The Kitchen Poets

In The Bluest Eye Pauline Breedlove is Pecola’s mother and she is yet another example of a woman whose only dream is the truth of her daily life. She is at her most powerful when in the kitchen. She works in the kitchen as a way to make a living and the kitchen is where she bests expresses herself by lashing out at her family. Wen ching Ho, author of “In Search of Female Self: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior” explains how Pecola is influenced by her parents and their treatment of each other, as well as how Pauline treats her “two’ kitchens: “Pecola lives unhappily in a family wracked by morning fights or evening quarrels between a father who is drunkard and a mother who rejoices in housekeeping for her employer’s family while overlooking her duty at home” (3). She is given a sense of power and voice with her employer’s kitchen. She is never seen wrestling with anyone there—it is her place of status. Ruby Dee is quoted in Nicole Spottke’s &