As long as human beings live, they keep encountering many experiences that influence them either positively or negatively. In Arabic, we say that “the human being is a son of his environment” which means that we are influenced by many factors such as, our social relationships, level of education, socioeconomic status, culture and religion. So, if the environment is good, good citizens will be promoted, if not the opposite will happen. In “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, the author wrote her novel about how hurtful racism is especially at a young age. Cholly Breedlove is a poor man who has a wife named Pauline and two children Sammy and Pecola. In her novel the author mentioned the Breedlove family as dysfunctional, its members were convinced that they were ugly because of their race.
Cholly was influenced by many factors that contributed to shaping his personality and become who he is. His misery started when he was a baby, he was abandoned by his mother and raised by his aunt. Growing up he could never ask his aunt about his father until he was about nine or ten years old, but he regrets when asked (132, 133). Going through this experience of neglect and abandonment by his parents left a deep scar on him. The lack of sense of family and home affected Cholly’s reactions. When he became a father, he had no idea about father’s responsibilities so he became and careless. In the novel, Morrison states “you sure ain’t bringing in anything. If it was left up to you, we’d all be dead…” Her voice was like an earache in the brain”…If you think I’m going to wade out in the cold and get it myself, you’ better think again” (41). Thus, his refusal of helping his wife, shows that he is irresponsible. Cholly is acting like his parents who refused to take responsibility and provide him with love, shelter, and food. Sometimes a person becomes who he/she hates.
The fact that Cholly never met his father, he had no idea how he looked like. But for sure he hated him. In the novel, Cholly remembered being at a church picnic and how he described the father of the family. Saying that the man looked like a devil, not like God who “was a white man, with long white hair, flowing white beard, and little blue eyes that looked sad when people died and mean when they were bad” (134). Hence, linking bad people to the black race, especially fathers shows the hatred Cholly had towards his father. Cholly convinced himself that he is ugly, and he will never be a good person because he is a devil too, which explains his deviation. Blue jack is a figure that Cholly met at a young age and considered him as his spiritual father. Stories about sex, racism, and violence that were told by Blue Jack reflect the dangers of being black which influenced Cholly negatively and made him act like a black person to maintain his place within the black community.
The inhuman way Cholly was abandoned by wrapping him in newspaper and placing him on a junk heap by the railroad, created a deep hatred towards women. This can be seen in the way he fights Polly. In chapter 3 Morrison describes the fight between Polly and Cholly, “he fought her the way a coward fights a man -with feet, the palms of his hands, and teeth” (43). Accordingly, a person who abuses a woman this way tends to deeply hurt her and leave inside and outside scars. Living with Polly although they don’t get along is Cho Also, this hatred can be seen when he hated Darlene instead of hating the two white men. In the text it says “Cholly moving faster, looked at Darlene. He hated her. He almost wished he could do it-hard, long, and painfully, he hated her so much” (150). Knowing that he is powerless and that he cannot do anything to the white men who humiliated him, was the reason why he hated Darlene and it was his way to execute his power over her. Hatred towards women did not stop at this point, it got worse and Cholly raped his own daughter and ran away. This act demonstrates how Cholly was dysfunctional. Being exhausted by power, led to hurt his relatives and become the oppressor instead of being oppressed by whites.
Examining the damaging factors that influenced Cholly’s development, it can be concluded that the environment played a big role in shaping his personality. Racism, sexism, and violence were reflected in Cholly’s behaviors. Cholly was the product of his environment.

There are lots of people who stop Pecola from flowering and being her best. We have the boys who bullied her, Maureen and Junior. Some of these people were pretending to be good innocent people. They manipulated Pecola because maybe they thought she was weak.

The boys who bullied her were making fun of her because they heard her dad sleeps naked They were calling her names based on the color of her skin and the way her dad sleeps. It made Pecola cry and feel bad for something that wasn’t her fault. This situation with her dad was something she couldn’t control. Freida, Claudia, and Maureen step in to help her and make the bullies go away. Pecola starts to feel better about herself knowing some people are there for her and care about what was going on.

Maureen, who was one of the people who helped, offered to buy Pecola ice cream as a friendly gesture. But after they get the ice cream Maureen starts to interrogate Pecola about her dad and seeing him naked. Maureen starts to repeat herself over and over asking the same questions to Pecola. It upsets Pecola because she thought she could trust Maureen. This is why Pecola is stopped from being her best because she is conflicted about who’s on her side and who isn’t. She doesn’t know what’s the truth and what isn’t.

