Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is a novel that contains many rhetorical arguments and logical fallacies. However, before going into detail about what they are, here is a brief synopsis of what The Bluest Eye is about. The Bluest Eye depicts the tragic life of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who wants nothing more than to be loved by her family and her schoolmates. She surmises that the reason she is despised and ridiculed is that she is black and (actually, her skin is a lot darker than most other black people, which is the main reason that she gets ridiculed), therefore, ugly. Consequently, Pecola sublimates her desire to be loved into a desire to have blue eyes and blond hair; in other words, to basically look like Shirley Temple, who Pecola thinks is adored by all (Tate, C., Black Women Writers at Work, 1985). Pecola, soon after entering young womanhood, is raped and impregnated by her father, Cholly. Her mother, Pauline, finds haven, hope, life and meaning as a servant to the white, blond, blue-eyed, clean, rich, family to which she dedicates her love and her respect for an orderly life that poverty does not afford (McKay, N., Critical Essays on Toni Morrison, 1988). Unable to endure the brutality toward her frail self-image, Pecola goes quietly insane and withdraws into a fantasy world in which she is the most beloved little girl because she ends up having the bluest of all (Tate).
Now, as for the different rhetorical arguments and logical fallacies used in The Bluest Eye, there are many. Morrison also uses metaphors to describe the conditions under which African-Americans in general and Pecola in particular are forced to live. There are two major metaphors in The Bluest Eye, one of marigolds and one of dandelions. Claudia, one of Pecola's friends who is also one of the narrators, says at the first of the book "there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941" (Morrison 9). She and her sister Frieda plant marigold seeds with the belief that if the marigolds would grow and survive, so would Pecola's baby (Morrison 149). Morrison, through Claudia, finally explains the metaphor and broadens its scope to all African-Americans on the last page. "I even think now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruits it will not bear . . ." (Morrison 160). The implication is that Pecola, like so many other African-Americans, never had a chance to grow and succeed because she lived in a society ("soil") that was inherently racist, and would not nurture her. The other flower, the dandelion, is important as a metaphor because it represents Pecola's image of herself. As Pecola passes some dandelions going into Mr. Yacobowski's store, "Why, she wonders, do people call them weeds? She thought they were pretty" (Morrison 41). While in the store, Mr. Yacobowski humiliates Pecola, and on her way home she again passes the dandelions and thinks, "They are ugly. They are weeds" (Morrison 43). This is because she has transferred society's dislike of her to the dandelions (Dittmar, L. "Will the Circle be Unbroken?", 1990).
According to John Ramage and John Bean, the appeal to the person (also known as ad hominem) means attacking the character as opposed to the argument itself (Ramage, J. & Bean, J., Writing Arguments, 1998). Being that Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye is mainly about the life of a black girl growing up in the 1940's, you can use the ad hominem argument, which can be done by arguing the credibility of Toni Morrison's knowledge on the hardships endured by a black girl (Pecola) growing up in the 1940's. However, the author identifying their sex, race, or social standing can establish credibility. Since it is known that Toni Morrison is black and did grow up in the 1940's, it would be safe to say that she would know the hardships endured by a black girl growing up in the 1940's. Therefore, the aforementioned ad hominem would be of no help to someone arguing that the story of Pecola Breedlove is not an accurate one because Toni Morrison is credible. In fact, the story of Pecola Breedlove is said to be that of one of Morrison's childhood friends.
