There are many people that society has labeled as evil or
just bad. Because they have done certain bad things, we think they are horrible
people. What we fail to recognize, however, is that everything has a reason.
There is a reason these people turned out the way they did and did the things
they did.
This is clearly expressed in many of the characters in The
Bluest Eye. In the prologue, Morrison states she doesn’t want to “dehumanize”
the characters, even the ones that oppress others. This is why almost every
single character in the novel has a redeeming back-story. Cholly Breedlove was
humiliated by white men when he was younger. Finding no other way to release
his anger, he chose to hurt women. Pauline Breedlove suffered loneliness due to
her abnormal foot; she didn’t feel like she belonged anywhere.
The reasons for doing evil, however, do not justify the
action. Even the worst of people, such as Hitler and Stalin, have reasons for
what they did but it does not make it okay for them to do so.
Agreed. I think Morrison really tried to give each of her characters some kind of back story to show us how they got to that point, really making the characters round instead of flat.
ReplyDeleteMorrison tried to give every character a redeemable trait for them to fall back on, but you are correct - just because a scarring event troubled ones life does not make it okay to take it out on others. Well said!
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