The Bluest Eye II

In Isaiah 53:2-3, Jesus is described as “a tender plant, and as a root (growing) out of dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hide as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Bump 67). Similar to the world’s actions towards Jesus, Pecola in Toni Morrison’s, The Bluest Eye, was completely cast aside as a recluse from society. Pecola’s own ugliness made her “despised…by teachers and classmates a like” (Morrison 45). Though both Pecola and Jesus endured lives of extreme hardship and suffering, both essentially became saviors in their own ways. Christians look to the symbol of Jesus crucified on a cross as a reminder that that Jesus lived the perfect sacrificial life and that through His eternal love, all of our sins are forgiven. Through Jesus’ divine grace, we are given new life and hope towards the future.

Similarly, Pecola’s life and insanity brings a new appreciation of life to the people in her community. Her ugliness makes everyone feel beautiful, her endless suffering brings gratitude for their comparatively easy lives, and her desire for acceptance humbles them. She remains a symbol of all that hatred and human suffering can be, and encourages them to be compassionate towards one another. She serves as a beacon of hope “among all of the waste and beauty of the world- which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us—all who knew her—felt so wholesome after we cleansed ourselves on her” (Morrison 205). Though unlikely heroes, both Jesus and Pecola have the ability to enlighten their communities and to bring them out of eternal darkness.