When talking about Toni Morrison and her novels, it's tempting to talk about race since her work addresses that topic in such powerful ways. However, in an interview, Morrison stated that he actually writes "about the same thing... which is the way people relate to each other and miss them or hold on to... or are tenacious about love" (Otten 653). In his first novel, The Bluest Eye, Morrison tells the story of two families who are informed and affected by love in drastically different ways. Although love is generally thought to imply pleasure, pain is often used alongside love in the novel, modifying and complicating it. By placing pain and love in the same feeling, Morrison seems to suggest that love, when it is most sincere and touching, is tinged with a kind of pain. He examines the interaction between pain and familial and sexual love in his novel The Bluest Eye leading the reader to realize the different ways in which love and pain interact with each other and that love, by nature, it is inherently painful. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The novel begins in the fall, where Claudia, who has caught a cold, talks about the routines and rituals her mother engages in to make her better. The scene is full of potential pain: Claudia remembers that her mother's hands were "big and rough" as she rubbed Vick's ointment on her small chest and that her younger self was "stiff with pain"; she remembers her mother's misplaced anger as she speaks to the vomit "calling [her] name: Claudia" (11). The love that Claudia's mother shows for her is complicated, it involves both care and punishment, consolation and reproaches. Claudia claims not to know that her mother was “not angry with [her], but with [her] illness,” complicating her memory and the role her mother played in this scene, as well as in her childhood (11) . In hindsight, however, Claudia realizes that the pain her mother had caused her, the rough hands and the reproaches, were all manifestations of love. Claudia wonders: “But was it really like that? As painful as I remember? Only slightly. Or rather, it was a productive and fruitful pain… So when I think of autumn, I think of someone with hands who doesn't want me to die” (12). Claudia, although she remembers the pain of being weak and ill, also remembers that "the feet entered the room, the hands reattached the flannel, readjusted the quilt, and rested a moment on [her] forehead" (12). bed was painful and humiliating, the care and love that Claudia receives from her mother in particular have made that pain an integral part of her illness. Claudia experiences the pain of illness alongside familial love, making the acts of love she encounters even more touching and precious. She remembers her mother's hands, rough at first, then gentler, tucking her in and checking her forehead for fever. Comparing the pain she feels from her mother's rough but loving nature with the tenderness of the affection and emotion behind those actions, Claudia experiences her mother's love more than coincidental pain, as evidenced by her memories, which have a sweeter texture. how bitter. Claudia also remembers the spring of her childhood, and how the pain of punishment changed. Her parents disciplined her and Frieda differently in the spring, using new saplings and still-green branches to whip the girls. Claudia informs the reader that “there was a nervous pettiness in those long twigs that made us long for the firm swipe of a strap or the firm but honest slap of a hairbrush” (97). His parents' petty, wet anger inSpring makes Claudia want another kind of pain. He doesn't want a soft pillow, a warm bath, or even the rough love of his mother's seasoned hands. Rather, Claudia knows that pain is inevitable because it accompanies her parents' love for her and her sister. So instead, he develops a preference for pain, ranking the familiar pain of autumn as superior to the newer, more unpredictable pain of spring. Claudia, therefore, creates a sophisticated and complex hierarchy of pain, where lack of pain is not a problem because lack of pain means lack of love, and Claudia would prefer the pain of love to the absence of either . Pecola's experience with familial love is completely different; it implies pain in a darker sense, and while it might be easier to dismiss Pecola's situation as one of hatred or evil, the love is still there, glowing dimly in the embers of her broken family. While the MacTeers fiercely protect and love their daughters, the Breedloves are unsure how to love their children, because they hate themselves. The Breedloves have always been told that they are ugly and that perceived ugliness, often rooted in racial identity, simply breeds more ugliness and pain. In the book's crucial scene, Cholly Breedlove, rapes Pecola, and interestingly enough, we are not given Pecola's perspective. , but, rather, Cholly's. By presenting us with Cholly's point of view, Morrison once again highlights the meaning and presence of love in the scene. By presenting the scene through his eyes, we see Cholly's intentions, fueled and informed by his desire to love his son. If the scene were presented to the reader through Pecola's eyes, we would almost certainly not be able to see past the pain caused by the rape. So, when Cholly sees Pecola washing the dishes, looking defeated