China, Poland and Maginot Line

 China, Poland and Maginot Line

Dr Manisha Patil 

Three merry gargoyles. Three merry harridans. Amused by a long-ago time of ignorance. They did not belong to those generations of prostitutes created in novels, with great and generous hearts, dedicated, because of the horror of circumstance, to ameliorating, the luckless life of men, taking money incidentally and humbly for their ‘understanding’. Nor were they from that sensitive breed of young girls, gone wrong at the hands of fate, forced to cultivate an outward brittleness in order to protect her springtime from further shock, but knowing full well that she was cut out for better things and could make the right man happy. Neither were they the sloppy, inadequate whores who unable to make a living at it alone turn to drug consumption and traffic or pimps to help complete their scheme of self-destruction avoiding suicide only to punish the memory of some absent father or to sustain the misery of some silent mother…Neither were they protective and solicitous of youthful innocence. They looked back on their own youth as a period of ignorance and regretted that they had not made more of it. They were not young girls in whores’ clothing or whores regretting their loss of innocence. They were whores in whores’ clothing, whore who had never been young and had no ward for innocence. (42-3)

Morrison names the three prostitutes as China, Poland and Maginot Line – these are the names of colonized lands before and during World War II. China was under Japanese control, Poland was subjugated by Nazi Germany while Maginot Line was the failed French border fortifications to resist German invasion. These names are significant because they refer to the violation of land and by extension of women by imperialist male powers. Imperialism glorifies history and culture of aggressive country and vilifies that of dominated land. Similarly, patriarchy advocates macho behavior in men and condemns the female victims of that behavior. Prostitution is the ultimate insult of the femininity by the patriarchy. Female body is reduced to the level of an object to be traded for money. By turning a blind eye to the economic conditions that foster prostitution, patriarchy further demonizes the prostitutes. The three whores in The Bluest Eye though physical victims of this unjust system are nonetheless mentally free of it. They know the reality and they have accepted it without any contempt or sentimentalization. They are not scared of ‘funkiness’ (like Geraldine) because they know its importance. Though dominant discourse depicts whores as a threat to domesticity, in reality they protect the institution of family by providing a safety valve to illegitimate male lust. In the novel, ironically, they provide better role model to Pecola than her mother Polly. They provide Pecola with the glimpses of blues and signifying which otherwise she has no chance of knowing. Cat Moses writes, ‘The three whores embody the blues singer’s assertion of sexuality, desirability, and ownership of their bodies…all three of the whores in The Bluest Eye laugh with their whole bodies, from the depths of being, constituting “true carnivalesque”...The whores’ laughter is the quintessential blues utterance: It wells up from within, with the force and rhythm of a freight train, and it erupts into pure catharsis. It is a public communication of emotions that are both private and shared… Poland’s “Blues in my bedroom / ‘Cause I’m sleeping by myself” may be read as a sensual and a political expression of collective need. Her “Mealbarrel Blues” conflates the language of sexual desire and the desire for freedom from poverty…Marie and China enact a tradition that blends call-and-response, an erotic blues sensuality, and tongue-in-cheek humor – signifying…Geneva Smitherman defines [signifying] as “the verbal art of insult in which a speaker humorously puts down, talks about, needles – that is, signifies on – the listener” (118)...Pecola hears Poland singing, and she listens to China signifying on Marie’s story, but she lacks the cultural knowledge necessary to understanding. She is exiled from the collective consciousness; it is as though she doesn’t speak the language of the blues, although she most certainly lives the blues.’18

However, the three whores are not able to exert any positive influence on Pecola’s life because they too are victims of dominant ideology’s myth of individualism and disinterestedness. Like all other people they view Pecola individually responsible for her life without considering racist and sexist undercurrents of the society. Again, like all other people they too are disinterested in Pecola’s welfare. As a result, they fail to see that Pecola is in danger and help her out. Jane Kuenz writes,

Though charming in their own way, China, Poland, and the Maginot Line are also condemned in The Bluest Eye for just this kind of refusal to take into account difference and history:

Except for Marie’s fabled love for Dewey Prince, these women hated men, all men, without shame, apology, or discrimination. They abused their visitors with scorn grown mechanical from use. Black men, white men, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Jews, Poles, whatever – all were inadequate and weak, all came under jaundiced eyes and were the recipients of their disinterested wrath.

…Any power moves they think they are making by indiscriminately hating all men are probably negated by the fact that they do not take into account differences in race and class, factors supremely affecting their position vis a vis men, especially in their profession. Their kindness to Pecola is similarly disinterested in that, by failing to see her and her situation clearly, the three, in the words of Michele Wallace, “fail to understand victimization or the fact that [she] is in danger” (65).(6)19

Dr Manisha Patil