Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye depicts the chilling story of a young girl's experience with racism after the Great Depression. While the duration of the novel is divided into four seasons, "Fall", "Winter", "Spring", and "Summer", it is through the experiences of the characters that we see its failure to meet the traditional expectations of these seasons . . Morrison's framing of time through the use of natural seasons serves as a juxtaposition to highlight the unnaturalness of his characters' lives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Morrison begins the novel with the season of “autumn,” a traditional time of clean air, harvest, and beautifully colored leaves falling from tree branches. , however these expectations are quickly undermined by the experiences of its characters. We first notice a juxtaposition of the beauty of autumn which, in this case, serves to illuminate the ugliness of the Breedlove family. In a revealing introduction to the Breedlove family, Morrison's main narrator, Claudia MacTeer, recalls the appearance of the Breedloves' mercantile house as "impressive to the passer-by in a manner both irritating and melancholy" (32). Claudia suggests that the storefront was not a temporary place of residence for the Breedloves, but rather a permanent location because "they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they thought they were ugly" (38). While the Breedloves' ugliness, as a whole, is "unique" (38), their lack of beauty is most evidently demonstrated through the character of Pecola Breedlove, the youngest member of the Breedlove family whose self-esteem slowly diminishes as the natural cycle of the seasons progresses. Pecola's ugliness and her obsessive desire to have blue eyes in the hope that "she herself would be different" (46) provide a stark contrast between the expectation of beauty in autumn and the beauty that Pecola longs for. so desperately, but sorely missed. In this way, Morrison uses the season of "Autumn" not only as a division of the narrative, but as a tool to emphasize the lack of unnatural beauty of the Breedloves, particularly through Pecola, against the expectations of a season traditionally beautiful. continues to deviate from expectations of what autumn generally symbolizes when Claudia discusses the beginning of Pecola's sexual maturation during which she begins "ministry" (31). Pecola's coming of age in the "rough wind of October" (57) proves somewhat ironic in that her newly adopted maturity brings with it the possibility of pregnancy and a new life, characteristics which are not usually symbolized by autumn, but which lead to the beginning. of his loss of innocence and foreshadows his ultimate demise. We can also note the gap between what we expect from autumn and what actually happens through Claudia's illness; “I cough once, very hard, through bronchial tubes already filled with mucus” (10). Remembering her mother who cared for her during her illness, Claudia recalls, “When I think of fall, I think of someone with hands who doesn't want me to die” (12). Morrison uses Pecola and Claudia's unnatural experiences to draw attention to the discrepancy between what is typically expected in the natural cycle of fall and what actually happens. As “fall” turns to “winter,” so does the rapid decline of Pecola’s autonomy. estimated. As the course study guide explains, the progressive "self-rejection" ofPecola (16) can be clearly seen through the alienation she feels from her peers, particularly from Maureen Peal, "a tall yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes." hanging down his back” (62). Claudia remembers winter as something that "had stiffened into a hateful knot that nothing could loosen" (62), except for Maureen Peal, a "disturber of the seasons" (62). After befriending Pecola for a very short period of time, Maureen does not hesitate to turn on Pecola and the girls, and in an argument calls them "black people and ugly black people" (73), serving to effectively break down Pecola's already weak exterior. self-confidence and self-esteem even further. While winter is a season traditionally associated with hibernation and an unchanging state of being, Pecola's constantly changing and declining psychological state is reflected in the snowflakes she sees "falling and dying on the sidewalk” (93) after she leaves Geraldine’s house after being called a “mean little black bitch” (92) for a crime she did not commit. Like the dying snowflakes on the sidewalk, Pecola's self-esteem is also dying. The course study guide confirms Pecola's mental deterioration when it explains that "what the shift from 'fall' to 'winter' means for Pecola is [a] gradual shift toward a vision of her -even as merciless as the change of seasons is inevitable. » (17). Morrison uses the change in Pecola's mental state to contrast the expectations of a typically unchanging winter season, once again drawing attention to the divergence of what is expected from natural seasons by providing the opposite of these expectations through his character's experiences. While the connotations of spring are generally composed of rebirth and renewal, happiness and awakening, Morrison's period of "Spring" in the novel