Beauty In The Bluest Eye

In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the narrator Claudia goes through the experiences of her own childhood as she struggles to make sense of not only her life but Pecola's life as well. In the novel childhood is depicted as the painfully transition to adulthood. Society portrays the innocence of a child, and has the power to take it away.

Society defines the true definition of beauty. This affected Pecola and haunted her on a daily basis. The blonde hair, blue eyes that Pecola so desperately wants is represented by the white culture. She eats the candy to try and make herself like Mary Jane “smiling white face, blonde hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort” (50). Pecola’s innocents allows her to believe

At the beginning of the novel “ there were no marigold in the year of 1941”(7). Both Pecola and Claudia learn that the world they live in is unfair and unjust; a world full of hate and dominance. Claudia and Frieda plant the marigolds believing that if the flowers bloom, Pecola’s baby will be born safe and healthy. “It never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola’s father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair”(7). As Claudia looks back on this experience she realizes that her innocents allowed her to believe that if the Earth wanted the marigolds to live, it would also allow Pecola's baby to live. The soil the marigolds were planted in was unable to nurture the flower to grow, just as the community Pecola was born into. Claudia comes to the conclusion that the marigolds didn't “grow anywhere in the nation because the Earth was hostile to those types of flowers” (206). The black community was not accepted, which Pecola and Claudia learned at a young age. Everything that they once knew were gone, “ all that hope,fear, lust, love and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth” (8). Thier innocents protected them until society took it away, nothing changed as they grew older except the glimmers of hope

Spring is associated with new life, and the start of a new beginning. However, Claudia associates in her mind with “remembered ache of switchings”(97). This was also when Pecola is raped, “ her grip was from a hopeless but stubborn struggle to be free” (163). Autumn is thought to bring joys with harvest and abundance, but this is when Pecola's baby dies. By splitting the book in sections of season, the miserable life Pecola lives is brought into light This shows that this lifestyle will keep on going. She will never be able to remove herself from the culture she was born into. The life both Pecola and Claudia are living is a cycle that they are unable to get out