Bluest Eye / When the

Bluest Eye / When the Legends Die But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me? -Invisible Man The Bluest Eye and When the Legends Die are both novels about finding oneself and a place in the world in which to fit into. Pecola in the Bluest Eye and Tom in When the Legends Die are both pawns in life in the way that the people surrounding them manipulate them each.

Both characters return to where they were at the beginning of the story, but they are both irreparably altered by the brutalities of people and the cruelty of the world, in general. Though Tom is able to return to his Ute way of life and find some semblance of happiness and peace, Pecola goes mad and believes that she has the bluest eyes (perhaps representing the only piece she can find).

Both Pecola and Tom find a way of existing in the world once again in a way that they will be safe and both have found a way to define who they are. Both novels deal with the individual's relation to society as well as their experiences based on their race, gender, class and region as will be explored with the critical work of Julia Eichelberger in her book, Prophets of Recognition: Ideology and the Individual.

In When the Legends Die, the overshadowing theme is Tom's lifelong quest to find contentment and joy in his life. Tom is a Ute Native American whose parents both die quite early on in the story. The retreat to the wilderness is symbolic in that it represents the characters going in search of another life and later it becomes representative of Tom retreating into himself where he is untamed and wounded from his parents' deaths and struggles.

Conversely, Pecola in the Bluest Eye, believes that she experiences the cruelty of the world because of the way she looks. She thinks that she would have a better life experience if she had blue eyes. While Tom looks outward for external elements to complete him, Pecola looks to the physical. On an interesting note, Pecola doesn't ask for white skin, but by asking for blue eyes she is wanting to see things differently as much as she wants to be seen differently.

Both characters have very specific ways of finding their identity based on the society in which they live and the class structure in which they fit into. Eichelberger states that Morrison's work shows that the novel "in its particular cultural setting portrays domineering aggression as the true motivation for many cultural conditions that are commonly regarded as agents of freedom" (2). This ideology (i.e. The dominant mindset) is what characters use to destroy other characters' sense of self.

Both the Bluest Eye and When the Legends Die have a resounding theme of homelessness and this relates to the sense of self. Pecola has a house and a family, but she does not have safety, which is what truly makes a home a refuge. She is raped by her father and chastised and beaten by her mother and she doesn't have a sense of home. Likewise, Tom's quest for his identity leads him to the wilderness, back to Pagosa, and on the road as a bronco rider.

He is sent from place to place and thus there is no sense of one place being home for him. He was persuaded to leave the wilderness by Blue Elk and then he is sent from place to place back in Pagosa. This leaves Tom feeling as if he doesn't really belong anywhere. The subjugation of Tom by others indicates a desire for humans to dominate one another (Eichelberger 2). Both When the Legends Die and the Bluest Eye are unique stories that are representative of the different ways.