Through the Eyes of a Hooker

One of the most compelling things about The Bluest Eye, is the way that Toni Morrison switches between a third-person omniscient point of view and Claudia's first-person point of view. The third-person narrative especially allows the reader to have a unique insight on the thoughts and feelings of almost every character in the story, including the most controversial group of characters: The Prostitutes.

Society has and always will have an extremely negative opinion of sex those who trade sex for money. We often quick to judge anyone who makes a living in that field without really getting to know them for who they are. To be fair, I do believe that prostitution is degrading to women and is honestly just downright disgusting, but to label anyone just based their profession is ignorant and really almost as shameful prostitution itself.

Pecola, being young and innocent, has no reason to judge the prostitutes and befriends them, which allows the reader to also look past their profession and see who they truly are.  To the surprise of most, they prove to be very kind and good-natured towards Pecola, even telling her about they quite ironically turned a man into the FBI for "killing more men than TB."

This unique point of view that Morrison has created also depicts how they feel about the career they have chosen, a side of the issue that most have never considered.  Their feelings are pretty accurately summed up in a song that one of the hookers, Poland, is heard singing as the reader is first introduced to her. She sings:

I got blues in my mealbarrel

Blues up on the shelf

I got blues in my mealbarrel

Blues up on the shelf

Blues in the bedroom

'Cause I'm sleepin' by myself

Here Poland paints a very bleak picture of her life as prostitute, which is honestly not surprising. But the most captivating part of this song, the part that sums up her life the best, is the very last phrase (lines 5 and 6). As a hooker, she spends day in and day out in the bedroom, to the point where the emotion and intimacy of sex is entirely lost. So for her making "love" becomes no less monotonous than working a 9 to 5 job in an office somewhere. And despite the fact that she makes her living off of sleeping with other people, she still could not feel more alone.