The Bluest Eye Alcoholism

Alcohol is easily the world’s cheapest drug available to society; a bottle of Corona cost less than a bottle of water. Alcohol acts as a depressant, putting the body in a state of calmness. Tolerance to alcohol builds, requiring people to consume larger quantities to feel relaxation as before their tolerance, therefore leading to alcoholism. Alcohol is harmful when used irresponsibly because it can inhibit the brain’s functions including: disrupt memory, change brain physiology, and reduce self-awareness. Hence, Toni Morrison incorporates the detrimental consequences of alcoholism into her novel The Bluest Eye to show the destructive capabilities of alcoholism through the actions of her character, Cholly. His Aunt Jimmy raised Cholly, but unfortunately,
Morrison uses descriptive style to establish an event where a drunk Cholly and his wife, Pauline, brutally fight each other, which accentuates the dangers of alcoholism and censures the role of alcohol worsening domestic violence. Pauline notices Cholly’s drunken state and therefore purposely provokes a fight with Cholly by splashing water on him in her attempt to pacify her anger towards him and his alcoholism. Morrison describes, “Cholly picked her up and knocked her down with the back of his hand…She had not let go of the dishpan, and began to hit at Cholly’s thighs and groin…Dropping to his knee, he struck her several times in the face” (Morrison 59). Morrison’s use of descriptive style highlights the violent nature of alcohol related domestic violence as she guides readers to the ensuing fight using specific language. Consequently, readers can visualize the fight because the descriptions can easily be imagined in the reader’s head of a drunk Cholly picking up and throwing a grown woman to the floor while beating her senseless
An intoxicated Cholly comes home in a state of confusion to Pecola, rousing emotions from his past with Pauline that elicited sexual thoughts that Cholly could not control and therefore he rapes his daughter. Morrison shamefully describes, “[H]e staggered home reeling drunk…The confused mixture of his memories of Pauline…exited him, and a bolt of desire ran down his genitals…He wanted to fuck her—tenderly” (Morrison 162-163). Cholly’s alcoholism made him remember the moment he met Pauline and that made him happy, but the effect of alcohol clearly influenced him to rape his daughter. The climax of the novel is the point where readers associate the entire novel’s significance and therefore Morrison inputs alcohol’s involvement leading to the plot so readers carefully analyze its significance. Morrison wants readers to know that alcohol and its effects caused the rape of Pecola because the alcohol inhibited Cholly’s thinking and judgement. To extend, Ph.D. psychologists and veteran professors of psychology David Myers and C. Nathan Dewall wrote a book on psychology titled Psychology in Modules that goes into detail about alcohol’s effects on sexual acts. The module on alcohol states, “[T]hey slow brain activity that controls judgement and inhibitions…sexually aroused men become more