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Themes of the bluest eyes by toni morrison
problems with racism in literature
Themes of the bluest eyes by toni morrison
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Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye", is a very important novel in literature, because of the many boundaries that were crosses and the painful, serious topics that were brought into light, including racism, gender issues, Black female Subjectivity, and child abuse of many forms. This set of annotated bibliographies are scholarly works of literature that centre around the hot topic of racism in the novel, "The Bluest Eye", and the low self-esteem faced by young African American women, due to white culture. My research was guided by these ideas of racism and loss of self, suffered in the novel, by the main character Pecola Breedlove. This text generates many racial and social-cultural problems, dealing with the lost identity of a young African American women, due to her obsession with the white way of life, and her wish to have blue eyes, leading to her complete transgression into insanity.
For my research, there was no specific parameter set on the range of dates in my research. The researched sources used in this set of bibliographies date between 1987 to 2003. These annotations will be found most useful by high school and post-secondary undergraduate students who are researching similar topics to the ones outlined in my study. The resources used are very intellectual, but not overly complicated or hard to understand. There were few limitations set towards the type of resources used, although Internet sources were avoided for the most part. Most of the resources used in this set of annotated bibliographies are articles, essays, and chapters from book-length studies, found mostly at the Queen Elizabeth II library. Trends that can be noticed in these entries are the main focal point, which the authors all seemed to cover, that is racism and the social-cultural problems created for young African American women. Many of the authors seemed to blame white culture, or the colourist culture for the problem of lost identity in black girls. They seemed to take the same direction in their articles, but many taking different routes in explaining and proving their point. These ideas seemed to be arranged by the stating that Pecola Breedlove is a lost little black girl, who because of her idea that being white would solve all her family and life problems, looses her true self. The authors would then blame the white culture for this deficiency in the young mind of an African American girl.
Toni Morrison depicts the hard ship and intersectionality strongly within Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove, and “The whores,” by expressing the cultural and economic tumors of being a Black woman during the 1940s. Though the 1940s, after the Great Depression, it was hard for Black women to prosper in what was a white world. This cause many black people to migrate. During the Great Migration, African Americans began to build a new place for themselves in public life, actively confronting economic, political and social challenges and creating a new black urban culture that would exert enormous influences in the decades to come (History.com.). Blacks moved from the south to the north in hopes of finding better living conditions and to start a family. Morrison shows readers this by placing Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove, and “The whores” as adversities in the Black community. Racially biases was still a prevalent issues and this played a role in each character. The Bluest Eye also provides an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards alter the lives of black girls and women.
Toni Morisson's novel The Bluest Eye is about the life of the Breedlove family who reside in Lorain, Ohio, in the late 1930s (where Morrison herself was born). This family consists of the mother Pauline, the father Cholly, the son Sammy, and the daughter Pecola. The novel's focal point is the daughter, an eleven-year-old Black girl who is trying to conquer a bout with self-hatred. Everyday she encounters racism, not just from the White people, but mostly from her own race. In their eyes she is much too dark, and the darkness of her skin somehow manifests that she is inferior, and according to everyone else, her skin makes her even "uglier." She feel she can overcome this battle of self-hatred by obtaining blue eyes, but not just any blue. She wants the bluest of the blue, the bluest eye.
The novel The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison is subjected on a young girl, Pecola Breedlove and her experiences growing up in a poor black family. The life depicted is one of poverty, ridicule, and dissatisfaction of self. Pecola feels ugly because of her social status as a poor young black girl and longs to have blue eyes, the pinnacle of beauty and worth. Throughout the book, Morrison touches on controversial subjects, such as the depicting of Pecola's father raping her, Mrs. Breedlove's sexual feelings toward her husband, and Pecola's menstruation. The book's content is controversial on many levels and it has bred conflict among its readers.
This book touches on many different aspects of racial inequality by bringing together the works of many different African American authors, and discusses all of the major themes of “whiteness studies”. The author speaks of how whites attempt to maintain a neutral ground by focusing on extreme acts of white supremacy, which blinds the main steam to the problem of white dominance as a whole. They also discuss how there are differences in the wages between whites and blacks. One of the chapters discusses how there are whites who are committed to the equality of the races, and yet cannot empathize with the races they are trying to help. In another chapter they discuss how Pecola Breedlove undergoes racial deformation through biopower mechanisms occurring throughout the characters life. In another chapter an author discusses how racial excoriation cannot be the focus any longer if we wish to make progress in the realm of race. Instead he suggests we need to focus on the rehabilitation of racial whiteness. He argues that in order to accomplish this we must address the fears and greediness of whites.
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shows that anger is healthy and that it is not something to be feared; those who are not able to get angry are the ones who suffer the most. She criticizes Cholly, Polly, Claudia, Soaphead Church, the Mobile Girls, and Pecola because these blacks in her story wrongly place their anger on themselves, their own race, their family, or even God, instead of being angry at those they should have been angry at: whites.
Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye provides social commentary on a lesser known portion of black society in America. The protagonist Pecola is a young black girl who desperately wants to feel beautiful and gain the “bluest eyes” as the title references. The book seeks to define beauty and love in this twisted perverse society, dragging the reader through Morrison’s emotional manipulations. Her father Cholly Breedlove steals the reader’s emotional attention from Pecola as he enters the story. In fact, Toni Morrison’s depiction of Cholly wrongfully evokes sympathy from the reader.
