How Ironic

Irony. This is one of the author’s greatest tools known to man. Irony just seems to spice up a story to keep it from being too predictable. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye uses irony heavily to convoy a tragic story. Morrison’s protagonist, Pecola Lovebreed, is an eleven-year-old black girl growing up in Ohio in 1941. She lacks confidence in herself. The poor child falsely believes that she is ugly because of her race. Her deepest desire is to have the blue eyes of a little white girl so that she can be beautiful. Up to the tragic end, Morrison uses irony in many forms to make the story even stronger. The best example of irony in The Bluest Eye is the “Dick and Jane” narratives at the beginning of most of the chapters. This close reading reveals that the “Dick and Jane” narratives may look innocent on the surface, but they have been twisted around into a sick and cruel joke for The Bluest Eye.

The famous “Dick and Jane” narratives were always happy and simple. Dick and Jane are always happy with their parents, dog, classmates, and friends. Everything in the narratives is all sunshine and smiles. However for The Bluest Eye, Morrison takes the narratives and twists them into a dark and icy meaning to fit the novel. On page three, the normal looks nice and normal. It seems like one of those killer dolls that looks and sweet and inviting. No one ever suspects that the narrative will lead to a car accident that no one can turn away from. If the reader were to read that page alone without knowing what the whole novel itself was about, they would assume that this is going to be a sweet and innocent story. However, this is just the hook that leads everyone in. Morrison repeats the narratives again on the next page. Only this time, she takes all the punctuation out of the story. The narrative starts to look a little corrupt, but only, half-way to the reader. It raises questions in their minds about what kind of story is this going to be. Yet, Morrison is not finished with the opening just yet. She writes the whole narrative once again. This time, she took out both the spaces and punctuation out of the entire story. Not only that, but she also capitalized each and every letter for the chapters that come the prologue. Now, the whole “Dick and Jane” narrative has a cruel and ironic meaning to it which perfectly sets up the reader to read The Bluest Eye. After the narrative is repeated three times, Morrison goes into the prologue of the story which foreshadows what is to come.

After she twists the “Dick and Jane” narratives, Morrison strategically breaks up little pieces of the story and places them at the beginning of each chapter. It does not seem to make sense at first. The placement of these corrupt parts draws the reader deeper into the story. Morrison has placed them there for a reason. Each corrupt piece of the “Dick and Jane” narrative parallels with the chapter. It all just adds onto the sick and cruel joke that keeps on building up until the very end. The pushed together words show the reader how it is “supposed” to be in Jane’s world and then shows us how messed up it really is in Pecola’s life. A good example of that is page 132. The piece of the narrative reads, “SEEFATHERHEISBIGANDSTRONGFATHERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANEFATHERISSMILINGSMILEFATHERSMILESMILE.” That is not what happens between Pecola and her father, Cholly. In fact, he is weak in character with his weak and impulsive behavior. The whole chapter looks back on his broken childhood. His rejection of his own father and family and humiliation at the hands of the white men that tried to watch him have sex with a girl shapes Cholly into the man he becomes in the story. In his drunken haze, he rapes Pecola while she is in the kitchen washing dishes. That is truly a far cry from the narrative that the chapter opened up with. The chapter is also a beautiful example of irony at play in literature.

The corrupt bits of passages play rather well into the novel itself. As it was stated before, they mirror the chapters of The Bluest Eye themselves. Jane is the double for Pecola throughout the whole book. The name “Jane” is mentioned nine times in the narrative. It is such a common name. “Jane” reflects on the simplicity of the American Dream during the time. This plays into the irony that Morrison was aiming for in the novel. The events that Jane does mirrors what happens to Pecola in a cruel and ironic sense. Another one of the words that keeps repeating itself in the pieces is the “play.” It is repeated twelve times in the whole narrative. Play has many meanings to the word. The standard meaning is the to have fun and enjoy oneself. The characters have their own sick way of fun with Pecola throughout the novel. Junior tricks her into coming into the house to see some kittens only to throw his mother’s cat in her face and hold her hostage inside. Cholly has his fun with Pecola when he rapes her. Morrison manages to take a simple word like play and twist into a cold, irony joke for such a powerful story.

Irony is a powerful tool in literature. Without it, stories would just be predictable and bland. Irony spices things up with the twists and turns that it brings with it. This literary device can also be used to teach a lesson to the audience. Morrison used irony to warn her readers about the dangers of not loving one’s self.

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni.  The Bluest Eye.  New York: First Plume Printing, 1994.  Print.