Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Radka Havlíková

WHITE BEAUTY AS AN OBSTACLE IN THE

SEARCH FOR LOVE IN TONI MORRISON’S

THE BLUEST EYE AND TAR BABY

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Kateřina Prajznerová, M.A., Ph.D.

2007

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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………….

Radka Havlíková

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Acknowledgment

I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Mgr. Kateřina Prajznerová,

M.A. Ph.D. for her support and time. I am grateful for her helpful suggestions and

valuable comments. My thanks also go to Mgr. Jana Heczková for her helpful advice.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1

2. Toni Morrison and Her Definition of Beauty……………………..........5

3. Pecola Breedlove in The Bluest Eye........................................................7

4. Jadine Childs in Tar Baby ......................................................................19

5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….28

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………31

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1. Introduction

Toni Morrison is regarded as one of the most influential African American women

writers. In her works she explores many themes concerning the African American

experience, focusing primarily on the position of black women in the contemporary world.

Jane S. Bakerman stresses that “the central theme of all [Morrison’s] work is beauty, love

[…]” (541). Morrison is also concerned with the intolerance that African American women

are subjected to while living in a predominantly white society and thus surrounded by

white beauty. Through her female protagonists one can clearly see the devastating impact

on the lives of these black women whose lives are dominated by white beauty.

In my final thesis, I intend to examine two of Morrison’s novels, dealing with them

in a chronological order – The Bluest Eye (1969) and Tar Baby (1981). Firstly, I want to

outline Morrison’s definition of beauty and the circumstances that lead her to write about

African American women. The main aim of my thesis is to investigate how African

American women have been influenced by the white beauty and to analyze the

consequences that this white beauty has had on African American women while they have

been searching for love.

My thesis is divided into three parts. The first part explores Morrison’s own

definition of beauty. The second part analyzes Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the main

protagonist Pecola Breedlove as well as several other characters from her community who

are affected by white beauty. I examine the main images of white beauty and their

devastating effects on African American women. The last chapter deals with Morrison’s

Tar Baby and the character of Jadine Childs. I look at Jadine as a powerful illustration of a

black woman who has succeeded in some of Pecola’s desires but at the same time has lost

her bond with her past.

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The arguments I make in this thesis are supported by mainly secondary evidence

from articles and books written by scholars such as Malin LaVon Walther, whose “Out of

Sight: Toni Morrison’s Revision of Beauty” gives a deep insight into the exploration of the

visual system upon which definitions of beauty are based. Walther also elaborates on

Morrison’s rejection of beauty and also discusses images of black female beauty. Another

piece of influential writing is Missy Dehn Kubitschek’s Toni Morrison: A Critical

Companion which gives a detailed survey of Tar Baby’s motifs, e.g. conflicts between

traditional, rural Southern African American culture and white culture. Last but not least is

Elizabeth B. House and her essay “The “Sweet Life” in Toni Morrison’s Fiction” which

examines the superiority of life-giving idyllic values. She connects sweets, commercially

prepared candy and pies in particular, with the sugar and shows that neither is truly

nourishing for human life. She describes numerous examples of the inner losses which

competitive success dreams bring.

The Bluest Eye, first published in 1969, traces white society and its enormous

influence on the African Americans. Maria Bring implies that the character of Pecola, the

main heroine, is based on a true story of a real girl whom Morrison met when she was 11

years old. Morrison and her little black friend discussed whether or not there is a God.

Morrison thought there was a God, however this girl disagreed. The only reason the black

girl disagreed was that she had wanted blue eyes. This was a deep and heartfelt wish which

she had not been granted. Morrison recalls her reaction well. Morrison could not

understand why this little girl prayed for almost two years for blue eyes. This girl did not

see her own beauty and Morrison did not understand why this girl would want the most

obvious feature of white beauty. This memory of the little girl longing for blue eyes has

stayed with Morrison.

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The characters in The Bluest Eye represent what it means to be an African

American searching for love and influenced by white beauty. Pecola, a member of an

untypical African American family, is an extreme victim of the society around her,

resulting in her desire to be a holder of white beauty. In this novel Morrison stresses the

images of the dominant white beauty and its devastating effects on the black people when

searching for love while Tar Baby deals with the main heroine, Jadine, who has already

succeeded in the world dominated by white beauty but she has lost love “with her ancient

properties” (TB 308). Tar Baby reveals that the consequences of white beauty cannot be

true values for African American community. When Pecola wants blue eyes, she says that

she wants to escape from this world. Pecola and her family learn that being black is a

synonym with being ugly. Blue eyes are regarded as beautiful by the community

surrounding Pecola, particularly her mother, Pauline, who deeply admires Shirley Temple

and Greta Garbo. Pecola’s desperate hunger for love leads to insanity when she starts to

believe she actually has obtained blue eyes.

Tar Baby, published in 1981, comes as Morrison’s fourth novel. Jadine is a light-

skinned woman who has been educated according to white standards. She has a supportive

family, a promising career as a model, learns the way of life dominated by white beauty,

but is apparently not happy. Like Pecola, she yearns for love. Jadine’s life, the same as

Pecola’s, is paradoxically threatened by white beauty. Jadine’s black lover, Son Green, is

her opposite. He has no education, no family, no future. He lives in Eloe and sees white

beauty as jeopardizing Jadine’s life. Son does not value luxurious items made by the world

dominated by white beauty. He tries to rescue Jadine from the white world and bring her

back to Eloe. This novel again offers many images of white beauty which I elaborate later

on in my thesis. Jadine has achieved some of the goals which Pecola and Pauline desire.

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Jadine identifies herself with the white world and scorns her black world, but she never

really fits into either of them.

In my thesis I primarily concentrate on the two novels mentioned above and on the

main female characters as well as some of the male characters whose lives are threatened

and affected by white beauty. The images of white beauty stand as a barrier for their

hopeless search for love.

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2. Toni Morrison and Her Definition of Beauty

Everybody, whether they have black skin or white skin, deals with the question of

beauty. When talking or reading about beauty, it always leads me to think about skinny,

long-haired, long-legged, blue-eyed and white-skinned woman. Many women strive for

beauty. Some people do not consider the main idea of one proverb which says that “beauty

is in the eye of the beholder” (AskOxford Dictionary). Beauty cannot be clearly

characterized by what people are told. Standards of beauty are different for everyone.

