English Comparative Essay – And the Mountains Echoed and The Bluest Eye Exploring fictional texts with different national settings provides a comprehensive insight into how relationships developed with other individuals in a community can alter a person’s sense of identity. Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed (2013) and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) are texts that present cynical portrayals of relationships amongst various groups within a society. The protagonists of both texts, Pari and Pecola, as well as other central characters are used as vehicles to express how adversity faced by individuals can negatively affect familial and interpersonal relationships, especially in association with notions of abandonment, ethnicity and beauty. Abandonment by supposed support figures has a resonating negative impact on an individual’s sense of self worth. As portrayed in “The Bluest Eye”, Cholly Breedlove is hugely responsible …show more content…
In the 1940’s where “The Bluest Eye” is set, racism is evident and beauty is largely associated with whiteness. The idealization of light skin can be seen all throughout the book, with constant referrals to white icons of the time. The level of persecution Pecola endures as a result of her dark skin tone leads to her obsession for blue eyes, a symbol of beauty in the predominantly African- American society she grows up. She believes that “if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” This quote explores the complexities of Pecola’s situation through the use of emotive language, as she only desires blue eyes not to conform to the western standards of beauty but as a method to relieve the passive suffering she endures as a result of difficult familial
We as a society like to believe that everyone is equal, that no matter what you look like you are important to the society. Unfortunately, this is not an accurate belief. We only have to turn on the television or open a magazine to see who are the adored people in our country. However, it is not fair to say that all people buy into these ideals. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison captures both sides of society. Pecola and her family represent the part of American society that strives to belong and fit into the stereotypical world. Pecola believes that if she could have blue eyes then she would be accepted. "If she looked different, beautiful, maybe they'd say, 'Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes'" (46). She saw the blue eyes as an answer to everything that was wrong in her life.
The Bluest Eye, beginning narration through the eyes of Claudia MacTeer and alternating with a third person omniscient point of view, objectively illustrates Pecola’s negatively internalized physiognomy from both internal and external perspectives. As the novel opens, a brief allusion is made to the story of Dick and Jane and their “very pretty white and green house” (Morrison 3) however, the repetition of this story is integral in depicting “the void that [Pecola] could not reach” (Morrison 204) as the settings markedly stereotypical descriptors embody the white lifestyle that “filled the valleys of [her] mind” (Morrison 204). This story also juxtaposes Pecola’s current living situation as her family’s dysfunctional tendencies further coerce Pecola into believing that she is unworthy
Some people think that if they could only change one aspect of their lives, it would be perfect. They do not realize that anything that is changed could come with unintended consequences. “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs and “The Third Wish” by Joan Aiken both illustrate this theme. They demonstrate this by granting the main character three wishes, but with each wish that is granted, brings undesirable consequences. The main idea of this essay is to compare and contrast “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Third Wish.” Although the “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Third Wish” are both fantasies and have similar themes, they have different main characters, wishes, and resolutions.
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young girl living in Lorain, Ohio, who has to face harsh conditions from a young age. Pecola’s family has a reputation of “ugliness”, a reputation that their town despises them for. Pecola herself believes the allegations that she is ugly to be true, not only because of the constant abuse that she witnesses in her own family, but also because she has been told that she is ugly her entire life by everyone around her, including adults. The novel explores the standards that Pecola is held to, as well as her reactions to not meeting these standards. Some of the alleged qualities of her “ugliness” are her race, her family’s income, her father’s sleeping habits, and her eye color. With these criticisms as impetus, Pecola strives for beauty, and tries to fix the material problems in her life. Pecola, however, is not alone; other characters in the book are strongly affected by physical goods and propagandistic advertisement as well. In The Bluest Eyecultural standards are imposed upon the characters by their consumer goods.
Pecola, who is an African American child, is often influenced by how people depict the beauty of her race. She has this wild fascination with blue eyes; she thought that having blue eyes would make her beautiful. Beauty and blue eyes is what Pecola thought would get her the love and affection that so many white people experienced. We as humans have this deficiency where we base love and popularity on our appearances. Pecola feels the same way.
