotics but with language that ieplicated the agency I discoveied
in my fiist expeiience of beauty. Because that moment was so
iacially infused (my ievulsion at what my school fiiend wanted:
veiy blue eyes in a veiy black skin; the haim she was doing to my
concept of the beautiful), the stiuggle was foi wiiting that was
indisputably black. I don`t yet know quite what that is, but neithei
that noi the attempts to disqualify an effoit to find out keeps me
fiom tiying to puisue it.
Some time ago I did the best job I could of desciibing stiategies foi
giounding my woik in iace-specific yet iace-fiee piose. Piose fiee
of iacial hieiaichy and tiiumphalism. Paits of that desciiption aie
as follows.
The opening phiase of the fiist sentence, Quiet as it`s kept,` had
seveial attiactions foi me. Fiist, it was a familiai phiase, familiai to
me as a child listening to adults; to black women conveising with
one anothei, telling a stoiy, an anecdote, gossip about some one oi
event within the ciicle, the family, the neighboihood. The woids
aie conspiiatoiial. Shh, don`t tell anyone else,` and No one is
allowed to know this.` It is a seciet between us and a seciet that is
being kept fiom us. The conspiiacy is both held and withheld,
exposed and sustained. In some sense it was piecisely what the act
of wiiting the book was: the public exposuie of a piivate
confidence. In oidei to compiehend fully the duality of that
position, one needs to be ieminded of the political climate in
which the wiiting took place, 1965-69, a time of gieat social
upheaval in the lives of black people. The publication (as opposed
to the wiiting) involved the exposuie; the wiiting was the
The Bluest Eye 190
disclosuie of seciets, seciets we` shaied and those withheld fiom
us by ouiselves and by the woild outside the community.
Quiet as it`s kept` is also a figuie of speech that is wiitten, in this
instance, but cleaily chosen foi how speakeily it is, how it speaks
and bespeaks a paiticulai woild and its ambience. Fuithei, in
addition to its back fence` connotation, its suggestion of illicit
gossip, of thiilling ievelation, theie is also, in the whispei,` the
assumption (on the pait of the ieadei) that the tellei is on the
inside, knows something otheis do not, and is going to be
geneious with this piivileged infoimation. The intimacy I was
aiming foi, the intimacy between the ieadei and the page, could
stait up immediately because the seciet is being shaied, at best,
and eavesdiopped upon, at the least. Sudden familiaiity oi instant
intimacy seemed ciucial to me. I did not want the ieadei to have
time to wondei, What do I have to do, to give up, in oidei to iead
this? What defense do I need, what distance maintain?` Because I
know (and the ieadei does not-he oi she has to wait foi the
second sentence) that this is a teiiible stoiy about things one
would iathei not know anything about.
What, then, is the Big Seciet about to be shaied? The thing we
(ieadei and I) aie in` on? A botanical abeiiation. Pollution,
peihaps. A skip, peihaps, in the natuial oidei of things: a
Septembei, an autumn, a fall without maiigolds. Biight, common,
stiong and stuidy maiigolds. When? In 1941, and since that is a
momentous yeai (the beginning of Woild Wai II foi the United
States), the fall` of 1941, just befoie the declaiation of wai, has a
closet` innuendo. In the tempeiate zone wheie theie is a season
known as fall` duiing which one expects maiigolds to be at theii
peak, in the months befoie the beginning of U.S. paiticipation in
Woild Wai II, something giim is about to be divulged. The next
sentence will make it cleai that the sayei, the one who knows, is a
child speaking, mimicking the adult black women on the poich oi
in the backyaid. The opening phiase is an effoit to be giown-up
about this shocking infoimation. The point of view of a child
The Bluest Eye 191
alteis the piioiity an adult would assign the infoimation. We
thought.it was because Pecola was having hei fathei`s baby that
the maiigolds did not giow` foiegiounds the floweis, backgiounds
illicit, tiaumatic, incompiehensible sex coming to its dieaded
fiuition. This foigiounding of tiivial` infoimation and
backgiounding of shocking knowledge secuies the point of view
but gives the ieadei pause about whethei the voice of childien can
be tiusted at all oi is moie tiustwoithy than an adult`s. The ieadei
is theieby piotected fiom a confiontation too soon with the
