ongly about the oppression of minorities and this caused his family a great deal of pain and ended up breaking them apart. Troy’s family was African-American, but wasn’t too bad off and they still fell victim to the fences caused by racial prejudice; the same fact does not hold true in Toni Morrison’s novel with the utilization of her "hem of life" metaphor, however. There are several instances on The Blues Eye where it can be seen the metaphor used by the author does not apply as effectively to the African-American community on the whole. Maureen Peal exemplifies how the "hem of life" metaphor does not pertain to all people of African-American descent and their hardships. Maureen "enchanted the entire school…Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be with their partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sing in the girls’ toilet…" (Morrison 62). Maureen was a mulatto child, but the fact that she was different from the white boys and girls would make one think that she too would be made fun of or isolated from people at least somewhat. If African-Americans were all cast aside in society Maureen would have the biggest problem of everyone because the African-Americans wouldn’t associate because she was white and the white kids would look down on her for being different. Maureen was idolized for the way she carried herself, so the metaphor really does not apply to this character in the novel at all; in fact Maureen actually seems to act as a contradiction to the metaphor which Morrison used throughout the novel. Another character in the novel that can be looked to in order to show the possible ineffectiveness of Morrison’s metaphor to capture the idea of racial injustice. Pauline was said to be uncomfortable around the black women she met and that the ones she did m...
