This was our final essay. Final Paper Biraj Dutta  

Biraj Dutta
Professor Yankwitt
FIQWS 10008 HA11
03 December 2019
What/If
Nowadays, society is lacking tradition, it is lacking emotion. We are missing out on some
of life’s greatest moments due to putting efforts into questions like “What will other people will
say!? ” or “Am I pretty enough for people to like me!?”. These are some of the questions some
might ask themselves, whether to fit in this vase world we call “The Society”. Many authors like
Tony Morrison have come forward and made themselves heard in the process to shed light on
this matter. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison reveals how societal standards impact Pecola through
her displaced anger towards the way people perceive her; she develops an obsession with the
blue eyes that serve as the “solution” to her repressed emotions. Morrison critique society with
Pecola’s obsession with what will society think and how Pecola felt “fitted” in society.
Society taught many it’s ok to be different and to some, it taught them nothing but
desired to be fitted in. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola was an African American girl, who grew up in
an abusive environment, where she was raped by her own father, reshaped her thought process
and her feelings towards fitting in. Throughout the story, Pecola was traumatized by her past and
repressed her feelings. Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis, who expressed his
studies on psychology and put a spotlight on things like repression, disassociation. What is
repression? And how it might affect someone with a rough past? According to Freud

“ Repression occurs when a thought, memory, or feeling is too painful for an individual, so the
person unconsciously pushes the information out of consciousness and becomes unaware of its
existence.” Past experiences have largely influenced someone’s present. In the Bluest Eye
Morrison have mentioned: “Ought to she carry some of the blame.” (Morrison 189). In many
cases, Freud’ has proven his theories are credible. Throughout the story, Pecola felt like she
needed to be “fitted” in society but according to Freud’s “ Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis,” it
is a sign of illusion of being part of the conscious and unconscious minds. (Freud 2112) The way
Morrison has portrayed Pecola was in this dark place, where her experiences kicked in due to the
society looked at “ white” skin color people more dominant, which made Pecola “want” to be
part of the society to take advantage of things that she wasn’t allowed as an African American
girl. This has played her with psychology for a change. One example that would support such a
level of “mindset” is by Cholly, who was one of the characters in The Bluest Eyes, who had a
rough past, where he lost his mother in early age. I believe it changed him the way he treats
women throughout the story. The way Morrison has portrayed Cholly in The Bluest Eye as
someone who was lost due to lack of guidance, also his traumatic experience with the police
have reshaped his attitude. According to The Bluest Eyes, The police forced him to have sex in
his car while they watched him. As an African American,
The Bluest Eyes, by Tony Morrison, have disclosed information about her characters in a
way to shed light on her character Pecola’s obsession, and how it critiques the societies’
standards. According to Freud term obsession could be identified as fixation in the psychology
world. What is fixation? According to Freud’s psychoanalysis, “ A fixation is a persistent focus
of the id’s pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier stage of psychosexual development ”(Freud

1221), How it can be related to Pecola? Well for starter Pecola was “obsessed” to have blue eyes,
so she could fit in the white society and everyone would take her as a beautiful person in the
society. Throughout the story, Pecola looked at Shirley Temple for the symbol of beauty. As the
story progressed, Pecola’s fixation on blue eyes only to grow, she wanted her all the features of a
white person. At that period of time “white” colored people looked like someone with authority
and beauty. Over a period of time, Pecola started to feel like the things she wants, can’t have it
anymore. Which made her make an imaginary friend. This could be explained by Freud as
someone who’s suffering from hysteria. What is Hysteria? Hysteria could be identified as
“ emotionally-charged behavior that seems excessive and out of control ”, which was Pecola,
needed her imaginary friend that she’s beautiful because in the end she never had blue eyes to fit
among the crowd of white people.
Another concept that Freud and Morrison have shared in their writing is displacement.
What is the displacement? According to Wiki “ an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the
mind substitutes either a new aim or a new object for goals felt in their original form to be dangerous
or unacceptable.” The author of The Blue Eyes, Morrison has introduced the character Cholly,
where lost his mother at an early age, where he lacked the feminine role from his life. It reshaped
his view on females. In the story, Cholly was having sex with his girlfriend, where 2 white men
watched him have sex and insisted that he continues, which made him feel powerless and forced
to have sex. It made him upset, but at who? Instead of getting angry at the “police” looking, men,
he was angry towards his girlfriend. This would be called displacement where he displaced his
anger from the men that watched him have sex with his girlfriend who was having sex with.
Throughout the story, he displaced his anger from one to another and the intention to rape

Pecola, due to what he was suffering internally, Freud’s psychoanalysis concept would support
the ideal situation that Cholly was going through in the story. Freud’s such researched has been
presented in many stories like The Yellow Wall, The Sunny’s blues, A Rose for Emily.
Society has been known for affecting individuals for over centuries, due to such reaction
some people are suffering from much mental illness. Freud’s theory and Morison’s Ideology
about how society critique one’s self. Freud’s psychoanalysis has many eyes on such concepts as
“Repression”, and “Displacement” where Morrison implemented such concepts in her stories
have remarked how we look at our society. S ocietal standards impact Pecola through her
displaced anger towards the way people perceive her; she develops an obsession with the blue
eyes that serve as the “solution” to her repressed emotions. Morrison critique society with
Pecola’s obsession with what will society think and how Pecola felt “fitted” in society. The use
of psychoanalysis to critique society have impacted both the writing and psychology world.

Works Cited
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye . New York: Plume Book, 1994.
Scanzoni, John, and Greer Litton Fox. “Sex Roles, Family and Society: The Seventies and
Beyond.” Journal of Marriage and Family , vol. 42, no. 4, 1980, pp. 743–756. JSTOR ,
www.jstor.org/stable/351822.
Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis; Trans. by G. Stanley Hall. New
York: Boni and Liveright, 1920; Bartleby.com, 2010. www.bartleby.com/283/ .