When there is a woman passing by, one can see her as beautiful or ugly. It depends on

what one considers beautiful. What is beautiful for me may be ugly for someone else.

Beauty is a central focus for many American women. They are not satisfied with

their physical appearance. They feel that they are not as beautiful as the women on

television or in magazines. The media brainwash women to believe that if they are not slim

and do not have blond hair and blue eyes, then they are not beautiful. According to Naomi

Wolf, “this is a very powerful myth” (qtd. in Sugiharti). Since the ideal of beauty is and

has been largely depicted as a woman with light skin and blue eyes, it is even less possible

for a woman of colour than for a white woman to achieve this ideal. Elizabeth B. House

underscores that “competitive American society teaches that beauty makes people lovable”

(182). This causes women not only to hate the ideal women from magazines or television,

but also to hate themselves. Bertram D. Ashe confirms that “African American women,

with their traditionally African features, have always had an uneasy coexistence with the

European (white) ideal of beauty” (579). This can be clearly seen in the African American

women characters in Morrison’s novel who suffer when trying to assimilate white

standards of beauty.

Toni Morrison addresses the issue of female beauty and forces the black women to

think about themselves. Primarily, Morrison rejects the traditional view of white beauty

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because she sees it as “racist and frivolous and it separates women from reality” (qtd. in

Walther 775-76). This is clearly demonstrated on Pecola’s urgent desire for bluest eyes and

Jadine’s loss of her bonds with the black world. These two black women lose contact with

reality. Pecola goes insane at the end and Jadine does not know where she belongs. In

“What the Black Woman Thinks About Women’s Lib” Morrison asserts: “It seems a

needless cul-de-sac, an opiate that appears to make life livable if not serene but eventually

must seperate us from reality. I maintain that black women are really O.K. O.K. with our

short necks. O.K. with our calloused hands. O.K. with our tired feet and paper bags…O.K.

O.K. O.K.” (qtd. in Walher 775-76). Essentially, this statement rejects beauty, yet contains

“the seeds of Morrison’s future redefinition of beauty” (qtd. in Walther 776). Further,

Morrison questions whether “it might be just as well for black women to remain useful”

(qtd. in Walther 775). According to Morrison, the women should “remain useful” (qtd. in

Walther 776), but in the white culture these women are helpless. In other words, when a

woman has tired feet and calloused hands she is not appropriate for the white culture. But

for Morrison “these attributes are beautiful and more authentic than popularized standards

of white female beauty, because they reflect women who are useful and real” (qtd. in

Walther 776). Morrison’s rejection of white female beauty is reflected in her first novel

The Bluest Eye where she reveals the crippling effects of white beauty on a young black

girl. Her later works such as Tar Baby insist on “a beauty who is useful, a beauty who

works” (qtd. in Walther 776). To sum up, Morrison claims that “blacks must love and

desire racially authentic beauty, rather than imitating other races’ forms of beauty” (qtd. in

Ashe 589). In the next chapter I will analyze Pecola’s yearning for bluest eyes and the

horibble effects white beauty has on her as she is searching for love.

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3. Pecola Breedlove in The Bluest Eye

The main protagonist of The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove, is an eleven-year-old

girl, growing up as a black female in The United States in the 1940s. Pecola’s only one

wish is to be loved and accepted by her family and her schoolmates. Throughout the book

she searches for love. It is clear, as Maria Bring observes, that “Pecola envisions achieving

someone’s affection as something that [she] can do” (8). She already knows that nobody

loves her and that there exists something which might change her situation. She believes

that through blue eyes and white beauty she will find love and acceptance by the people.

However, her wish results in insanity. At the beginning of the novel, Pecola’s frantic

search for love is introduced by her question to Claudia: “How do you do that? How do

you get somebody to love you?” (TBE1 23).

Pecola is a tragic victim whose victimization results from the society in which she

lives and from the family surrounding her. Wayne Blake and Carol Anderson Darling

assert that “African American ability to love has required self-acceptance and has been

suported by the family” (414). The family Pecola grows up in is full of racial self-loathing.

Pecola’s parents do not know how to love and sadly they cannot give love to their children.

Pecola seems to be born knowing, as Bakerman suggests, that “the Breedloves were

damaged people, undervalued by both whites and blacks” (543). Pecola’s parents have

accepted the only one idea – that they are ugly. It can be clearly seen from the novel that

the blacks are forced to see themselves as dirty and ugly. Their white employers often say

to them: “You are ugly people” (TBE 28). Most members of the black community look at

themselves and see nothing to refute this statement. They are not the model which the

society portrays as appropriate. They have no self-confidence and no self-esteem.

1 TBE stands for The Bluest Eye.

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Although they are beautiful, they are taught and convinced that their ugliness is unique. To

Pecola, the youngest member of her family, this is just a fact of life.

Since Pecola does not witness love at home, she has a vague idea of what it would

be like to be loved. Pecola wonders: “What did love feel like? How do grown-ups act when

they are in love? Eat fish together?” (TBE 44) The only beings who talk to Pecola about

love are the prostitutes who live upstairs. One of them tells Pecola about a man whom she

loved. They ate fish together so Pecola deduces when people are in love they eat fish

together. This demonstrates that Pecola has no idea of what real love is, and she concludes

that it has much in common with her appearance and the colour of her eyes.

Pecola’s mother, Pauline Breedlove, whom Pecola refers to only as Mrs. Breedlove,

is the most damaging person who causes Pecola’s original sense of self-hatred. When

Pauline was a young girl, she felt isolated and lonely. This isolation was exacerbated by

the removal to the North, where she was unlike other blacks and unaccepted by them.

Pauline recalls: “It was hard to get to know folks up here, and I missed my people […].