deviates wildly from his traditional expectations of the season and is severely marred by a series of horrific events. The reader first gets a sense of Claudia's disposition toward spring when she remembers the tree branches that "beat us differently in spring" (97); “Instead of the dull pain of a winter bracelet, there were these new green switches that lost their sting long after the lashes were over” (97). Claudia depicts the negativity that still lingers in her memory of spring when she says, “Even now, spring for me is shot through with the pain of switching, and the forsythia brings no joy” (97). The negativity doesn't stop there; Morrison's interpretation of spring proves to be full of disappointment, corruption, and death for his characters. In the chapters recounting Cholly Breedlove's childhood, we see him remembering the death of his Aunt Jimmy: "It was in the spring, a very cold spring, that Aunt Jimmy died of peach cobbler" (135). Cholly also experiences disappointment when after traveling to Macon to find his father, he is ultimately rejected and treated in a hostile manner during their only meeting. Pecola, too, is disappointed when after accidentally knocking over the berry cobbler, "Mrs. Breedlove pulled her by the arm, slapped her again and, in a thin voice of anger, insulted Pecola directly ” (109), in which she “could hear Mrs. Breedlove silencing and soothing the tears of the little pink and yellow girl. daughter” (109). The events that unfold in “Spring” are significant because their negative nature serves to highlight their unnaturalness in correlation to the expected characteristics of the season. The corruption of “Spring”first manifests in the character of Soaphead Church, a former priest who practices perversion by touching little girls, and the corruption only continues when Frieda, Claudia's sister, is touched inappropriately by their guest, Mr. Henry . However, the most unnatural act that occurs in the entire novel is when Pecola is raped by her father, Cholly, "one Sunday afternoon, in the dim light of spring, [after] he returned home him staggering, drunk and saw his daughter. in the kitchen” (161). We later learn that this is the first of two times she will be assaulted by her father and as a result she will be pregnant with her father's child. Although Pecola's pregnancy actually follows the pattern of the spring season through expectations of rebirth and renewal, the act itself still functions as a deviation from the norm because it is tainted by character against nature of the act. In this case, what we expect from “Spring” is the complete opposite of what happens. Morrison creates a juxtaposition to highlight the horrific and unnatural events that occur simultaneously with the natural cycle of the seasons. The novel's final season, "Summer," concludes the year-long story while serving to depict the exact opposite of what the season would typically characterize. Expectations of a fertile land of growth and flourishing are negated by the unyielding nature of the land and by unexpected death. Claudia's introduction to the season foreshadows the negativity that will follow: “I only have to sink into the narrowness of a strawberry and I see summer, its dust and its low sky. This remains a season of storms for me. The dry days and the muggy nights are indistinguishable in my mind, but the storm, the sudden violent storms, both frightened and soothed me” (187). While "the earth itself might have been unyielding" (introduction) in the case of Claudia and Frieda's marigolds which stopped growing, Pecola's "black earth plot" in which Cholly Breedlove "dropped her seeds » was also (introduction). Claudia remembers that even though “the baby came too soon and died” (204), it was Cholly “who loved [Pecola] enough to touch her, to wrap her, to give her a little of himself. But his touch was fatal, and what he gave her filled the womb of her death agony” (206). The unnaturalness of the unyielding land, paralleling the death of Pecola's baby, is followed by her ultimate loss of sanity in which "she spent her days, her tendrils, sap-green days, walking up and down , up and down, her head bobbing toward the beat of a drummer so distant only she could hear it” (204). A reviewer of the novel, Sharon Gravett, provides an interesting perspective when she explains that Claudia "sees the cycle of the year move from the final season of fall to fall again." , which serves as an ironic counterpoint to the story of Pecola Breedlove, who comes of age, is raped and impregnated by her father Cholly, goes mad, and loses her baby. [Morrison] uses the seasons with their patterns and changes to comment on similar or ironic developments within the human community” (89). Gravett also comments on the unsuccessful nature of the season and its departure from what one might expect of summer, explaining that the novel "ends with the shattered hopes of a life that has failed to come to fruition." 'flourish. Focusing on the death of life and hope rather than rebirth” (94). Through the symbolism of the marigolds' resistance to grow and the death of Pecola's baby, Morrison almost suggests signs of an upheaval in the natural order of the seasons. It is through these unnatural events and.