Bluest Eye Sexism

Furthermore, in Chronicle of a Death Foretold and The Bluest Eye the character's’ perpetual abuse towards women can be attributed to the impact of a father figure. Both books take place during a time period where sexism was considered a norm, women were not granted equal rights to men. Cholly and Santiago were raised with the concept that women are subordinate compared to men. It was “a cultural value that bestows upon men rights and privileges” that women aren’t worth of, entirely based on gender. Moreover, it carried a sense of prerogative, that is linked to aspects such as machismo, power and mental dominance. This could be taken to the extent that it began to feel like a responsibility and peer pressure to come across as masculine. It is …show more content…
Both characters, are corrupted by cruelty subsequent to their complete destruction. Even though they are living, they are eternally in perpetual antagonism coming from their hardships as well as the repressive societies they are living in. The result, is that they begin to lose all the spirit and essence of life, no longer finding a meaning to live. Consequently, they have no sense of reality and live in a different mindset. In The Bluest Eye, Cholly is so corrupt he isn’t a proper husband for Pauline or a father for his kids, inflicting all his pain on them. He furiously fights with his wife and his children, constantly neglects his family for his personal life, and on top of it doesn't even provide the most basic necessities for survival to support them let alone love and care. He is the contemptible absentee parent, exiled in his own household and within his community abominated by everyone. In terms of fatherly duties, he is the opposite of Dick and Jane's perfect white father. He begins to abuse alcohol as coping method to endure the stress of parenthood, married life, and the burden of all his responsibilities. Not only is he an abominable father, he abuses his wife, Pauline, “Cholly and Mrs.Breedlove fought each other with a darkly brutal formalism that was paralleled only by their lovemaking” and also, his kids, particularly Pecola, then withdraws into a realm of alcoholic turmoil. In his discombobulated state of accumulated love, anger and desire , fueled by intoxication, he reaches his end point and he rapes his daughter, Pecola who says, “ Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust and despair”,then proceeds to leave her on the kitchen floor. Though we know that Cholly is also competent of feeling bliss and joy, in the experience of eating a watermelon or touching a