Northern colored folk was different too. They could make you feel just as no-count, ’cept I

didn’t expect it from them” (TBE 91). Pauline searched for entertainment and she found it

in the movies. Her own idea of love was confirmed by the movie theatres. In her loneliness

during her pregnancy with Pecola, Pauline turned to the movies for consolation: “The

onliest time I be happy seem like was when I was in the picture show. Every time I got, I

went. I’d go early, before the show started […]. White men taking such good care of they

women, and all dressed up in big clean houses with the bathtubs right in the same room

with the toilet” (TBE 95). The movies had a devastating effect on Pauline because of what

they taught her about romantic love and the importance of physical beauty. Pauline

becomes obssessed with Jean Harlow. An incident occured to Pauline when she watched a

film starring Jean Harlow, “an American film actress and a top sex symbol known as the

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‘Platinum Blonde’ for her famous hair” (Stephan, par. 4). As Pauline sat in the movie

theatre, her own hair styled in an imitation of Harlow’s, she ate and bit into a piece of

candy. Pauline remembers: “[…] it pulled a tooth right out of my mouth. There I was,

trying to look like Jean Harlow, and a front tooth gone. Everything went then” (TBE 96).

Pauline’s loss of a front tooth was a determining event in her life. After this affair, she

gave up her efforts to be beautiful. As Pauline admits: “I let my hair go back, plaited it up,

and settled down to just being ugly” (TBE 96). Pauline felt unworthy and this depressing

event heightened her awareness of her physical appearance. She realized that she will

never be beautiful and loved like Jean Harlow. She gave up some possibilities of being

beautiful and “settled down to just being ugly” (TBE 96). This proves that even with

beautiful hair, the loss of her smile has doomed her to ugliness. Pauline feels that without

the tooth she will be considered ugly and unlovable. According to Pauline only women

with nice teeth are allowed to be loved. Pauline has transferred this ugliness to Pecola and

this has affected her treatment of Pecola.

In The Bluest Eye love is linked with the child ideal of Shirley Temple. The

fascinating power of Shirley Temple is clear in the novel when Frieda, Claudia’s older

sister, brings Pecola a snack: “Frieda brought her four graham crackers on a saucer and

some milk in a blue-and-white Shirley Temple cup. She was a long time with the milk, and

gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face. Frieda and she had a

loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was” (TBE 12-13). Shirley Temple

was a famous child actress whose movies were immensely popular in the 1930s and 40s.

The popularity of Shirley Temple during the Depression and the importance she had for the

Americans are difficult to overestimate. In that time love was represented by this goddess

Shirley Temple who embodied “equality, happiness, worthiness, and overall comfort” (The

Bluest Eye by Toni Morrsion). If a girl is a white with curly hair like Shirley Temple living

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in North America, this girl is going to be happy and lovable. The American president

Franklin Delano Roosvelt, speaking in 1935, praised Shirley Temple: “During the

Depression, when the spirit of the people is lower than at any other time, it is a splendid

thing that for just 15 cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a

baby and forget his troubles” (qtd. in Carney). Pecola is fascinated by Shirley Temple

because Shirley Temple represents what Pecola is not and what she desires for. Pecola is

taught that white skin and curly hair are the virtues that make people lovable.

It is not just the image of Shirley Temple that Pecola starves for, it is also the white

substance inside the cup. It is only later in the story that we are told that Pecola drinks

three quarts of milk a day. Pecola drinks so much milk because she believes that she can

become as white as the milk. The milk symbolizes the change from being black to being

white, from being ugly to being beautiful and from being unlovable to being lovable. This

theme concerning desire for love is also clear in Pecola’s selection of candy from Mr.

Yacobowski’s store. She buys Mary Janes. Even the innocent act of buying a candy

becomes an opportunity for Pecola’s humiliation: “Each pale yellow wrapper has a picture

on it. A picture of little Mary Jane, for whom the candy is named. Smiling white face.

Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort. The

eyes are petulant, mischievous. To Pecola they are simply pretty. To eat the candy is

somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane” (TBE 38). Like

the milk, the piece of candy is believed to have the power to change Pecola’s appearance.

The surrounding community which Pecola grows up and lives in is another reason

for Pecola’s overwhelming longing for blue eyes. The children at school do not see her as

beautiful and tease her primarily because she is dark-skinned. In the school Pecola learns

that it is important to have a light skin. Those children who are light-skinned take the

chance to taunt someone who is darker then they are. The most popular girl in school is

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Maureen Peal. She is presented as a “high-yellow dream child […] rich as the richest of the

white girls” (TBE 47) meaning that she is light-skinned and more lovable. Maureen

embodies the ideals by which other girls are judged. She is admired by everyone except

Claudia and Frieda. Their loving mother, Mrs. MacTeer, who has no problem in

complaining when she feels bad, who “would go on like that for hours, connecting one

offense to another until all the things that chagrined her were spewed out” (TBE 16),

transfers this ability to Claudia. Claudia and Frieda despise Maureen because she is lighter-

skinned and because she is not racked by the boys as they and Pecola are. Maureens’s

lighter skin gives her more self-confidence, power and love.

Pecola is abused and neglected at school and in the community, nobody wants to

play with her, nobody seems to see her. As Malin LaVon Walther asserts: “Pecola’s

ugliness, defined visually by white standards, forces her into a position of invisibility and

absence” (777). Pecola hides behind the ugliness. She feels that she was born at a place

where she is worthless and useless. Pecola is resentful but at the same time the most

innocent girl. She sees her ugliness as a curse because it excludes her form the society and

leaves her lonely. Pecola also feels so powerless that she tries to escape reality: “‘Please,

God,’ she whispered into the palm of her hand, ‘please let me disappear’” (TBE 33). It is

her wish not to be seen as ugly as the blacks are seen but to be as beautiful and lovable as

the whites. In order to compensate for her ugliness and her self-loathing, she begins to pray

for possessing blue eyes. Walther argues that “women’s eyes often serve as an attribute of

female beauty” (778). Pecola believes that “if those eyes of hers were different, that is to

say beautiful, she herself would be different” (TBE 34). If she had blue eyes, she would be

beautiful, she would be admired and loved by other people and people would not say bad

things about her.

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The most important reason for Pecola’s mad desire is the fact that she wants to be

treated differently by her parents. As Claudia, the narrator, says: “If she looked different,

beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too” (TBE 34). Pecola

strongly believes that her beauty would prevent people’s misbehaviour. She thinks that if

she had pretty blue eyes, she would see only nice and pleasant things. Therefore, she

begins to pray: “Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes. Fervently, for a year she

had prayed” (TBE 35). Despite the fact that she knows that it will take a long time to

obtain blue eyes, Pecola persists. What is really striking is the fact that she keeps on

hoping. This shows how much the society affects Pecola’s view of herself. The pressure

from the outside makes her believe that only blue eyes, which represent love, can make her

happy and loved. To the African Americans, blue eyes represent love and power. Pecola

comes to see her dark skin and her non-blue eyes as trash. She will never accepts herself

without blue eyes. She finds salvation only in the hope of blue eyes.