The last person is Junior. He pretends to be a nice friendly cat person. He wants to show Pecola his cats but instead tries to kidnap her. Pecola runs away and goes home where she feels safer. Pecola is being misled by certain people and she seems like someone who is very trusting. She goes along with people because she is too nice and can’t really speak up for herself. We see this in the scene when she gets her period for the first time but is afraid to tell Frieda and Claudia’s mom in fear of getting yelled at. Pecola was already in trouble for drinking 3 quarts of milk in a day so that was another reason was afraid to say anything.

It seems like people are trying to destroy any self-confidence she has for herself. Her parents are always yelling at her and people are telling her she’s not beautiful. It makes her self esteem go down and feel like this happening to her because of the color of her skin. Pecola sees the differences in the way she is treated and the way the white kids are treated. All of this makes her feel a certain way about herself. It probably makes her feel like she isn’t loved by many people. These things are what stops her from flowering because she is always being put down by others and she can’t grow into the person she wants to be. Pecola sees herself differently from the way some of these people view her but sometimes these people make her lose her sense of self.

Pecola suffers a lot throughout this book. Her parents Pauline and Cholly Breedlove are the main reason in which she is damaged. Both her parents past were very tragic. Their past reflects the way they are and this is reflected in the broken relationship they have with Pecola. Cholly has  damage Pecola in a major way by raping her. However I want to talk about Pauline Breedlove relationship with her daughter and how much damage it brought to Pecola. Parents are suppose to have a secure relationship with  their child. This relationship helps the child learn to regulate emotions under stress and in difficult situations. It also helps the child boost up its own self confidence. Both Cholly and Pauline do the opposite of this. Cholly doesn’t have a secure relationship as it gets shattered by being violent and impregnating Pecola. Pauline in the other hand never had developed a secure relationship with Pecola. I felt as Pauline had good intentions with her daughter. However she leaves Pecola alone and distance herself with her family.

This all starts will Pauline herself, when bringing up her past Pauline mentions how much she dislikes how she looks. It started with a accidental injury “The wound left her with a crooked, artless foot that flopped when she walked-not a limp that would ..”(pg110). This accident is the beginning in which it breaks Pauline. This makes Pauline self esteem go down as she lets this accident take over her and she slowly starts feeling lonely. “He general feeling of separateness and unworthiness she blames on her foot” (pg111), she herself let her foot identify her. She felt ugly and isolated herself from others. Pauline own insecurities hurts her daughter relationship and the way in which Pecola thinks what beauty is.

The only thing that gave Pauline the feeling of living is being able to clean and organize. At a young age Pauline starts working as a maid for a white household, this provokes Pauline beauty standards even more. However it helps Pauline feel worthy, as she is needed to help around a house. “The stillness and isolation both calmed and energized her. She could arrange and clean without interruption…”(pg.112). This feeling of being energized and alive when she cleans will then take control of her and will destroy her relationship with Pecola. Since Pauline continues to work as maid when she gets older and has her kids.She starts to isolate herself with her own family, she spends more time in the white household then in her house. Her working in a white household also represents the different classes that many people think of when it comes to race. The white neighborhood is describe as clean and pretty and the black neighborhood is the opposite of it.

Pauline own insecurities also comes with her love of movies/film. Pauline idealizes the white actors since they are portrayed as the beauty standards. In some point in the book it mentions how she tried to dress like the white actors in the movie and act a certain way too, while chewing gum. This unfortunate event lead to her loosing a tooth which then made Pauline more insecure about herself. These ideologies that she is feeding herself then comes into play with how Pecola thinks. In the beginning it mentions how Pecola loves Shirley Temples as it references the love of hoping to hold blue eyes herself one day. Pecola just like her mother believes she is ugly and the only way too be up to beauty standards is have blue eyes.

Pauline  enforces Pecola to think having a dark skin is ugly and Pecola thinks to herself that everything happens to her because her skin color. That she rightfully deserves what she gets because of her fairly dark skin. Maureen is a example in which Pecola idealizes light skin color then her own as she mentions how pretty she is and how much wealthier she is.

Pauline damages Pecola self confidence as destroys her relationship with her as Pauline never once tries to get close with her family. Pauline renounced her own black family for the family of her white employer. Pecola then develops to be the spitting image as her mother. Wishing one day she have blue eyes and when that they comes she would be treated better.

 Pauline and Cholly are both fighting with their own demons. The way they are both reflect a spitting image on how Pecola thinks about herself and in no way are helping her change this mindset.

