The Motif of Seeing and Being Seen in The Bluest Eye
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Body Paragraph “Mini-Thesis” Statement:
The motif of seeing and being seen runs throughout the novel THE BLUEST EYE. The person who watches, who sees, who observes is the one who is the active participant, the one who has the power. The one who is watched, is seen, who is observed is the passive participant, the one who is powerless. Pecola, impoverished, unattractive, is looked at, but is not really seen. Her perceived ugliness keeps others from really seeing her and her humanity. This is shown throughout the book, but none more brutally than in the following scene:
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Introduction:
While crossing the empty school yard, Pecola is accosted by Junior, an angry, bullying classmate of hers, who has been brutalized by his mother’s emotional neglect. Junior first taunts Pecola, and then realizing she would make a good victim, invites her to his house with a promise to see some kittens. But when Pecola goes over to his house, Junior begins to bully her, using his mother’s cat to both torment her and the cat, which he winds up killing. At that moment, Junior’s mother comes home and he immediately tells her that Pecola killed the cat. The mother looks at Pecola and sees:
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Quotation or paraphrase:
“...Saw the dirty torn dress, the plaits sticking out on her head, hair matted...the muddy shoes with the wad of gum peeping out from between the cheap soles, the soiled socks...the safety pin holding the hem of the dress up.... ‘Get out’, she said, her voice quiet. ‘You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house!’”
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Analysis:
Junior’s mother does not see Pecola, the child, the human. She sees only the stereotype of all the other faceless, unknown, uncared for poor children. The woman thinks she has seen little girls like Pecola all her life, “hanging out of windows over saloons”. These nasty little girls are everywhere, sleeping “six in a bed, all their pee mixing together”...”taking space from the nice, neat, colored children.” Where they live, girls like Pecola, trash and tin cans and tires grow, but not grass. Girls like Pecola, nasty poor girls, are like flies, and this one has settled in her house. Girls like Pecola, and their blackness and their poverty, offend her sense of cleanliness, her propriety, her attempts not to be like poor blacks. Junior’s mother does not see Pecola at all. Junior’s mother does not see the abuse Pecola has endured, nor the suffering she has gone through, nor the fear, nor the hope that lies in Pecola’s face. She just sees the poverty, and the ugliness that poverty brings. She just sees and judges what she fears and hates.
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The above is a template to help you organize your notes in preparation for writing your essay on the motif (a recurring symbol in a book, play, film, music or work of art) of seeing and being seen in the novel, THE BLUEST EYE. As you are reading, you will note the instances where Pecola is being watched and judged, and fill out the empty template with the following information:
INTRODUCTION: The introduction introduces the quotation or your description of a scene or an event in the novel which will prove your thesis statement. The introduction must make the quotation or scene clear to us and help us understand why you are using this particular quotation or scene to prove your thesis statement. The introduction should show us what has just happened or is occurring. The introduction should also include who is speaking and to whom the character is speaking.
QUOTATION or PARAPHRASE: The quotation must be bracketed with quotation marks (" ") and should be in standard MLA format. Avoid over quoting. Limit the quotation to no more than three sentences. You may limit the quotation by using only the most pertinent parts, cutting out the unimportant by using ellipses (...). You may also use paraphrasing, which is when you use your own words to describe a scene, an incident or a character.
ANALYSIS: This is one of the most important aspects of your essay. The analysis is your interpretation of the quotation, or scene and how it proves your thesis statement. In the above example, the analysis explains what Junior's mother is seeing when she looks at Pecola and why she responds the way she does, which in turn, explains why the quotation proves the thesis statement.