and intimidated, he tries to love her in the only way possible. knows how. Although he feels uncomfortable at first, eventually “the discomfort dissolved into pleasure. The sequence of his emotions was revulsion, guilt, pity, then love” (161). Cholly then rapes his daughter, trying to ease her pain by replacing it with his love. The scene also causes Cholly some physical pain: "Pulling away from her was so painful to him that he cut it short and tore his genitals from the dry port of her vagina" (163). Pecola internalizes the pain of the rape, ultimately driven mad by her suffering and lack of free will, as evidenced in her internal monologue and implied split personality near the end of the book. She is robbed of the pleasure of sex and, instead, must experience the pain of rape, a violation by her father who is only trying to love her. Cholly's love, in this case, generates pain. In an interview, Morrison said that “sometimes good seems bad; and sometimes evil seems good," but "evil is as useful as good" (Otten 664). For many readers, the wickedness of Cholly's act masks his underlying love for his daughter. However, Morrison wants us to consider rape as a desperate act of love. Morrison explained his intentions behind her father's rape of Pecola: "I want you to look at him and see his love for his daughter and his helplessness to ease her pain. . At that point her embrace, the rape, is all the gift she left him." (Otten 654). As difficult as it may be, we must view Pecola's rape as a perverse and highly misdirected act of love. Claudia also recognizes Cholly's actions as loving, albeit years after the rape: “Cholly loved her. I'm sure he did. He, however, was the one who loved her enough to touch her, to envelop her, to give her something of himself” (206). Morrisonhe goes on to say, “people do all kinds of things under the guise [of love]. Violence is a distortion of what, perhaps, we want to do. With the best intentions in the world we can do enormous damage” (Otten 652). Although Cholly's love is distorted, destructive, and harmful, it is still love. As he nibbles at the flesh of his daughter's leg and forces himself on her, he believes he loves Pecola, regardless of the pain he is inflicting on her. In an attempt to ease his pain, he tragically causes more pain. Because the book's perspective is primarily that of a young girl, the idea of ​​romantic or sexual love is both entirely unfamiliar and equally appealing; Claudia, in particular, is intrigued by the idea of ​​loving a man and having a man love her. Even after finding Frieda very distressed and emotional after being molested by Mr. Henry, Claudia cannot help but wonder what it was like to be touched by a man, ignoring her sister's emotional state and asking sincere questions about how her sister felt. harassment. , also showing disappointment that he "has nothing to pinch" (100). Claudia seeks romance and pleasure in her sister's pain, convinced it is out there somewhere. Claudia finds suffering for love romantic and cannot distinguish between the kind of love she imagines and the harassment she suffers from Frieda. Claudia finds Frieda crying and assumes that Mr. Henry has physically harmed her, asking her sister, “What did he do? Just come over and pinch them?" (100). Claudia assumes that Mr. Henry's "love" must have hurt Frieda in some way because love seems to be closely linked to pain. Claudia's notions of pain and love are also informed by the blues song her mother sings. As a child, Claudia hears her mother “singing about hard times, bad times and times when someone went away and left me singing eyes so loose that I found myself longing for those hard times, longing to grow up without 'a subtle di-i-ime to my name'” (25). The pleasure Claudia gets from her mother's singing and the beauty of her voice make Claudia long for the kind of love that breaks the heart. This moment, Claudia realizes the power and promise of love: if nothing else, it will break the heart and will cause so much pain that the only relief will be a song. Claudia longs for romantic love so deep that it leaves her grief-stricken: “I couldn't wait for the delicious moment when 'my man' would leave me, when 'I would hate to see that sun go down...' because then I would know that "my man left this town." The unhappiness colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all the pain out of the words and left me with the belief that the pain was not only bearable, but it was sweet." (25-26) Claudia learns from her mother's bittersweet song that true love is painful; the song is complex and speaks of painful things in a haunting and beautiful way. Claudia, along with the reader, realizes that wonderful complexity of love lies in her complicated relationship with pain. Pecola also ignores what love is, both sexual and familial. As she sits with the prostitutes who live above her apartment, Pecola reflects on the nature of love, then turns to The only example of love he knows: his parents. “The image of Cholly and Mrs. Breedlove in bed appeared before his eyes. He made sounds as if he were in pain, as if something had him by the throat and wouldn't let go... Maybe it was love. Suffocating sounds and silence” (57). The sexual act, something universally considered a pleasurable experience and something done out of love, is 2009.