Therapy Case

Everything in the world is not always positive. The darkness lies down with the light. This is heavily represented in the minds of human beings. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye proves that to be true. Her characters have a powerful darkness to them. This novel is every psychiatrist’s dream. There are so many characters to pick from for a Freudian study of literature. Cholly is the best subject for a psychoanalysis study.

At first glance, the reader could easily spot out Cholly as a villain in the novel. This is far from the truth, however. Toni Morrison did not want to make any characters in The Bluest Eye to be completely hated. She wanted the reader to hate the characters, but yet feel sorry for them at the same time. She does that very well with Cholly Breedlove. He grew up with a broken childhood. Neglect, abuse, and humiliation play into his current darkness. The worst moment for Cholly is when he is caught trying to have sex with Darlene in the field by two white hunters. Not only did they catch him, they decided to stay and watch him carry on. Cholly is forced to fake having sex with Darlene until the white men are chased away. This particular is what shapes his relationship with women. According to Freud, Cholly follows his id more than anything else. The human psyche is split up into three parts: id, ego, and superego. The id is all of the things a person wants to do in reality such as sleep around with many people and pick fights. It is essentially the good old devil on our shoulder. If the whole world ran on the id, it would be a destructive place. Lucky for mankind, there are two things that stand in the way of the nasty little id. The first thing is called the superego. This is what makes people want to do the right thing in their lives. This is the angel cop that sits on our other shoulder. That should be a good thing, right? Not exactly. If the world only ran with the superego, it would be a boring place. This is where that second thing that stops the id from running free comes into play. This is called ego. This acts like a moderator between the id and the superego. The ego is the referee that keeps the balance in the world. However, this is not always the case. Some people live their lives by the id. Morrison made Cholly one of those people. This all stemmed from that botched sexual encounter with Darlene.

Cholly’s problem is not just with his id. He also seems to rely on projection to cope with his actions. Going back to the episode with Darlene, projection is highly used as end result. In psychology, people use techniques to deal with negative situations called coping mechanisms. One of those mechanisms is called projection. This is where a person suffers from a conflict and then takes his or her problems out on an innocent bystander later on down the road. Cholly uses projection twice in The Bluest Eye. The first is with Darlene after the white hunters try to watch him have sex with her. He is reasonably hurt and angry for his humiliation. However, he copes with it in the wrong way. Instead of being angry with the hunters for starting the whole mess, Cholly is angry with Darlene. To the reader, this just does not seem right at all. However, high emotions and reason have never meshed together in the beginning. That is very true in Cholly’s case.

Another time that Cholly uses project is when he rapes Pecola. This is the strongest example in the whole novel. Cholly comes in drunk while Pecola is washing the dishes. In his intoxicated haze, his sees a combined image of Darlene and his wife, Pauline. He loves and hates Pecola. He wants to kill yet sleep with his daughter. The rape is a result of that projected past pain and uncontrolled lust. Freud would call both instances of Cholly trying to prove himself a man. In Freud’s day, it was unheard of for a man to cry or show any emotion at all. That was for the women to be emotional. The men had to be tough and protect their homes. Cholly fails throughout his life to do so. As a result, he tries to make up for it by drinking and being violent with the women in his life. Couple that with an overactive id and that is a just loudly ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Cholly thinks that he is a man for his actions, but in reality his just a walking tragic accident.

The Bluest Eye is a perfect psychology study for the all readers interested in the subject. The psychological problems seem be too complained at first. However, if the reader take the time to read deep down into the book, the problems will slowly become clearer piece by piece within the pages.

Works Cited

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