Like Pauline, Pecola internalizes that being beautiful is equal to being loved. For

Pecola and Pauline beauty is something in which they invest everything. Living her life

through white skin, curly hair and blue eyes shown in the movies, it is no wonder that

Pauline, when Pecola is born, describes Pecola as “a black ball of hair” (TBE 96). Pauline

adds, “But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly” (TBE

98). The reason for Pauline’s reaction to the newborn Pecola is probably that her child has

a dark skin and looks like Pauline. From the beginning we can see that Pauline loathes

Pecola. Pauline distances herself from Pecola as well as from her own family. Pauline

settles to be a housemaid to a white family. Although she neglects her own family, she is

obsessed with cleaning the Fisher’s house. As Phyllis R. Klotman points out, “[Fishers’]

values become hers and their lifestyle takes on more meaning than her own” (124). In the

Fisher’s house, Pauline feels happy and responsible. The Fisher’s home has “white

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porcelain, white woodwork, polished cabinets, and brilliant copperware” (TBE 83). These

things fill her need for beauty and for power. “They even gave her what she never had – a

nickname – Polly” (TBE 99). Pauline realizes that she is accepted by the Fishers. The

nickname is a device of acceptance.

One of the most heart-breaking scenes in the book occurs in the Fishers’ kitchen.

One day Claudia and Frieda are on a serious search for whiskey. They set out to find

Pecola, who is at the Fishers’ for the laundry. Pauline is not happy to see Pecola’s friends

but she allows them to step inside “her kitchen.” While waiting for Pauline to retrieve the

wash, a young white girl – the little Fisher girl – comes into the kitchen where Pecola,

Frieda and Claudia are waiting. She calls anxiously for Pauline. Instead of calling her

“Mrs. Breedlove,” the formal address that her own children call her, the little white girl

calls for “Polly.” When calling on Pauline, Pecola, Frieda and Claudia notice a deep-dish

blueberry cobbler near the stove. Pecola decides to touch it to see if it is hot. As she does

so, the blueberry pie falls by accident. The hot blueberries are everywhere, with most of

the juice splattering on Pecola’s legs. Pauline treats Pecola “a crazy fool” (TBE 84) as she

worries about the dirtiness of the floor. In the meantime, the little white girl begins to cry.

Pauline immediately turns her attention to the white girl’s pink dress that is dirtied by the

black blueberries. She repeats, “Hush. Baby, hush […]. Don’t cry no more. Polly will

change it” (TBE 85). She sooths the tears of the “little pink-and-yellow girl” (TBE 85).

This clearly shows that the white body must be loved and cherished, while the black body

can be insulted and verbally attacked. As the three black girls leave, they can hear Pauline

promise to make another pie for the little white girl. The white girl twice asks Polly who

they are. Pauline refuses to answer. Klotman summarizes: “Through her mother’s blurred

vision of the pink, white and golden world of the Fishers, Pecola learns that she is ugly,

unacceptable, and especially unloved” (124). Black is ugly and substandard. Her own

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mother prefers the strange white child. She is left to conclude that it is white beauty that

guarantees love. This is why Pecola sits for hours “looking in the mirror, trying to discover

the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by

teachers and classmates alike” (TBE 34).

Another example of a person desperately searching for love is demonstrated in the

crucial character of Cholly Breedlove, Pauline’s husband and Pecola’s father. His shame

and powerlessness, which stem from his first sexual encounter with a young girl, Cholly

passes on to Pecola. He feels unworthy. Cholly’s life begins with rejection. When he was

only four days old, his mother “wrapped him in two blankets and one newspaper and

placed him on a junk heap by the railroad” (TBE 103). What is striking is the fact that

Cholly’s mother does not even give him a name. It is his Aunt Jimmy who brings him up

and takes care of him. He is rejected by his biological parents. He has never experienced a

loving family. A horrible situation occurs in Cholly’s youth. Cholly is caught by two white

hunters when having sexual intercourse with Darlene. The white hunters flash a flashlight

in his face and giggle at him. He is forced to continue as they watch. This built up a lot of

anger and hatred in Cholly’s mind. As the narrator says: “They were big, white, armed

man. He was small, black, helpless. His subconscious knew what his conscious mind did

not guess – that hating [the white hunters] would have consumed him, burned him up like a

piece of soft coal, leaving only flakes of ash and a question mark of smoke. He was, in

time, to discover that hatred of white men – but not now” (TBE 118). This moment

changes Cholly’s attitudes to his beloved Darlene. He feels humiliated, mad and angry and

that is why he transfers this anger to Darlene rather than the hunters: “He hated the one

who had created the situation, the one who bore witness to his failure, his impotence”

(TBE 118). This horrible act changes him into a man who has trouble expressing his

emotions. After this incident Cholly is afraid of Darlene becoming pregnant. He feels that

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the only person who is able to understand his fear is his real father, since his father got

Cholly’s mother pregnant and abandoned her. Cholly decides to find his real father,

Samson Fuller. After walking long hours, he finally finds his father playing craps in an

alley. Cholly goes up and wants to indroduce himself. At this moment Cholly realizes that

he does not know his mother’s name: “No. Sir, I’m…” (TBE 122). Cholly does not know

who he belongs to. As Samson says: “Tell that bitch she get her money. Now get the fuck

outta my face” (TBE 123). Samson rejects him and from this time on Cholly is forced to

take care of himself. Cholly’s rage and failure to protect Darlene from the hunters’

flashlighst affects his future relationship with women.

