Abandoned Souls

"All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us-all who knew her-felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health...Even her waking dreams we used- to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength."
                                                -The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

To be cast off, from a group, from friends, from society, is a pain and burden so unbearable that only those who have an unmeasurable inner resilience can come away from such an experience unscarred. It hurts to be forgotten, or discarded, from a group of people, especially by those whom you loved. We've all probably been disposed of in such a manner by a group of people; whether it was in grade school, and you weren't allowed to play with a certain group of people because they had forbade it, or one of your friends decided that you were freakish and strange and went to go find another group of friends to hang out with. Perhaps it's simply a teacher who no longer wants to listen to your answers, and ignores you, and you are cast off there, as well.

My experience with being "cast off" involved one of my childhood best friends, who I've known since kindergarden. I was friends with her from the very beginning of my adolescence, since the first day of kindergarden, when we chose line partners and our hands met over another whimpering girl, who could not find a line partner. We both asked one another if we wanted to be partners, simultaneously, and I can still hear our laughter as we interrupted one another, excitedly talking. That was the true initiation of our friendship; it continued all throughout elementary school. She was my best friend, or one of them, at least. She was hilarious, and we were always laughing, or abusing her pets and making her dog and cat fight each other. We began to grow apart when I was about 10 or 11. I can't really discern who cast who off, who forgot the other and went on to find other friends. At first, I wanted to blame her for the destruction of our friendship, for casting me off and forgetting about me to go find other friends. This is usually not the case, however. I feel guilt for shutting her out, for neglecting our friendship and failing to salvage it. But in this situation, it doesn't matter who cast who off, for it injured and marred us in our own separate ways.

This same cast-off role is apparent in Toni Morrison's book The Bluest Eye. The story is told from the point of view of a girl named Claudia, yet Claudia is a mere observer. It is my opinion that the true protagonist is a girl named Pecola, for the story is centered around her. Pecola is a girl living in a predominantly black neighborhood; northern slums where racism is prevalent. She is beaten by her mother, and constantly watches her mother and father engage in horrid assaults of one another. Pecola is constantly referred to as "ugly" and "odd" by the members of her neighborhood, her family receiving these labels as well. When she is around 12 years of age, Pecola is raped and impregnated by her father, and becomes even more of a social pariah than she previously was. Although her baby dies, the imprint of what was done to her remains, and people cast Pecola off and use her as their punching bag, their source of happiness and reassurance, for when they see Pecola in all her grime and filth, they see themselves as being better, as being more substantial people. When they see what has been done to Pecola by her father, they look at themselves as being virtuous and pure. Pecola stifles the insecurities of people in her neighborhood, and makes them feel secure in their own bodies, for she herself is a monstrosity. It is my belief that all of us who are cast out in one way or another act as a suppressor of personal vulnerabilities for those who cast us out. When those who cast us off look at us, they see all of their greatness compared to all of our flaws, and all of the difficulties we have suffered, and how much better their lives have been in comparison to this. We act as a constant reminder of the guilt they feel for casting us off, yet also as a washcloth or rag that they may clean themselves with, so that they may shine in our gloominess.