Dick and Jane and Pecola and Denver (SPOILER ALERT)
Myself and a few others posted on the discussion forum about The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. I read this book years ago, but decided to revisit it after finishing Beloved. The similar situations in which Denver (Beloved) and Pecola (The Bluest Eye) find themselves in are a stark contrast to the happy nuclear family represented in children’s literature of the 1900s—the age of the American housewife.
Dick and Jane are the main characters in the childrens’ readers creatively named Dick and Jane, which was published throughout the twentieth century. The reader's center around a white family’s blissful suburban life, and is exactly the opposite of the reality portrayed in Morrison’s novels. The Bluest Eye takes place in the 1940s, and Beloved occurs about a century earlier.
“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.” The opening lines of the story are very idealistic; they contrast sharply with the reality faced by Pecola Breedlove. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison uses lines from a Dick and Jane reader to tie into the significance of various events taking place in the novel by giving an unrealistic portrayal of family life that seems almost comical when paralleled to the lives of Pecola and Denver.
The Breedlove house is a dark and miserable place, much like 124 Bluestone Road. Mrs. Breedlove prefers to spend her time taking care of her employer’s home; it represents to her a more ideal living area. She neglects her own home so much that it becomes unbearable to spend time there. The house is not pretty, the family is not happy, Mother is not nice, and Father does not smile.
There are “no memories to be cherished” in the Breedlove house, nor in 124. Pecola’s brother has run away from home many times because of their father’s excessive drinking. Cholly and Mrs. Breedlove fight constantly. Denver has a murdering mother and a back-from-the-dead sister. Turn every ideal represented in the Dick and Jane story backward and upside down; this is the way Pecola and Denver live.
Although the Dick and Jane story starts off quietly it quickly begins to repeat itself and run together, spiraling out of control into nonsensical words, reminiscent of chapters of Beloved in which Beloved herself is narrating. Pecola starts out as a little girl from a messed up family who, nevertheless, finds a place in her town where she fits in. By the end of the story, however, Pecola is raped by her father and becomes pregnant with her own brother before suffering a miscarriage. Her already hard life spirals rapidly downward after an incident only lasting perhaps five minutes.
After that her life is drastically altered; the entire town blames Pecola for the incident, wishes death upon the baby, and shuns Pecola accordingly. No longer a carefree girl, Pecola becomes a haunted shell avoided by all. The clean and perfect world of Dick and Jane is very different from the dark and ugly worlds created by Morrison. The excerpts are used throughout the novel play off of various events in Pecola’s life. Her unhappiness and eventual madness isolate her from her family, friends, and neighbors (sound at all like Beloved?).
Pecola and Denver’s stories are realistically harsh, showing all the cracks in human nature, whereas the Dick and Jane portrayal picture-perfect but an unattainable ideal meant to shield white suburbanites from reality.
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