Pauline’s need for love is obvious when as a young girl she possesses “a crooked,

archless foot that flopped when she walked” (TBE 86). She sees her maimed foot as the

reason why she can never find a man who will love her. She falls in love with Cholly

because he is the first man to pay her any attention. For the first time Pauline “felt that her

bad foot was an asset” (TBE 90). But only for a short time. After having had a deeply

humiliating encounter with the hunters Cholly is insecure about his manhood. As the

narrator comments: “Even a half-remembrance of this episode, along with myriad other

humiliations, defeats, and emasculations, could stir him into flights of depravity […]”

(TBE 31-32). As Cholly at first directed his frustration and anger towards Darlene, he does

the same later when he is at home against Pauline and Pecola. Once Cholly, being

extremely drunk, comes home and sees Pecola washing dishes in the kitchen. While he is

watching, he recollects the images of young Pauline and the love he felt for her. The

silhouette of young Pauline coincides with Pecola, for “[Pecola’s] timid, tucked-in look of

the scratching toe – was what Pauline was doing the first time he saw her in Kentucky”

(TBE 128-29). Not knowing how to deal with this situation, Cholly “[…] with revulsion,

guilt, pity, then love” (TBE 127) rapes her. He sees Pecola’s sad look and this awakes in

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him his personal failure to protect Darlene. As Walther points out, “the male gaze is

connected with sexual desire and objectification of women” (779). Cholly somehow wants

to love his daughter but he does not know how. He needs to be someway accepted by his

family through love which he would not accept. Cholly’s isolation, unhappy childhood and

unsatisfying life are the main causes of his failure: “This incestual act does nothing but

bring out more sympathy for the protagonist” (Mellage, par. 16). Cholly had internalized

resentment and shame. He lets these feelings out and causes other people to be hurt. I see

this as a vicious cycle. His past was full of rejection and he never knew what it would be

like to love someone. Cholly thinks he loves Pecola but at the same time he rejects her. He

rejected Pauline, but this time he rejects his daughter. After the rape, Pecola becomes

pregnant and finds the only refuge available to her – madness.

Pecola eventually makes her way to Soaphead Church, a West Indian spiritualist

and a sort of faith healer. He had never experienced anything like this: “A little black girl

who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes”

(TBE 137). Pecola believes that Soaphead Church is able to help her acquire blue eyes.

Soaphead Church’s idea of love is to endow Pecola with the thing which she aks for, but it

is not really love. He sees her, like everybody else, as an ugly little black girl. If he could

really work miracles, he would change everything around Pecola. She searches him out as

a last resort, after a year of praying has not helped. God is not capable of helping her. But

Pecola is tricked and she begins to believe that she has now obtained the blue eyes. She

invents an imaginary friend to whom she speaks about her new blue eyes. At the beginning

of her conversation with her new friend, Pecola is happy and convinced that people are

jealous of her blue eyes. That is why people do not look at her when they meet her. This is

the first time she sees herself as beautiful. But it is only an illusion. In fact, Pecola cannot

see her own beauty because she is deceived and her blue eyes are imaginary too. Pecola

17

loses touch with reality. In her mind she is not content even when she thinks she has

become beautiful. Karla Holloway argues that “even this internal dialoguing of Pecola

does not bring her solace, because she is afraid the eyes given to her by Soaphead Church

are not blue enough” (qtd. in Mellage). Simply having blue eyes is not enough for Pecola.

She is obsessed with the idea of being the most beautiful person possible. Pecola starts to

wish for even bluer eyes. She needs more. She must have the bluest eyes which would

bring her love. Such aim brings along great pain.

White beauty has an enormous influence on the African American community. The

white beauty becomes the ideal for almost everybody from Pecola’s community. They,

however, cannot reach this ideal of blond hair, blue eyes and white skin. They are therefore

forced to feel inferior. According to Lawrence Halprin, “women of color are judged

according to white beauty and therefore they are always considered ugly” (qtd. in Powers).

This implies that many blacks are taught to hate themselves. The white beauty becomes a

dangerous trap for Pecola. She is born black and she can never escape it. Her life is

dominated by ideas and beliefs regarding white beauty – a thing so superficial and

immeasurable.

Pecola and her friends are also exposed to this white beauty. Claudia receives a gift

for Christmas. It is a big, blue-eyed baby doll. This doll is considered beautiful but Claudia

does not think so. Claudia dismembers the baby doll. She tries to rip out her eyes, tear off

her head in the effort to learn “what made people look at them and say, “Awwwww,” but

not for me” (TBE 15). Pecola admires the Shirley Temple cup and buys Mary Jane’s

candies. She wants to be like them and she realizes she cannot. Claudia hates Shirley

Temple and concerns herself how Mr. Bojangles could select Shirley Temple as his dance

partner over herself in a famous movie scene. She refuses these white girls because they

steal the attention and love that Claudia deserves.

18

The ideal of white beauty has had a terrible impact on the black community. Due to

the power of this ideal, Pecola believes that only through blue eyes will she remedy her

desperate life and people will love her. Sharon House points out that “One way to get

[love] is by loving and caring for yourself” (par. 3). Pecola cannot be loved because she

does not have blue eyes and blond hair. She is ugly because she does not look like the ideal

of white beauty. Pecola’s parents, Pauline and Cholly have never experienced love and

they transfer their self-hate to Pecola. They incorporate ugliness into her heart and soul.

Morrison suggests that “her extreme case of self-hatred comes from a series of rejections,

some routine, some exceptional, some monstrous that combine to form the means of

Pecola’s ultimate destruction” (qtd. in Powers). Pecola succumbs to white beauty. She

searches for love, trying to become somebody she is not and can never be.

19

4. Jadine Childs in Tar Baby

Jadine Childs is an another character who is desperately searching for love. Jadine,

the main heroine of Tar Baby, has achieved some of the goals which Pecola and Pauline

Breedlove desire such as beauty, power, success and freedom. At the same time she has

lost her bonds with the black world because she has internalized the myth of white beauty.

Jadine is a green-eyed light-skinned black woman who lives her life in between the world

of white culture and her own world of black culture, but fitting into neither of them.

Jadine is a twenty-five-year-old model with a promising future ahead of her. She is

a graduate of the Sorbonne and an actress who has had a “small but brilliantly executed

role in a film” (TB2 116). Jadine grew up in a black working-class family. After her mother

died, uncle Sydney and aunt Ondine, who were servants for the wealthy Valerian family,

took her to the Carribean island of Dominique. Jadine is black but was brought up by the

white family. She thinks and behaves like the whites. She leads a life that is different from

the lives of many black women. The lost bond with her own black world is caused by the

Valerians, the owners of the mansion, who live on Isle des Chevaliers. The white family

finances Jadine’s education in the cosmopolitan Paris and this starts Jadine’s modeling

career.

