Several generations of Americans read their first lines and received the first stereotypes concerning a happy white family from popular basal readers about the funny adventures of Dick and Jane. These primers were criticized for their cultural homogeneity, as representatives of other races were not allowed into these books until 1965. An original technique of framing the text with the lines from Dick and Jane primers was used by Toni Morrison in her novel The Bluest Eye aiming to contrast the false image of a happy white family with everyday realities of Afro-American children.
The language of the novel plays a very important role in producing the impression of intimacy with the narrator and emphasizing contrast between the mythical life of white children from the books and realities of an average Afro-American family. Repeating the same lines omitting the punctuation marks and then blurring the words, the author demonstrates the process of transformation of words into general ideas and stereotypes. To remember a word child needs hundreds of repetitions, pronouncing the same words and sentences day after day the children were introducing the ideas of a happy family into their picture of life. The readers have the opportunity to empathy with the child and understand his/her disappointment at the moment when he/she comes back from school and faces the grey house and serious problems in the family. The main character reads in the school primer: “Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick and Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very happy” (Morrison 3). Then the words gradually merge into a complete picture, there are no separate images left, only one bright picture in the child’s imagination: “hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisveryprettyhereisthefamilymotherfatherdickandjaneliveinthegreenandwhitehousetheyareveryhappy” (Morrison 4). Unintentionally every child, as well as the reader, feels the contrast between the happy family depicted and the child’s small world. These words are deep in the child’s consciousness, influence the child’s views and broaden the gap between the happy white families and poverty of Afro-Americans. Illuminating the themes of racial discrimination and unequal opportunities, Morrison blurs the words of the primer texts to represent the picture of the world, which a black child receives attending a public school, and to which he/she is unable to fit in.
Blurred words resemble the scenery that does not suit the depicted tragedy of a child accustomed to injustice, and the contrast of two worlds astonishes the reader but not the main character. The introductory excerpts depict a mythic happy girl Jane: “See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play.” A small girl is expected to have no other intentions besides playing games, smiling and making discoveries in the surrounding world. But the mismatch of the real-life and the world of the primer becomes obvious to the reader from the first pages of the novel. Coming home the girl is to face the problems of unjust and brutal world of adults, though she does not distinguish between the childish and adult world, these are the realities of her everyday life. She accepts the facts as they are: “We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow” (Morrison 5). The adult reader is sure to be shocked by the girl’s supposition. As well as Jane, the character of a primer, Morrison’s main character believes in miracles and is waiting for them, but at the same time the girl is aware of this world’s brutality and tries to find the explanation of the new phenomenon in the accustomed picture of life. The author intentionally informs the readers of the fact of the incest in the second sentence of the page preceded by the excerpts from the Dick and Jane primer without providing some sophisticated transitions. The child observing these sides of life at early age is deprived of childhood, but the girl does not realize it. The stream-of-consciousness technique helps to understand the child’s way of thinking, emotions and secret wishes. Comparing the pictures described in the excerpts from the basal readers to grey pictures of Claudia’s reality, the reader comes to a conclusion that the images from the primers influence the children’s views greatly and overlay the feeling of limited opportunities due to racial origin on the child’s picture of life.
Taking the prejudices reflected in the basal readers for granted the children could not find strengths for opposing them, but the present-day readers are sure to notice the absurdity of this narrow-mindedness. Reading about an ideal father in the primers, the reader hopes that the fathers depicted in the novel will come up to the children’s expectations: “See Father. He is big and strong. Father, will you play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile” (Morrison 4). But the real fathers fail to smile or play with their children in the novel. As opposed to the ideal father of the primer, Pecola’s father not only is unable to support his wife and daughter in their struggle against the difficulties of their oppressed position in the society, he can easily offend a woman, an animal, or a child. He seems to be a distorted reflection of the primer image, lacking moral and physical strength, he commits a crime, traumatizing Pecola and making her position in the society even worse than it was previously. He is overwhelmed with his problems and weaknesses and focused on his personal affairs, there is no place for his daughter left. Pecola is assured that the black children can not be beautiful or happy, nobody can convince her of the opposite, and the most tragic fact is that nobody tries to do it. The adults do not take care of their children in the novel, they are too busy solving their problems and ignore their children’s needs. Morrison depicts the family institution of Afro-Americans in a low-key, not attempting to prettify it. The period when the child learns to read coincides with the period when he/she learns to live, investigates the surrounding world and gets the first impressions from it. That is why the simplified sentences and a limited number of notions in the primers are determined by the limits of the child’s perception. But the children from Morrison’s novel are to mature too early and broaden their mental outlooks too quickly. The reader has the possibility to empathy with the children who were to grow up too quickly when the author contrasts the short and primitive sentences of the primer to the bare and dirty truth of the novel passages. It is unnatural for the child to be responsible for the adults’ crimes and stand the racket looking for the cause-effect explanation of the events. Pecola faces the cruelty of being offended by her father, but the girl is assured that it is her fault and she could change the situation. The contrast of the family institutions depicted in the primers and Morrison’s novel contributes to the theme of racism, demonstrating that the oppressed people can harden and forget about their moral values.
Lack of belief in universal values changes the characters’ ideas of family, beauty and happiness resulting in their discrepancy with generally accepted ideals. Being ignored by their parents Claudia and her friends are influenced by the basal readers immensely, lacking other sources of information. The author of the primer states that “Mother is very nice” (Morrison 3), and the child can see a beautiful white smiling woman in the picture. The family in the primer is really happy as opposed to the families of Afro-Americans. It leads the child to the conclusion that it is the color of their skin, eyes and hair that prevents them from being happy. The idea of beauty is distorted, the parents and society make their contribution to this unnatural shift, naming the girl ugly. But in the process of her accelerated maturation, Pecola’s reasoning becomes unexpectedly wise and she starts appreciating her unique personality: “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (Morrison 39). This mature reflection of a child contrasts with the simplified language of the primers, demonstrating that Afro-American children’s development was accelerated due to their racial oppression.
The themes of racial oppression and unequal opportunities of Afro-American people can be understood only after reading the introductory excerpts from Dick and Jane primers. The technique chosen By Morrison broadens the gap between the happy white families and poverty of Afro-Americans in the reader’s imagination.
Bibliography
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Vintage. 2007: 224.