Humankind’s proclivity to racism, intolerance, and bigotry has provoked an outcry from all levels of society. Toni Morrison and Jodi Picoult typify authors who have sought to represent the victim’s voice. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison a black African American gives a haunting torturous account of Pecola Breedlove, a child, within a culture dominated by racial segregation and prejudice. On the other hand, Jodi Picoult as a white American delivers Small Great Things as a fast-moving, hard-hitting narrative depicting Ruth Jefferson, a black American midwife who becomes embroiled in the death of a white newborn on her ward. Both novels, by their subject matter, are highly evocative, but does the child, Pecola Breedlove, evoke more sympathy than Ruth Jefferson? Is there an unbreakable law that predicates this or are there other factors at play that engage with the reader and influence their judgment?
The broader framework of the novel within which the pivotal characters emerge provides a landscape for characterization to evolve and take shape. The setting of The Bluest Eye is Lorain, Ohio. It is 1941 towards the end of the Great Depression, an era of poverty and racial desegregation. Toni Morrison innately embeds historicity within the narrative largely due to her own identity as a Black American woman from a working-class family, further embellished by her Modernist writing style incorporating streams of consciousness technique. Nine years old at the time, the same age as protagonist Pecola Breedlove, she can draw on personal experience, depict life, and replicate the Southern black colloquialisms and conversational discourse. The phrase “as quiet as it’s kept”, in the opening line of the second prologue typifies this use of colloquialism and how it “bespeaks a particular world and its ambiance”, as Morrison explains in her afterword, subtly foreshadowing the tone and mood of the chapters to come. Furthermore, B. Smith writing for Psychotherapy Bulletin, suggests that the phrase is indicative of the “resilience, pain and generational trauma” in Black African culture, adding to the overall effect. Picoult’s narrative, however, takes on a widely divergent perspective. As a white American woman writing a novel about racism in contemporary society, she needed to undertake extensive research enlisting the help of ‘sensitivity readers’ from the African American community to moderate her work. Additionally, Picoult has painstakingly examined the socio-political climate of the time, as the depiction of Turk Bauer, a white supremacist antagonist, demonstrates. Furthermore, she draws on historic events in black history when Ava, Kennedy’s mother, recalls the end of educational desegregation, “In 1954 a court ruled that five black children could come to my school”, and she expands on her memories. However, whilst Picoult manages to deftly incorporate historical events into her characters’ timelines, Roxane Gay, a New York Times journalist objects, remarking that Ruth Jefferson’s blackness is “clinical, overarticulated”, going on to say that “research does not necessarily translate to authenticity”. Picoult’s message and her novel have, nonetheless, won wide acclaim and Small Great Things has become a New York Times bestseller. Regarding reader response, however, it could be argued that Toni Morrison’s more intimate connection with African American issues, specifically racism, would result in a more sympathetic response to her protagonist, Pecola Breedlove, a child victim of racial injustice, than Ruth Jefferson.
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Structurally, Morrison delivers a complex novel that she divides into four seasons, a classical metaphorical device to signify change, but which Morrison distorts to amplify the dysfunctional nature of the narrative. In ‘Summer’, Claudia reflects that “the seasons of a Midwestern town become the Moirai of our lives”. The classical metaphor is striking: these mythical Greek goddesses of fate and destiny determine the dark and senseless entropy that is unfolding. Claudia, with Morrison’s typically figurative language, imagines Peco la’s baby, the result of her father’s rape – “It was in a dark, wet place, its head covered with great O’s of wool, the black face holding, like nickels, two clean black eyes, the flared nose, kissing-thick lips, and the living, breathing silk of black skin”. The physiognomy of African American features is personified, “living, breathing silk…”, the baby’s hair is expressed as “O’s of wool”, a childishly affectionate description and assonance and repetition feature in a largely monosyllabic stream of words which paint a compellingly vivid picture and completes Claudia’s musing. However, the baby carries additional symbolism: Claudia informs the reader that it would have counteracted “the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples and Maureen Peals”, a synthesis of much of Morrison’s ideology and how she would have wished that this obsession with whiteness in a black community could be eradicated. In the ‘summer’ season the baby dies and Pecola’s total downturn into a shell of fragmented humanity is tragically realized. Picoult, on the other hand, follows a more linear progression with dynamic characterization in keeping with her style and target audience. The format is similar to Morrison’s with chapter divisions delineating the stages of labor mirroring the protagonist’s profession. The ultimate dénouement sees Ruth throw herself onto a sacrificial altar as she articulates the injustice against herself and her community. Picoult incorporates a dramatic stichomythic exchange between the prosecuting lawyer and Ruth, interlaced with Kennedy’s and Howard’s written interjections – “WHAT IS GOING ON???” - a visual communication highlighting the drama. Using sharp, incisive rhetorical techniques she depicts the heightened emotive atmosphere in the courtroom. Ruth, when challenged about her behavior, seems to adopt an altered persona, “haloed by the afternoon sunlight, otherworldly”, angelic language, and imagery suggesting a spiritual epiphany. Ruth Jefferson undergoes extreme transformation and a hitherto unsympathetic judge pronounces acquittal. Against all the odds she has won.