Tar Baby’s central motif is black and white beauty and Jadine’s search for love.

Beauty is represented by Margaret Street and Jadine. Jadine is proud of being a part of the

white world. She has been educated according to the white world which enables her to get

to know white culture. Jadine encounters symbols of white beauty in the cities all around

the world which she visits during her modeling career. Jadine realizes that being a black

woman in a white world means to be different. However, she manages to be a model

whose pictures adorn Paris magazines. In spite of the fact that she is an adorable person,

2 TB stands for Tar Baby.

20

she is apparently not happy. This unhapiness is demonstrated in an accident when Jadine is

buying food in the supermarket. She comes across a lovely, perfectly self-possessed black

African woman in the dairy section who is characterized as “mother/sister/she […]

unphotographable beauty” (TB 43). Jadine is aware of her own photographable beauty and

this woman’s unphotographable beauty. The woman represents what Jadine desires for and

at the same time fears. Jadine is also haunted by the thoughts of the striking woman in “her

long canary yellow dress” (TB 42). Morrison depicts this woman as somebody who resists

white beauty. Jadine is also distracted by “the skin like tar against the canary yellow dress”

(TB 42). The brigthly coloured clothes remind her of the clothes worn by some black

women. Importantly, this woman has no shopping basket. She solely places three eggs

“between earlobe and shoulder” (TB 42). This woman looks at Jadine and spits out. A

moment like this intensifies Jadine’s feelings of love and black woman as she remembers:

“When you have fallen in love, rage is superfluous, insult impossible. You mumble ‘bitch’

but the hunger never moves, never closes. It is placed, open and always ready for another

canary-yellow dress, or other tar-black fingers holding three white eggs” (TB 43-44). The

image of the black woman as mother completely derails Jadine. Jadine’s hunger for this

woman is seen as a result for Jadine’s desire for her mother and for love. This also reveals

Jadine’s loss of her identity. As Sandra Paquet observes: “It triggers an identity crisis at the

moment when [Jadine] ought to have felt most secure as as successful model and student –

her marketability assured by beauty and education” (507).

Isle de Chevaliers is an important place for Jadine. It is a place of escape, a kind of

home where she comes to gather with her family and decides the next steps in her career.

Jadines arrives to spend Christmas with her black aunt and uncle and have time to think

about herself. As the narrator remarks: “This vacation with light but salaried work was

what she needed to pull herself together” (TB 66). Jadines works and lives in Europe the

21

European way of life. Jadine, as a black woman with a certain social status, who lives

among white people in the high-fashion circles in Europe, is a sort of person who has never

worked as a servant or butler to a white family. She gradually realizes that this is how the

other African Americans are treated. She got the chance to live another way of life in the

white world.

Tar Baby offers many images of white beauty. Jadine demonstrates her values by

comparing white art and black art, saying: “Picasso is better than an Itumba mask” (TB

72). The paradox is that Jadine studied art history in Paris but got a degree which ignores

her own black world and teaches her to internalize the white world. Jadine prefers Ave

Maria to gospel music. She is definitely consumed by white beauty. This clearly shows

how much she has distanced herself from black culture.

Jadine is black but she is treated like a white girl. The kind of accommodation a

person is offered plays an important role in the world dominated by white beauty. Sydney

and Ondine, the black servants, live “up over the downstairs” (TB 85). Jadine is placed in

the upper rooms on the second floor. Gideon, Therese and the other black natives who do

odd jobs outside the house stay seperated from the mansion. This reveals the positions

these people occupy in the family. Sydney and Ondine’s room inside the house shows their

acceptance in the Street family. On the contrary, Gideon and Therese have no room in the

house and they belong to the community of the island. Although Jadine is black, she lives

at the top of the house. This shows Jadine’s attitude to her black world. Jadine lives in a

world dominated by white beauty and does not admit that she is black and should be

treated like black. This occurs when dining with the Valerians while her adoptive parents,

Sydney and Ondine, serve her meals. She feels like a white girl who should be treated like

a white – who should be hovered about. However, Gideon and Therese do not assimilate to

22

the white way of life in the house. They resent the whiteness with which the mansion is

interwoven.

Jadine’s education was paid for by Valerian who has accumulated his wealth in the

candy business. The roots of this business are in the Carribean soil, where the main

ingredients of candy like cocoa and sugar are grown. Paradoxically, these ingredients grow

in the field which were laboured and cultivated by black slaves. In other words, black

people carried out Valerian’s business and wealth. Thanks to black slaves Jadine could

study.

Jadine’s clothes are another example of an area where white beauty is very

dominant. As a model, Jadine must look good in photographs. She wears “natural raw

silk…honey-coloured…[dresses]” (TB 116). The jewellery which she wears costs about

thirty-two thousand dollars. Her earrings belonged to Catherine the Great, “the Empress of

all the Russians” (TB 117). Jadine’s nickname reflects “copper Venus” (TB 115). Jadine’s

beauty resembles a Roman goddess of love and beauty. As Malin LaVon Walther

summarises: “This image pressuposes a universal standard of female beauty which is

actually based on white criteria” (784).

Jadine’s beauty represented in the photographs, her education and wealth change

her life, but she is also deeply influenced by Son Green, the filthy young black man. He is

not initially a member of the Valerian mansion. After being discovered in the mansion in

Jadine’s closet, he is invited to stay. He is a kind of intruder with “wild, aggressive, vicious

hair […] uncivilised, reform-school hair, mau, mau, Attica, chain-gang hair” (TB 113).