Argument to the people (or appeal to stirring symbols), which is an appeal to the fundamental beliefs, biases, and prejudices of the audience in order to sway opinion through a feeling of solidarity among those of the group (Ramage, J. & Bean, J.), can also be seen throughout The Bluest Eye. For instance, names play an important part in The Bluest Eye because they are often symbolic of conditions in society or in the context of the story. The name of the novel, The Bluest Eye, is meant to get the reader thinking about how much value is placed on blue-eyed little girls. Pecola and her family are representative of the larger African-American community, and their name, "Breedlove," is ironic because they live in a society that does not "breed love." In fact, it breeds hate—hate of blackness, and thus hatred of oneself. As for the name "MacTeer," an argument can be made that it refers to the fact that the MacTeer girls are the only ones who shed a tear for Pecola. Soaphead Church represents, as his name suggests, the role of the church in African-American life. The implication is that the church's promise that if you worship God and pray to Him that everything will be alright is no better than
Soaphead's promise to Pecola that she will have blue eyes. Morrison reveals the significance of Pecola's name through the character of Maureen Peal, one of Pecola's classmates. Maureen confuses Pecola's name with the name of a character in the movie "Imitation of Life". By this allusion, Morrison illustrates that Pecola's life is an imitation (meaning the same as, not inferior to) of the real experiences of black women (Stepto, R., "Intimate Things In Place: A Conversation with Toni Morrison.", 1987).
Another logical fallacy used in The Bluest Eye is appeal to common practice, which means that it's all right to do X because everyone else does it (Ramage, J. & Bean, J.). This can be seen throughout the novel when Pecola is getting made fun of by some of her classmates. The rest of her classmates join in because they think that it's alright to do just because everyone else is doing it.
The logical fallacy of confusing correlation for cause (or post hoc, ergo propter hoc), which basically means assuming that event X causes event Y because event X preceded event Y (Ramage, J. & Bean, J.) is pretty noticeable in The Bluest Eye. In the beginning of the novel, Pecola has a low self-esteem and is deemed "ugly" according to her family and her schoolmates, so she thinks that having blue eyes will make her pretty and popular just like most people that she knows who have blue eyes. Well, at the end of the story, Pecola is made to think that she really has blue eyes, which leads to her having a much higher self-esteem and her thinking that she is not "ugly" anymore. However, after she got her "blue eyes", nobody even wanted to talk to her or look at her anymore.
Another logical fallacy that can be seen in The Bluest Eye is that of hasty generalization, which is when you make a broad generalization on the basis of too little evidence (Ramage, J. & Bean, J.). Pecola makes a hasty generalization because she assumes that everyone with blue eyes is good-looking and popular, which is the only reason that she wants blue eyes.
The argument known as pars pro toto (or mistaking the part for the whole) can also be seen in The Bluest Eye, which is when you assume that what is true for a part will be true for the whole (Ramage, J. & Bean, J.). Throughout the novel, all that Pecola wants is blue eyes. She thinks that just because some people she knows who have blue eyes are good-looking, then everyone who has blue eyes must also be good-looking. This, however, is not true because not everyone with blue eyes is good-looking, so it can be said that it is a pars pro toto argument.
The logical fallacy known as red herring, which is when the audience's attention is shifted from a crucial issue to an irrelevant one (Ramage, J. & Bean, J), appears at the beginning of each chapter in The Bluest Eye. However, there really aren't any chapters in The Bluest Eye. Instead, The Bluest Eye is broken up into seasons—Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. This type of organization suggests that the events described in The Bluest Eye have occurred before, and will occur again. Linda Dittmar, in her article examining form in The Bluest Eye, says, "Inherent in the notion of the seasons is the fact that they are an annually recurring condition from which there is no escape" (143). Further dividing the book are small excerpts from the "Dick and Jane" primer, which is the epitome of the white upper-middle class lifestyle. Each excerpt has, in some way, to do with the section that follows. So, for instance, the section that describes Pecola's mother is started with an excerpt describing Dick and Jane's mother, and so on. The excerpts from "Dick and Jane" that head each "chapter" are typeset without any spaces or punctuation marks. The "Dick and Jane" fragments show just how prevalent and important the images of white perfection are in Pecola's life; However, Morrison's strange typography illustrates how irrelevant and inappropriate these images are (Dittmar). Therefore, the "Dick and Jane" primer at the beginning of each "chapter" would be the red herring.
