Does Our Past Determine Our Future????

In many aspects of life, statistics and demographics can give you an approximate answer to just about everything you can imagine. If you want to know how income effects your chances of going to college; a graph will be able to show you that it is more likely for you to pursue a higher education if you were raised in a household with a high income. If you want to know a good estimate of how newly registered voters between the ages of 18 and 21 will vote; you can look at the cohort their parents fall under and be able to see if they will most likely vote Democrat or Republican. There are many more instances where outsiders can look at your background and make a close estimate of future decisions you will make.

It is not hard to believe that the way you were raised has a tremendous effect on the type of person you will become. I imagine that in the field of psychology psychologist will dig deep into your past to find the source of your problems or to help build towards a solution. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison introduces several characters that represent many individuals that exist in the world today. Cholly, who is Pecola’s father, represents all of the fathers that have molested their children or even pondered the notion. Pecola represents many young girls that do not possess inner beauty and rely on the approval of others to feel worthwhile. There can be a case made with both of these individuals how their past determined their future.

(The image shows a young woman feeling abandoned. You can see it on her face and by looking at the gloomy colors the room portrays.

Cholly was not raised by either of his parents. His father vanished before he was born and his mother dumped him by the railroad when he was four days old. He was raised by Aunt Jimmy, who was his mother’s aunt. The fact that he was not connected and abandoned by both of his parents already puts him at a disadvantage. He was loved by his aunt, but it is unlike the love between a parent and offspring. His abandonment issues began before he was born and paved the way for the road he would travel in the future. After his Aunt Jimmy died, Cholly ran off to find his father. If he was successful at finding his father, it would give him a sense of what to do next in his life and would fill the gap in his life of not having a father figure. Also the journey to find his father would allow him to not focus on the death of someone that he loved very much and who loved him dearly, his Aunt Jimmy.

Besides having to face being abandoned, Cholly developed a sense of hatred towards women that never went away. This began when he and Darlene were caught having sex by two white men. During this ordeal, Cholly “hated her…He almost wished he could do it-hard, long, and painfully, he hated her so much.” (Morrison, 148) I believe his hate for her stemmed from the fact that she witnessed him being humiliated by other men. There is a sense of pride and strength men possess, and when that is taken away, they feel inadequate and less of a man. The fact that Darlene was front and center of this humiliation resulted in him placing the blame on her. “For now, he hated the one who had created the situation, the one who bore witness to his failure, his impotence. The one whom he had not been able to protect, to spare, to cover from the round moon glow of the flashlight.” (Morrison, 151). Not only was it the fact that she witnessed him being humiliated, but it was also the fact that he could not save her from being exposed to strangers, individuals that had no respect for her and her race.

(The image shows an eye shedding a tear. It is representative of the whole novel. There struggles faced by individuals, which reflected back on the families as a whole.)

This situation forever placed a negative connation to women in Cholly’s eyes. He was not able to sympathize with women and their feelings when it came to sex. This was illustrated when he raped Pecola, his daughter. His psychological block against the feelings of females allowed him to take the innocence of his own daughter, her virginity.

I’m not saying that the blame should be placed on his parents for abandoning him at a young age and the two white men for spying on him while having intercourse, but they had a major impact on his decisions. He was not raised to have respect for women, a trait that should be taught and shown by fathers. The fact that he grew up in a time period where blacks were inferior to whites resulted in him doing an act against his will; he could not stand up to whites because there would be serious consequences.

I believe Cholly is a classic case of individuals not being able to rise against the wrongdoings that was done to them in the past. “He acts out the aggression of all the domestic and social systems that caused a child to ‘literally fall apart.’” (Bump, 213) He was not able to get out of that psychological state of negativity. It is possible to grow from the circumstances you endure when growing up and learn what the right to do is.

I grew up without my father most of the time because he let drugs and alcohol consume him, which was brought on by issues he faced growing up. My mother worked majority of time, which resulted in me being home alone sometimes. I did not let my “abandonment issue” determine who I was going to become. I had it set in my mind that I was going to get away and become the best person I can be. Looking at the fact that I was raised by a single mother with low income, statistically I am not supposed to be at The University of Texas and especially in Plan II. I am just an example of how individuals can beat the odds and do what is not expected of them. Don’t get me wrong, my past has determined my future; it was just in a positive way.