Jadine is attracted to him. When she looks at Son, she sees “the small dark dogs galloping

on silver feet” (TB 113), which symbolizes Jadine’s attempt, as James Coleman observes,

“to assert control where control is lacking start running” (64-65). When Jadine first sees

Son, she is full of strange feelings. The reason is that she realizes she had not seen a black

23

man like him for more than ten years. Jadine feels somehow allied to Son. When Son

meets Jadine, he perceives her white beauty despite the black colour of her skin. Son feels

this white beauty as jeopardizing Jadine’s life. Jadine is an example of a black girl who is

not able to identify herself with her own black world primarily because of the place she

lives in and her success in her fashion career in the white world. She thinks that she is a

self-confident and self-sufficient young woman until she meets Son. He awakes her past in

her. From this time on, Jadine wonders about her past and begins to think intensely about

herself. As Jadine describes: “I want to get out of my skin and be only the person inside –

not American – not black – just me” (TB 45). Jadine is not able to live freely in the white

world nor the black world. Son, her future lover, seems opposed to Jadine’s lack of

awareness of her black world.

According to magazine covers and the standards of white beauty, Jadine is beautiful

and she wants to be beautiful all the time. On an excursion with Son to a remote part of Isle

de Chevaliers, Jadine wears “an expertly crushed white cotton halter and a wide, wide skirt

that rich people called ‘peasant’ and peasants called ‘wedding’” (TB 169). Jadine,

unfamiliar with this part of the island, walks into a mossy area and sinks in the muck to her

knees. Her white skirt is dirtied, spoiled and covered with black slime. In this scene Jadine

comes into dangerous contact with blackness. She is afraid of this blackness which

symbolizes her past. Jadine is happy in her white clothes. This blackness symbolizes Son

as well.

Jadine once receives an expensive Christmas gift from her French white fiancé. The

coat he sends her is made from “the hides of ninety baby seals stitched together so nicely

you could not tell what part had sheltered their cute little hearts and which had cushioned

their skulls” (TB 86). Instead of being revolted by this product that Mary Lupton calls

“efficient commercial slaughter of innocence” (417), Jadine loves it. Sinking into its

24

blackness, “she lay spread-eagle on the fur, nestling herself into it. It made her tremble.

She opened her lips and licked the fur. It made her tremble more” (TB 112). Symbolically

speaking, Jadine is dazzled by this kind of dead black hide. Elizabeth House claims that

Jadine demonstrates “her lack of altruism through wearing apparel” (199). This coat

embodies Jadine’s own flesh. She identifies herself with this coat. It is black and it was

manufactured by white Europeans. It exactly expresses Jadine’s personality. She is black

but she is manufactured and treated as white.

Clothes are also important for Son. As a runaway, he first appears on the Isle de

Chevaliers as a smelly guy. Once clothed and bathed, he becomes desirable to Jadine. As

Jadine expresses: “In a white shirt unbuttoned at the cuffs and throat, and with a gentle

homemade haircut, he was gorgeous” (TB 113). At first sight Jadine is afraid of Son. But

when he changes his clothes and wears a white shirt, Jadine is amazed by his beauty. Son

does not value luxury clothes. He sees them as products made by the suffering of others.

Son strictly rejects everything white. Even when he needs money, he does not take it from

Valerian, from his white hands. Son is proud and strong in his black skin. He tries to rescue

Jadine. He wants her to “have dreams about yellow houses with white doors which women

opened and shouted Come on in, you honey, you! And the fat black ladies in white dresses

minding the pie table in the basement […]” (TB 119). In my opinion Son’s dream of

domesticity has some implications for his hometown in Eloe where he grew up. Son lacks

the strength to change himself. His life is full of deprivation and death. He says: “I don’t

have a real life like most people, I’ve missed a lot” (TB 177). He leaves Eloe as a fugitive,

avoiding arrest for his wife’s death. He may not have meant to kill his wife Cheyenne, but

he is responsible for her death. To punish her for being unfaithful with another man, Son

drunkely drove a jeep through the wall of their house. Cheyenne died in the flames. Since

25

then, Son has wandered. He becomes a drifter with no idea how to settle down. He cannot

find his position in the society.

Jadine and Son gradually fall in love. Jadine is so affected by the touch of his finger

on the sole of her bare foot and by his “laughing into the sky” (TB 180) that she thinks of

making love to him. Son tries to rescue Jadine from white beauty and Jadine tries to rescue

Son from being an uneducated, “cultural throwback” (TB 278). She wants Son to enroll in

college, to leave behind him the life dominated by blackness. Son questions the value of an

education which neglects his blackness. Finally, despite his love for her, Son realizes that

Jadine is “a model of industry and planning […] that is all the power there is or ever will

be and I don’t want any of it” (TB 270).

From Jadine’s conversation with Son it is clear that she is satisfied with her

education. They quarrel a lot and in one of these arguments Jadine highlights Valerian: “I

was being educated […] I was learning how to make it in this world” (TB 266-67). In my

opinion, “making it” is the need to act white and “make it” in white society. This world is

the world in which Jadine lives – the white world. Son’s black world of Eloe is not good

enough for Jadine. Son wants to settle down in Eloe while Jadine wants to live her life in

New York. By contrast, Son sees New York as a place where “the black girls were crying”

(TB 216). Jadine describes New York as “place which oiled her joints and she moved as

though they were oiled” (TB 223). Jadine sees New York as a basket of the white culture.

She is happy there and she declares that “this is home” (TB 223). New York is a place

where Jadine makes her good money. But Son still insists on Eloe, his hometown in

Florida. This is the first moment when it becomes apparent that their relationship is

doomed. Jadine and Son pull in opposite directions, split between loving and hating New

York. Jadine agrees to take a trip to Eloe, hoping that she will find there something that she

unconsciously searches for. But once there, against Son’s hopes, the split between them

26

widens rather than narrows. Jadine soon makes her decision to escape the attraction of Son.

She subsequently boards the plane to Paris where she is surrounded with the luxurious

things of the white culture.

Another character who is caught by white beauty is Margaret Street, Valerian’s

wife, who is in close contact with Jadine because of Jadine’s rather fair complexion.

Margaret represents, as Walther indicates, “the mainstream culture’s reification of white

standards of female beauty” (783). Margaret is helpless. She lives a pampered lifestyle in

which her “beautifully manicured hands do nothing but look beautiful” (TB 22). She grows

up as a poor girl who is first isolated because she does not like a member of her clan, and

then she is admired for good looks. She is truly aware of her beauty as a teenager and she

is forced to exploit it. Whether she likes it or not, she embodies white entrancing beauty.