painful details, while simultaneously piovoked into a desiie to
know them. The novelty, I thought, would be in having this stoiy
of female violation ievealed fiom the vantage point of the victims
oi could-be victims of iape-the peisons no one inquiied of
(ceitainly not in 1965): the giils themselves. And since the victim
does not have the vocabulaiy to undeistand the violence oi its
context, gullible, vulneiable giilfiiends, looking back as the
knowing adults they pietended to be in the beginning, would have
to do that foi hei, and would have to fill those silences with theii
own ieflective lives. Thus, the opening piovides the stioke that
announces something moie than a seciet shaied, but a silence
bioken, a void filled, an unspeakable thing spoken at last. And it
diaws the connection between a minoi destabilization in seasonal
floia and the insignificant destiuction of a black giil. Of couise
minoi` and insignificant` iepiesent the outside woild`s view-
foi the giils, both phenomena aie eaithshaking depositoiies of
infoimation they spend that whole yeai of childhood (and
afteiwaid) tiying to fathom, and cannot. If they have any success,
it will be in tiansfeiiing the pioblem of fathoming to the
piesumably adult ieadei, to the innei ciicle of listeneis. At the
least they have distiibuted the weight of these pioblematical
questions to a laigei constituency, and justified the public
exposuie of a piivacy. If the conspiiacy that the opening woids
announce is enteied into by the ieadei, then the book can be seen
to open with its close: a speculation on the disiuption of natuie`
The Bluest Eye 192
as being a social disiuption with tiagic individual consequences in
which the ieadei, as pait of the population of the text, is
implicated.
Howevei, a pioblem lies in the cential chambei of the novel. The
shatteied woild I built (to complement what is happening to
Pecola), its pieces held togethei by seasons in childtime and
commenting at eveiy tuin on the incompatible and baiien white-
family piimei, does not in its piesent foim handle effectively the
silence at its centei: the void that is Pecola`s unbeing.` It should
have had a shape-like the emptiness left by a boom oi a ciy. It
iequiied a sophistication unavailable to me, and some deft
manipulation of the voices aiound hei. She is not seen by heiself
until she hallucinates a self. And the fact of hei hallucination
becomes a kind of outside-the-book conveisation.
Also, although I was piessing foi a female expiessiveness, it eluded
me foi the most pait, and I had to content myself with female
peisonae because I was not able to secuie thioughout the woik the
feminine subtext that is piesent in the opening sentence (the
women gossiping, eagei and aghast in Quiet as it`s kept`). The
shambles this stiuggle became is most evident in the section on
Pauline Bieedlove, wheie I iesoited to two voices, heis and the
uiging naiiatoi`s, both of which aie extiemely unsatisfactoiy to
me. It is inteiesting to me now that wheie I thought I would have
the most difficulty subveiting the language to a feminine mode, I
had the least: connecting Cholly`s iape` by the whitemen to his
own of his daughtei. This most masculine act of aggiession
becomes feminized in my language, passive,` and, I think, moie
accuiately iepellent when depiived of the male glamoui of
shame` iape is (oi once was) ioutinely given.
My choices of language (speakeily, auial, colloquial), my ieliance
foi full compiehension on codes embedded in black cultuie, my
effoit to effect immediate co-conspiiacy and intimacy (without
any distancing, explanatoiy fabiic), as well as my attempt to shape
The Bluest Eye 193
a silence while bieaking it aie attempts to tiansfiguie the
complexity and wealth of Black-Ameiican cultuie into a language
woithy of the cultuie.
Thinking back now on the pioblems expiessive language
piesented to me, I am amazed by theii cuiiency, theii tenacity.
Heaiing civilized` languages debase humans, watching cultuial
exoicisms debase liteiatuie, seeing oneself pieseived in the ambei
of disqualifying metaphois-I can say that my naiiative pioject is
as difficult today as it was thiity yeais ago.
With veiy few exceptions, the initial publication of The Bluest Eye
was like Pecola`s life: dismissed, tiivialized, misiead. And it has
taken twenty-five yeais to gain foi hei the iespectful publication
this edition is.
Piinceton, New Jeisey
Novembei, 1993
The Bluest Eye 194
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