Through works of literature, past events can positively or negatively shape a character in societal and personal manners. Often, authors provide insight into a character’s history in order to justify their current condition. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s use of characterization and background information of Cholly and Pauline Breedlove contributes to their present actions, attitudes, and values.
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, the struggle begins in childhood. Two young black girls -- Claudia and Pecola -- illuminate the combined power of externally imposed gender and racial definitions where the black female must not only deal with the black male's female but must contend with the white male's and the white female's black female, a double gender and racial bind. All the male definitions that applied to the white male's female apply, in intensified form, to the black male's, white male's and white female's black female. In addition, where the white male and female are represented as beautiful, the black female is the inverse -- ugly.
Some people will argue with you that there is always an ugly duckling somewhere in a family. I see it different, I see these people as unique. In Toni Morrison's book, The Bluest Eye there is the issue of being beautiful and ugly. In this essay I will discuss how Toni Morrison book The Bluest Eye initiates that during 1941 white was beautiful and black was ugly in the surrounding of two families.
In the novel “The Bluest Eyes”, by Toni Morrison, Racial self-loathing and hatred is a major theme through the text, and is even evident in the title. Instead of making the plot center around events over racism, the book shows a deeper portrayal of racism, emphasizing on the way racial self-hatred and loathing plagues the black characters. The novel shows an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards distort the lives of the black characters. The author shows this by having African Americans who have lighter features, Maureen Peal, Geraldine and Soaphead Church, and characters with darker features, Pecola and her Parents Cholly, and Pauline Breedlove. Through them we are able to see racial self-loathing, there
The Bluest Eye describes the lives of three young black girls living in Ohio after the Great Depression in the 1940s. One of which acquires an inferiority complex after years of abuse not only mental and physical but also sexual. This constant abuse and criticism leads the main character Pecola Breedlove to long for a happier life where she is loved by all for having beautiful blue eyes like some of the iconic white celebrity children of that time. (Morrison 19) She believes that portraying a “whiter” physical appearance will improve her life. Pecola consequently loses her mind and self-destructs because of her relentless want to become other than who she is.Toni Morrison tells this tragic story of a girl’s hopeless need to be accepted by her family, her peers and society using various themes including self-worth based on society’s perception of beauty, self-hatred or internalized racism and the effect that parents have on their children.
Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about the racism of lighter colored blacks against darker colored blacks and rich blacks against poor blacks. Along with racism within the black community, sexism is exemplified both against women and against men. As Morrison investigates the racism and sexism of the community of Lorain, Ohio, she gives the reader more perspective as to why certain characters do or say certain things.
The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison is an African American writer, who believes in fighting discrimation and segregation with a mental preparation. Tony focuses on many black Americans to the white American culture and concludes that blacks are exploited because racism regarding white skin color within the black community. The bluest eye is a story about a young black girl named Pecola, who grew up in Ohio. Pecola adores blonde haired blue eyes girls and boys. She thinks white skin meant beauty and freedom and that thought was not a subject at this time in history. This book is really about the impact on a child’s state of mind. Tony Morrison has divided her book into four seasons: autumn, winter, spring, and summer. The main characters in this book are three girls, Claudia and Frieds McTeer, and Pecola Breedlove. Why was Pecola considered a case? Pecola was a poor girl who had no place to go. The county placed her in the McTeer’shouse for a few days until they could decide what to do until the family was reunited. Pecola stayed at the McTeer’s house because she was being abuse at her house and Cholly had burned up his house. The first event that happens in the book was that her menstrual cycle had started. She didn’t know what to do; she thought she was bleeding to death. When the girls were in the bed, Pecola asked, “If it was true that she can have a baby now?” So now the only concern is if she is raped again she could possibly get pregnant. Pecola thought if she had blue eyes and was beautiful, that her parents would stop fighting and become a happy family.In nursery books, the ideal girl would have blonde hair and blue eyes. There is a lot of commercial ads have all showed the same ideal look just like the nursery book has. Pecola assumes she has this beautiful and becomes temporary happy, but not satisfied. Now, Pecola wants to be even more beautiful because she isn’t satisfied with what she has. The fact is that a standard of beautyis established, the community is pressured to play the game. Black people and the black culture is judged as being out of place and filthy. Beauty, in heart is having blond hair, blue eyes, and a perfect family. Beauty is then applied to everyone as a kind of level of class.
A main theme in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is the quest for individual identity and the influences of the family and community in that quest. This theme is present throughout the novel and evident in many of the characters. Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove and are all embodiments of this quest for identity, as well as symbols of the quest of many of the many Black people that were moving to the north in search of greater opportunities.
The difference of color is seen through the eyes, but the formulation of racial judgement and discrimination is developed in the subconscious mind. Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif (1983)” explores the racial difference and challenges that both Twyla and Roberta experience. Morrison’s novels such as “Beloved”, “The Bluest Eye”, and her short story “Recitatif” are all centered around the issues and hardships of racism. The first time that Twyla and Roberta met Twyla makes a racial remake or stereotype about the texture and smell of Roberta’s hair. Although they both were in the orphanage because of similar situations, Twyla instantly finds a racial difference. The racial differences between Twyla and Roberta affects their friendship, personal views of each other, and relationship with their husbands.