At the start of the novel, Toni Morrison only focuses on devolving Pecola’s narrative of her life. We witness all the horrors done to Pecola by her family and begin to despise them. However, Morrison understands the importance of subject formation specifically how her mother’s past and present affect how Pecola acts in her life. Pecola’s mother, Pauline, experiences a rollercoaster of acceptance and hatred in her life that can all be traced back to her loss of self-esteem when “a rusty nail…punched clear through her foot.” (Morrison, 110) Although this saved her from anonymity her floppy foot is the source of divergence from others around her. Pauline used her foot as proof for her “general feeling of separateness and unworthiness.”(Morrison, 111) Because Pauline feels unworthy she finds pleasure in organizing and arranging things from jars to sticks and stones. She always took the opportunity to arrange and rearrange items to make them beautiful. She felt fulfilled when looking after Chicken and Pie so when they go away to school she craves respect and pleasure at the hands of a man. When she marries Cholly they begin an idealistic life together saying that “she had not known me there was so much laughter in the world”( Morrison,116). When they move to Ohio, Cholly becomes “meaner and meaner and wanted to fight me all of the time.” (Morrison, 118) Pauline is no longer able to sustain herself by simply organizing her “two rooms and no yard” (Morrison,117) and gets a job cleaning the house of a while family who would “drown in dirt”(Morrison, 117) without her. This begins to disrupt her love of making things beautiful. She is defeated by the white family and Chollyto the extent that she no longer believes she can make things beautiful which results in her neglecting her own home. However, Pauline is still able to beautify the “affectionate, appreciative and generous” (Morrison,127) well-to-do while family’s household. This shows a theme that Pauline believe she could only beautify the nuclear family’s life with her own covered in grime so thick it was impossible to not be considered unworthy. This feeling is mirrored in Pauline’s experience with movies. She watched movies of “white men taking such good care of they women, and they all dressed up in big clean houses.” (Morrison,123) When she compared these images of pleasure to the reality of her life she begins to want to be something she’s not. She does not find beauty in her existence and try’s to fix her hair “almost just like” (Morrison,123) Jenna Harlow. She then “takes a big bite of that candy and it pulled a tooth right out of my mouth”(Morrison,123) which reminded her of the feelings she got when the rusty nail punctured her foot. Pauline felt so ugly she transferred that feeling to Pecola from birth classifying her as a “head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly.” (Morrison,126) Pauline’s insecurity stemming from her floppy foot leads to her attempting to beautify herself and the world around her through organization and attempting to mold herself in the white image of beauty. However, her failure in making herself beautiful leads to her projecting ugliness onto Pecola and explains many of their interactions and Pecola’s feelings of unworthiness in her life.

Pauline and Cholly Breedlove both impose a lot of damage on their daughter, Pecola Breedlove. Pauline and Cholly both have troubling pasts of their own which has made them the way they are, and has affected their relationship with their daughter. Pauline has done less damage to Pecola than Cholly, but has still damaged her nonetheless.

Pauline has imposed damage with less devasting effects than her husband Cholly on their daughter Pecola throughout their lives. One reason why Pauline even hurts her daughter in the first place is due to her own insecurities. The main insecurity that Pauline deals with is her abnormal foot. Pauline feels she does not fit in with normal people due to her foot. She is even more discouraged by seeing how everyone that is “normal” has two regular feet. The city women that exist within Lorain, Ohio only make matters worse for Pauline by providing her with an environment in which she feels separated from. Fuel that adds to the fire of her own insecurity is her love of films. Pauline loves to watch films with white actors that portray a false sense of beauty. A disheartening fact that comes from this false sense of beauty that is portrayed by these actors is that “whiteness” is almost seen as a requirement for being beautiful. More fuel that adds to the fire of insecurity for Pauline has to do with her work. She works as a cleaning lady in a white household. The cleanliness and white people she sees and interacts with within the household also influence her. The sight of them only continue to dishearten her and add to her false belief of beauty coming from whiteness. Both her work in the white household and the ideas portrayed by the films she watches only continue to push her farther away from her family and loving them, especially Pecola.

Pauline has almost no love for her family, which is unfortunate for her children as they do not get to enjoy the benefits of growing up in a loving family or household. Pauline’s poor relationship with Cholly only makes this worse. Although Cholly is mostly to blame, Pauline also plays a role in igniting the conflicting spark between them. Pauline almost accepts and motivates the fights between her and Cholly as she sees herself being more powerful and having more authority than usual. “In these violent breaks in routine that were themselves routine, she could display the style and imagination of what she believed to be her own true self” (Morrison 41). Cholly has had a traumatizing past of his own which includes being abandoned by his father, the loss of his aunt, and being abused by others. All of the anger that exists within Cholly is unfortunately released in the form of rage and fighting upon his family, a major percentage of this being received by Pauline. This only shrinks Pauline’s self esteem and further pushes herself into her own self isolation.

Pauline and Cholly both have demons of their own. They come from the conflict that existed in their past and has shaped them into the people they are. The toxicity that they both possess is unfortunately released upon their children, who never get the luxury of growing up within a loving and safe environment. All of this pressure falls upon Pecola and also shapes her into the person she becomes.