When Valerian first sees her, he has to have her. He might not realize it, but he wants her

because she has bright red hair and striking white skin, the same colours as the candies

which are “red and white in a red and white box” (47-48), and are called after him. He

marries Margaret when she is only seventeen. Valerian expects her, as Missy Kubitschek

implies, “to remain beauty queen who would reflect well on him” (67). Margaret discovers

that this cold and lonely life of beauty is not for her and she begins to be friends with

Ondine. Valerian stops Margaret’s friendship with Ondine because he sees it as

undignified to talk with servants. Even though Margaret enjoys a calm life on the estate,

she despises it. As a result of her hatred she physically abused her son Michael when he

was a toddler.

The main characters of Jadine and Son are so different, but each has something

which is vital to the other. Jadine is a black materialistic woman with no connection to her

blackness and her past. Son is a black man with a strong connection to his blackness and to

his past. He is left unfulfilled, lonely and unstable. Son has a past, Jadine has a future and

27

each one carries his or her culture. Jadine feels that they cannot live together. However,

they both realize that they love each other and how difficult it is to be lonely.

Jadine prefers whiteness to her own blackness and her black boyfriend. Like

Pecola, Jadine succumbs to white beauty. She succeeds in something which Pecola and

Pauline never obtain – beauty, power and success, but also at the same time she fails at

love. Jadine is not a superficial human being. She is a loving and sensitive woman. But she

carries emptiness in her heart. She feels only pain and troubles. In spite of the fact that she

succeeds in many things, she loses one of the most important things – love. She is insecure

about her white European boyfriend Ryk when wondering: “What if it isn’t me he wants,

but any black girl who look like me, talks and acts like me, what will happen when he finds

out that I hate ear hoops, that I don’t have to straighten my hair” (TB 45). This reveals

Jadine’s desire for love and for white beauty.

28

5. Conclusion

The main purpose of this thesis was to show how the images of white beauty

threatens and affects African Americans when searching for love. African Americans,

women in particular, have been exposed to the white beauty and therefore they have tried

to follow these standards. White beauty stands as an obstacle in their search for love.

Through Pecola and Jadine Toni Morrison shows the results the white beauty has on these

human beings. Each of the heroines has adopted an attitude towards white beauty. As far as

Pecola and her mother Pauline are concerned, they completely succumb to the influence of

white beauty. Pauline’s self-loathing has been transferred over to her daughter Pecola.

Pecola as a newborn was already seen as ugly. Pecola is deeply influenced by her mother

who attends the movie theatre which shows what beauty should be. On the big screen

Pauline constantly sees how “the flawed became whole, the blind sighted, and the lame and

halt threw away their crutches” (TBE 95). Unfortunately, these miracles are short lived.

When Pauline leaves the theatre, she enters into the harsh reality when she is black again,

ugly and missing her tooth. Pauline knows that she will never be a glamorous movie star

like Greta Garbo or Clark Gable no matter how she wears her hair. Consequently, Pauline

turns to Pecola, the only person she can have power over. Pauline victimizes Pecola

because she is victimized by white beauty which she could never achieve – she is not white

and indeed is black.

As for Cholly, Pecola’s powerless and confused father, he rapes and impregnates

Pecola. This is an extreme case of Cholly’s inability and shame to provide security which

Cholly as a young guy experiences when white male hunters stumble across him during his

first sexual experience and exploit him. Cholly’s attitudes to Pecola are shaped by the

absence of a father in his life. The lack of a father figure makes Cholly believe that the

29

black man is good for nothing. The episode with white hunters is an example of the white

community which make black people to blame themselves.

Pecola’s only way out from the world where everybody victimizes her and runs her

down is in the hope of obtaining the bluest eyes. According to Powers “to blacks, blue eyes

represent the white beauty that they can never attain, neither biologically nor socially; thus

blue eyes become objects of both adoration and hate” (par. 2). After a year of praying,

Pecola obtains them. In fact, she is tricked and this moment brings her into madness. As

Powers testifies: “forever locked in a idealized white beauty, Pecola’s belief eventually

drives her insane” (Powers, par 9.). The result of Pecola’s wish to be loved and seen like

white woman leads to a destruction of her own personality. Pecola’s fictional adoption of

the bluest eyes reveals the effect white beauty can have. The images of white beauty have a

huge influence on the blacks when searching for love. Pecola cannot find love because she

perceives herself as ugly. Sharon House suggests that “to love yourself means to meet your

needs through activities and relationships that are satisfying for you” (par. 3).

Jadine, the Parisian model, is a another example of an African American woman

who succumbs to white beauty. As a black woman, she succeeds in the white world but

forgets “her ancient properties” (TB 308). Like Pecola, Jadine is not happy although she

has achieved something that Pecola never gets – beauty and success. However, Jadine

suffers a lot because of her love for the black man Son. Jadine’s liking for luxuries, for

instance coats and expensive earrings, and cosmpolitan cities has consequences on the

relationship with Son. Jadine internalizes the images of white beauty and feels that she is

not able to enter Son’s world. She is part of the white world, where she feels comfortable,

but not free. It is extremely hard for Jadine to settle in “Son’s dream vision of a happy life

together in Eloe” (Russell 106). Jadine needs to live in a big city, where she is surrounded

by the white world with some images of white beauty. This white beauty destroys Jadine’s

30

love for Son and they part. It is not clear from the story whether Jadine will stay in the

white world or not. Morrison reveals the impact white beauty has on black women and the

consequences of Jadine’s lost bonds with her black world.

In conclusion, white beauty has a devastating impact on African American women.

The heroines’ effort to become something they are not and can never be is very damaging.

The lives of these two heroines, which are dominated by white beauty, are ruined and in

many cases there is no way back. Pecola’s conflict ends when she goes mad in the end:

“The damage done was total […], elbows bent, hands on shoulders, she flailed her arms

like a bird in an eternal, grotesquely futile effort to fly” (TBE 162). Pecola starves for love,

“the need so strong that it is the major mold of character in the childhood” (Sharon House,

par. 1). Claudia concludes: “Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people loved

wickedly, violent people loved violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love

stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe” (TBE 163). Jadine’s lost love with her

past is significant when she is not able to return to her own world. People from the black

community do not accept her because she has chosen a culture which is dominated by

white beauty.

31

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