Ad misericordiam (or appeal to pity) is appealing to pity as an argument for special treatment (Weston, A. A Rulebook for Arguments, 1987). Ad misericordiam is apparent throughout The Bluest Eye. For example, whenever Pecola gets made fun of or picked on because she is "ugly" by her classmates, Morrison assumes that the reader feels pity towards Pecola. This can be seen when Claudia (Pecola's friend and one of the narrators) says "we listened for the one who would say, 'Poor little girl,' or 'Poor baby,' but there was only head-wagging where those words should have been" (Morrison 148).
Pecola is/is not "ugly". That argument right there is a definition argument, which states that X is/is not a Y (Ramage, J. & Bean, J.). To many people throughout the novel, including herself, Pecola is marked as being "ugly" because her skin is much darker than that of most other black people and because she does not have blue eyes. A definition argument has a claim, a stated reason, grounds (evidence), and a warrant. In the aforementioned argument, the claim would be: Pecola is/is not ugly, the stated reason would be: because her skin is much darker than that of most other black people and because she does not have blue eyes, the grounds would be: her physical description which was described many times throughout the novel, and the warrant would be: the physical features that Pecola possess are sufficient criteria for calling her "ugly".
Another argument that could be made is a causal argument, which states that X causes/does not cause Y (Ramage, J. & Bean, J.). A causal argument in The Bluest Eye could be stated as: Pecola obtaining blue eyes will/will not cause her to be pretty because for some reason, Pecola thinks that everyone with blue eyes is pretty. Like a definition argument, a causal argument has a claim, a stated reason, grounds, and a warrant. In the above argument, the claim would be: Pecola obtaining blue eyes will/will not cause her to be pretty, the stated reason would be: because Pecola thinks that everyone with blue eyes is pretty, the grounds would be: arguments and evidence showing that people with blue eyes are pretty, and the warrant would be that: all people with blue eyes are pretty.
Aside from the rhetorical arguments and the logical fallacies used in The Bluest Eye, there are also four main themes that can be found in the novel, which are beauty, racism, food, and abandonment. Each one of these major themes is shown more than once throughout the novel. The following paragraphs, with the use of some quotes from The Bluest Eye, will go more in depth about beauty, racism, food, and abandonment used throughout the novel.
There are a lot of quotes in the novel that are about beauty, but the following one sums it up pretty well. "She stopped staring at the green chairs, at the delivery truck; Pauline went to the movies instead . . . Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the two most destructive ideas in the history of human thought, which Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion . . . She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen" (Morrison, 97). This excerpt explained a lot about Pecola's insecurities of beauty and where they originated from (her mother, Pauline).
This quote about Soaphead Church (the minister) shows one example of how racism was used in the novel. "Soaphead Church had been reared in a family proud of its academic accomplishments and its mixed blood--in fact, they believed the former was based on the latter" (Morrison, 132). This quote is much longer than that (in fact, it is about two pages long), but the whole passage basically explains the family history and reveals how and why the family cultivated the belief that they were superior because of the white blood in their family tree.
Food is used continuously throughout the book to describe things that are completely unrelated to food. Here is just one way in which Morrison does this. "Love, thick and dark as Alaga syrup, eased up into that cracked window. I could smell it--taste it--sweet, musty, with an edge of wintergreen in its base--everywhere in that house" (Morrison, 14).
Finally, the last major theme, abandonment, played an important role in the novel, which can be seen in this quote. "Cholly sat on the back porch waiting. It had occurred to him that Darlene (one of his earlier girlfriends) might be pregnant. It was a wildly irrational, completely uninformed idea, but the fear it produced was complete enough.
He had to get away. Never mind the fact that he was leaving that very day. A town or two away was not far enough, especially since Darlene's mother could surely find him.
Cholly knew it was wrong to run out on a pregnant girl, and recalled, with sympathy, that his father had done just that to him. Now he understood. He knew then what he must do--find his father. His father would understand" (Morrison, 120). It just goes to show that Cholly abandoned his girlfriend, Darlene, most likely because he was abandoned by his father as a child.
The Bluest Eye is the novel that launched Toni Morrison into the spotlight as a talented African-American writer and social critic. As previously demonstrated, The Bluest Eye conveys many messages through the use of rhetorical arguments, logical fallacies, and the major themes mentioned.