Toni Morrison makes her audience see beauty in unconventional ways; therefore, the hero of The Bluest Eye is undoubtedly unconventional. Like Eric says, I think that Morrison described ChollyÕs horrific rape of his own daughter beautifully not because she (the author) feels the crime is in anyway justifiable, but because she needs the reader to see that beauty can be found in anything, anywhere, and at anytime. We must make the extra effort to appreciate such beauty, though. I think that Morrison pointed out beauty especially well in circumstances and places that make a normal reader uncomfortable or even afraid. For instance, I have to admit that before I read MorrisonÕs description of the difference between the girls from Meridian and Marietta and other places with nice names and the girls like Pecola, Claudia, and Freida that I would have instinctively found the traditional girls more attractive simply because I can place them, relate to them. However, after reading this book, I grew to hate them. They are quick to jump to conclusions and they are traitors even to their own kind as implied by PecolaÕs story about the death of the cat. ÒUnblinking and unabashed, they stared up at her. The end of the world lay in their eyes, and the beginning, and all the waste in betweenÓ (92). The description of these eyes (PecolaÕs) is frightening and beautiful all at once. And the beauty is derived from the intense, raw, discomfiting emotion contained therein. I donÕt know what I would do if I saw such eyes, especially before reading this book. These eyes seem infinitely more beautiful than the blue eyes Pecola wants. The blue eyes have only feigned innocence in them and are gained only after everything else has been sacrificed. The wild, uncontained eyes Pecola naturally has are more of a window to her soul. 

Whether or not you see beauty is a matter of perception. (both are illusions in which there is beauty and "ugliness")

                                                                               Tilt your head to the see a clown.

    So beauty must be observed in unconventional places, and it shouldnÕt really be thought of as beauty in the physical sense like we talked about last time. But even so, I still do not think this novel has a hero. Cholly is free and uninhibited like a hero can be, but he is also the most despicable character because he uses his freedom to negative ends. "Only a musician would sense, know without even knowing that he knew, that Cholly was free. Dangerously free. Free to feel whatever he felt - fear, guilt, shame, love, grief, pity" (159). Mrs. Breedlove is humble (at least within the context of the novel) but she lacks the means to rise above her situation. Claudia and Frieda just follow their destiny somewhat blindly, so they are not heroes.  The prostitutes are tragic, but they are also self-contained and do very little for anyone else.  Finally, Pecola carries the burden of the small society created in The Bluest Eye but she does not choose to. Instead, all of her heroic deeds are results of the circumstance and she has no control over the situation. She is not a Jesus figure because she is not connected to any higher power within the context of the book. Instead, she is most closely connected with the most corrupt figures Ð the prostitutes.