Both scenarios take place in the concluding chapters of the novels and when viewed side by side, Pecola Breedlove and Ruth Jefferson have little in common. Ruth Jefferson has emerged triumphantly having undergone personal enlightenment relating to her perception of racial injustice; Pecola Breedlove, a vulnerable child, who has suffered repeated humiliation, descends into irrevocable insanity. Within the parameters of The Bluest Eye and Small Great Things, and in this regard, it is quite apparent that Pecola Breedlove will always elicit more sympathy and compassion than Ruth Jefferson, who emerges as a powerful actor in the narrative.
As Toni Morrisons’s novel indicates, blue eyes are of profound symbolic importance within the narrative. Pecola Breedlove longs for blue eyes, her wish emanating from the deep self-belief that she is ugly. Morrison examines this false sense of ugliness with metaphorical and symbolic allusion: “It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear” – their ugliness becoming a tangible entity, an enveloping cloak imposed upon them by a symbolic master, a representation which has its pejorative overtones, referring back to slavery. Having used the “master” to forcefully vocalize their ugliness, “You are ugly people”, Morrison’s highly visual, powerful triad, “every billboard, every movie, every glance” amplifies the symbolism which confirms their belief in their ugliness. Hence, Pecola yearns for blue eyes which, for her, represent whiteness and beauty, and would she believes, change how people see her. Morrison encapsulates Pecola’s yearning for white beauty when buying Mary Jane candy, which carries the iconic image of Mary Jane on their wrappers. She describes the image with poetic alliteration, pairing Mary Jane’s features with comforting allure, “blonde hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking out at her”. But ironically discordant, grossly uncomfortable words follow: “Three pennies had bought her nine lovely orgasms with Mary Jane”. The sexual connotations in the context of a child contributed to concerted attempts to have The Bluest Eye banned, but Morrison’s masterful juxtaposition of sexual desire with Pecola’s psychological craving to be white imparts Pecola’s maladjusted, dysfunctional mindset. Jodi Picoult’s portrayal of Ruth Jefferson in Small Great Things follows a different trajectory as Picoult traces the development of her character from the initial accusations filed by a white supremacist to her acquittal in a court of law. Using a simple graphic narrative, Ruth is swiftly transformed from a woman who confidently says “I treat people the way I want to be treated, based on their merits as human beings, not on their skin tone”, to someone who declares to her defense lawyer “ … the great sad shame is that for too many years of my sorry life, I have bought into that farce. I thought … I could be one of you.” The idealistic aspirations she initially expresses have mutated into cynicism, her use of ‘farce’ casting a particularly scathing note. However, when Ruth is seen cradling baby Davis Bauer in the morgue as she “welcome(s) him into this broken world and, in the same breath, say(s) goodbye”, the reader immediately discerns her humanity and pathos, and this touching moment remains in the reader’s mind, as with tragic irony the legal system fuelled by racist hatred, attempts to prove that she maliciously killed this white baby. The incongruity between Ruth’s palpable kindness and compassion as a human being and the viciously unjust level of racial discrimination against her is conspicuously heinous. Careful examination of Pecola and Ruth immediately highlights significant differences and some similarities that could potentially influence reader response. In Toni Morrison’s forward to The Bluest Eye she refers to the “demonization of an entire race” and how that demonization could “take root inside the most delicate member of society”, that character being Pecola Breedlove. Jodi Picoult’s objective, on the other hand, is to disseminate the message of racism and white privilege to her white readers, taking on an evangelical role as she travels widely on book tours and appears on platforms as diverse as the Oxford Union and popular talk shows. Ruth is an embodiment of racial victimization, at times contrived and stereotypical, nevertheless evoking turmoil within a responsive white reader, and within that response, there will be mixed emotions of sorrow and sympathy. Pecola, as an archetype is extreme, at the lowest ebb of racial inequity, and as a child with no hope she crashes into the reader’s senses provoking dismay, bewilderment, compassion, and deep sympathy.
