Mrs. Pauline Breedlove:
Introduction:
A Tragic Portrait of Pauline Breedlove in The Bluest Eye centers on one of the most complex and emotionally devastating characters created by Toni Morrison. Pauline Breedlove’s life is marked by poverty, racial oppression, and a deep internalization of white standards of beauty, which ultimately distort her sense of self and motherhood. Through her character, Morrison explores how societal forces shape individual identity, often leading to self-hatred and emotional fragmentation.
Pauline’s tragedy lies not only in her external hardships but also in her psychological transformation. Alienated from her own culture and family, she seeks meaning and validation in the artificial world of Hollywood films and in her work for a wealthy white family. This misplaced devotion further distances her from her own children, particularly Pecola, whom she fails to protect and nurture. As a result, Pauline becomes both a victim and a perpetuator of the very system that oppresses her.
Thus, Pauline Breedlove stands as a powerful symbol of the destructive impact of racism, class struggle, and cultural dislocation. Her story contributes significantly to the novel’s broader critique of beauty ideals and social injustice, making her one of the most tragic figures in Morrison’s narrative.
Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’ is a modern novel with a psychological background. Apparently, the novel is based on the theme of a minor’s rape by her own father but the role of the minor’s mother can never be ignored for she is the father’s wife. Broadly speaking a wife has to perform a few basic duties to keep the husband sexually satisfied, to keep the house well and to bring up children properly. Perhaps Pauline fails somewhere in her duties that such a hideous crime is committed twice with a minor by her father. A close study of Pauline’s character in this respect becomes important.
Pauline’s Background:
Pauline was the ninth of the eleven children and lived on a ridge of red Alabama clay. In the second year of her life Pauline Williams suffered from a wound that left her with a crooked archless foot. She was different from other children. She did not like rice. Nobody teased her. She did not feel home anywhere. She blamed her foot for her feeling of separateness and unworthiness. She liked to arrange things. She arranged even sticks, stones and leaves. If anybody disturbed then she was not angry for thus she got opportunity to rearrange them again. During all of her four years of going to school she liked numbers, disliked words and longed for colours.
Near the beginning of World War I, William discovered the possibility of having a better life at another place. They shifted to Kentucky where there were mines and mills.
In Kentucky they lived in a town having ten to fifteen houses in a single street and Fowler got a five-room house for their family. There was a yard in which Pauline’s mother planted flowers. The yard was bounded by a fence. Pauline’s some brothers joined the Army. One sister died and two got married. Mrs. Williams got a job of cleaning and cooking in a white minister’s family. Now Pauline looked after the house. She enjoyed herself in housekeeping. She liked stillness and isolation.
When the war ended, Pauline was fifteen and lost in fantasies. In her thoughts someone appeared but the someone had no face, no form, no voice and nothing except a presence to be felt. Pauline’s friend Ivy sang Pauline loved to hear her songs. Now the appearance of any stranger did not surprise her.
Pauline’s Meeting with Cholly:
One day Cholly passes that way whistling loudly. Hearing it Pauline smiles but does not turn around. She feels something tickling her foot. She laughs aloud and turns to see. She finds Cholly tickling her broken foot and kissing her leg. She can’t stop her laughter. He looks up at her and she sees heavy lidded eyes of Cholly Breedlove. She feels that purple colour is deep inside her. Not only one but all the colours are in her. When Cholly comes to her and tickles her foot she feels a strange sensation. Cholly is thin with real light eyes. He whistles and hearing his whistling, shivers come on her skin.
Pauline is recognized for the first time by anyone and Cholly has got a positive response from someone for the first time. It takes no time in coming together. They are attracted to each other and united.
Pauline and Cholly love each other. He loves her company and talking about her foot. He tries to prove that Pauline has no imperfection. For the first time in her life, she has felt that she is not invalid.
Pauline’s Love Marriage:
Cholly touches Pauline firmly but gently. He is very kind and lively. They agree to marry and go to north where workers are in demand. They are young, loving and full of energy when they reach Lorain, Ohio. Cholly works in the Steel Mill and Pauline keeps the house.
Cholly loves Pauline and she too waits for him to have that experience of perfect love. The way in which she narrates the act of intercourse shows that she gives whatever physical charms she has just in the beginning of married life. She lacks variety and it makes Cholly disinterested in her.
Pauline— A Working Woman:
Very soon Pauline begins to feel fed up of her loneliness. There are only two rooms in the house. House work is not enough. There is no yard to walk about in. Cholly resists her total dependence on him. Cholly has enough company but she fails in making acquaintances. Cholly finds fault with her purchases. Now quarrels replace their happy living. At last, she decides to be a working woman. She gets a job in the home of a middle-class family.
Pauline— A Mother:
One winter Pauline comes to know that she is pregnant. She tells about it to Cholly. He is overpleased. He begins to drink less and come home timely. He asks her repeatedly if she is tired. Pauline stops doing work. She gives birth to a son-Sammy and after three years to a daughter Pecola.
When Sammy and Pecola are still young she begins to go for work. She takes full responsibility. She shifts from two rooms to a spacious first floor of a building. She joins a church and becomes a member of Ladies Circle No. 1. At prayer she hopes God would help her keep the children from the sins of the father. She regards Cholly as a model of sin and failure. She bears him like a crown of thorns and her children are like a cross.
Pauline’s Error:
It is the point where Pauline goes astray. In place of making her family she diverts her attention to her master’s family and comes to lose her husband as well as her children.
Pauline gets a permanent job in the home of a well to do family. Mr. Fisher and his wife are affectionate and generous, They appreciate her devotion to duty. She becomes an idea! servant. She bathes little Fisher girl in a nice tub with cold and hot water. She dries her body with a soft white towel. She puts the child in bright clothes and brushes her hair. Now Pauline’s attention shifts from her own house to Mr. Fisher’s house. Here she finds beauty, order cleanliness and praise. Here she gets a lovely nick- name—Polly. She overhears remarks of her praise that she is an ideal servant.
In this effort of becoming an ideal servant she neglects her family to this extent that her children suffer from fears: they would be like their father, God would not love them. Her son develops a desire to run away and the daughter is afraid of her growth as well as all other people.
She works twelve to sixteen hours a day. She neither drinks nor smokes. She supports her family. All praise her. Sometimes she remembers those happy days when she had a happy married life with Cholly. Now Cholly lives mostly out of house. They have forgotten how to love each other. He has no interest in her and she feels that Cholly stinks. So often he beats her.
Now Cholly does not need her. Sammy beats his father. She fights with her husband. In short, the family has lost its meaning. Cholly begins to hate his house and one day he sets fire to it.
An Irresponsible Mother:
When Cholly rapes Pecola for the first time, the girl falls unconscious. Pauline finds her naked in the kitchen. Pecola tells about the father to Pauline yet she remains silent and inactive. It makes such a disheartening impact on Pecola that she does not even shout when Cholly rapes her twice. She does not tell about it to the mother for she knows that the mother will do nothing. The result is that Pecola gives birth to a child and grows insane.
For Pauline the little doll like daughter to her master is more important than her own daughter Pecola. Any other mother would have protected her child. Pauline could at least keep Pecola with her at the time of working in the other house.
But Pauline leaves Pecola alone to be ruined. Pecola visits the morbid old man Soaphead Church. What he does with the girl is shameful. He fills her mind with the sense of guilt. Pauline has no time for Pecola. Perhaps the little girls Claudia and Frieda think more for Pecola than Pauline.