The characters Pecola Breedlove and Jodi Picoult take shape within the contrasting styles and formats of the writers, thus affecting characterization and overall reader response, including empathic reactions like sympathy and compassion. Toni Morrison embellishes her novel, The Bluest Eye, with a stream of motifs and symbolic allusions that are integral to the narrative and impact the characterization. The Dick and Jane primer is an unusual symbol, comprising the first prologue and foreshadowing the mood and tone of the narrative. Depicting a perfect white family, sanitized and clinical, the words, punctuation, and spacing disintegrate into a delirious, frenzied outpouring denoting dysfunction and distress. Furthermore, excerpts from this primer form epigraphs that introduce Morrison’s expositions on main characters, including the final depiction of Pecola’s demise: an effective technique that adds depth to the characterization. Symbolism from nature is reflected in marigold imagery. From the perspective of Claudia and Frieda marigolds represent new life. The girls impute certain magic to them, “If we planted the seeds, and said the right words over them, they would blossom and everything would be alright”. Those seeds never sprouted and death and destruction ensued. In Claudia’s words, “The damage done was total.” Dandelions feature in Pecola’s demeaning encounter with Mr. Jacobowski. In literary stream-of-consciousness style, they relate to Pecola’s state of mind, ‘… she owned the clumps of dandelions … and owning them made her part of the world and the world part of her.” This natural language and imagery of dandelions validate her existence and before the incident, the reader glimpses hope within Pecola. However, these hopes are shattered as Mr. Jacobowski is devoid of normal human interaction with her. Pecola has seen his distaste for her ”lurk in the eyes of all white people”. As she leaves the shop and glimpses the dandelions, Morrison expresses Pecola’s response with an interior monologue utterance, “They are ugly. They are weeds.” Her mental state is now conflicted with anger and shame, and she turns to the Mary Jane candy for consolation – a sadly tragic outcome as she relinquishes her own identity to the symbolic adoption of white beauty. Jodi Picoult, when interviewed by Publisher’s Weekly, stated, “I’m not going to compare myself to a highly literary, gorgeous writer like Toni Morrison …. but I also think there’s a wide disparity between pulp fiction and good solid commercial fiction.” Her novel, Small Great Things, being contemporary fiction, offers a compelling narrative and characters who are immediately relevant and relatable. Ruth’s arrest scene delivers a high-energy sequence of events. Picoult’s symbolism is neither metaphysical nor heavily nuanced, but the reader’s senses are assaulted by the descriptive force: “ … the jackhammer of knocking detonates … ”, a striking metaphor likens the noise of the police’s forced entry to the explosive resonance of a pneumatic drill, and chaotic uproar ensues. The police sweep through the room in acts of wanton vandalism, expressed by a triad of violent assonantal verbs “overturning furniture…, dumping drawers …, sweeping books … “ and Ruth Jefferson, handcuffed, is dragged away in nightgown and slippers. Auditory and visual, Picoult has created a scene depicting the racist actions of the police, highlighting her degradation and humiliation and marking her transition from being the embodiment of a dedicated nurse and mother to an alleged murderer. Picoult’s inclusion of a dea ex machina in the form of Brit’s biological mother is scorned by critics for ‘contriving’ the storyline, but the resulting melodrama is a constituent for compulsive reading as the reader realizes that Brit, the daughter of a white supremacist leader is actually of mixed race. The plot twist neatly manipulates redemption for Ruth Jefferson, vindicating her and ultimately enabling her and their antagonist, white supremacist Turk Bauer, to redefine themselves and their racial perspectives.
Toni Morrison, holder of the Nobel Prize in Literature and a prominent pioneer of Black literature introduces Pecola Breedlove, a child of nine years, to the reader. Morrison paints a landscape of a small African American community, where an atmosphere of virulent toxicity emanating from the inhabitants’ blind appropriation of white values and culture, eventually results in Pecola’s complete mental disintegration. Jodi Picoult as a white American takes moral or ethical issues, develops scenarios, and creates fictional novels that have swept the world. Divergently, with missionary zeal, she creates her character Ruth Jefferson, a black female victim of intense racial discrimination, and implicitly encourages the white reader to participate in a process of self-discovery where they learn about their own inherent racial biases and prejudices. The approaches of Morrison and Picoult are widely disparate - Morrison, influenced heavily by Modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf or James Joyce, and Jodi Picoult crafted her own highly popular, highly commercial literary brand. Within the narrow confines of The Bluest Eye and Small Great Things, the plaintive voice of the child Pecola Breedlove will always resonate and transcend above and beyond all others evoking an overwhelming range of feelings, sympathy, shock, and dismay, within the reader’s response. However, the voice of Ruth Jefferson is never eclipsed. Jodi Picoult’s title, Small Great Things, draws from the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” Her novel achieves these aspirations, to take the message of racial hatred and injustice to white privileged readers and, hopefully, produce lasting, significant change.
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