In The Bluest eye, there are many social elements promoting white people’s beauty standards. Shirley Temple, who is the girl that is featured in the cup that Pecola likes, is white person. The movies Pauline went to see shows white men taking good care of their women while living in big clean houses. The girl featured on the candy that Pecola likes is a white girl, Mary Janes. Simply put, Pecola and Claudia, Frieda are all surrounded by the social environment promoting white women as a beauty standard. Because of that, they just accept that they are not pretty. Though harsh social environment did not bring Claudia and Frieda to ruin, it did affect Pecola gravely. She believes that she is not receiving any love from her mother because of her
Pecola’s conversation with her imaginary friend is one of the most crucial scenes in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. In it, a young African-American girl in the 1940s takes on the impossible task of trying to conform to societal expectations of beauty. The most damaging force is not racist white people but Pecola herself. She attempts imitating something she is not and never leaves behind the parasitic ideas of beauty that infest her thoughts. By asking the manipulative Soaphead Church to grant her wish for blue eyes, she destroys herself.
A reader might easily conclude that the most prominent social issue presented in The Bluest Eye is that of racism, but more important issues lie beneath the surface. Pecola experiences damage from her abusive and negligent parents. The reader is told that even Pecola's mother thought she was ugly from the time of birth. Pecola's negativity may have initially been caused by her family's failure to provide her with identity, love, security, and socialization, ail which are essential for any child's development (Samuels 13). Pecola's parents are able only to give her a childhood of limited possibilities. She struggles to find herself in infertile soil, leading to the analysis of a life of sterility (13). Like the marigolds planted that year, Pecola never grew.
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s uses her critique of racism so that white readers can imagine or understand what it feels like to be the on the other side of what is not considered beauty as Pecola, Claudia, and Freida suffer from the stigma of ugliness and being African-American (Bump). Through Morrison’s ability to convey the truth to readers about how beauty is socially structured, she uses Claudia, the narrator, to signify the search for the truth, “..the edge, the curl, the thrust of their emotions is always clear to Frieda and me. We do not, cannot, know the meanings of all the words, for we are nine and ten years old. So we watch their faces, their hands, their feet, and listen for truth in timbre” (Morrison). We all were the ages of nine
From the era of 1400s till 1800s, music was at peak and has brought impacts in people’s life. More musical instruments were invented and musicians were well known at that time with the purpose to entertain them. By then, musical instruments started to spread widely around the world. Musical instrument is defined as any form of potential devices that gives musical sound. I will contrast two musical instruments, banjo and guitar in terms of their history, their characteristics, and the styles to play them. Yet, people will still know that they share the common similarities in terms of categorized as the strings-family instrument, the portability and how they are played.
In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove is a young girl trying to find herself. Throughout the novel, as Pecola grows as a young girl her confidence is tainted by her experiences and the world around her. Pecola lives in Lorain, Ohio, in the 1940s. During this time, role models for young girls were predominantly Caucasian, blonde, blue-eyed women. This impacted young girls like Pecola who had no role models to look up to. Pecola not only has no role models, but also an unsupportive family. Pecola’s family is known for their ugliness and argue with each other often. The people in the Breedlove’s community reject them and disapprove of Pecola, some even shunning
She believes that if she could have blue eyes, their beauty would inspire kind behavior from others. Blues eyes in Pecola’s definition, is the pure definition of beauty. But beauty in the sense that if she had them she would see things differently. But within the world that Pecola lives in the color of one’s eye, and skin heavily influences their treatment. So her desperation for wanting to change her appearance on the account of her environment and culture seems child-like but it is logical. If Pecola could alter her appearance she would alter her influence and treatment toward and from others. In this Morrison uses Marxism as a way to justify Pecola’s change in reality depending on her appearance. The white ideologies reflected upon Pecola’s internal and external conflicts which allowed her to imagine herself a different life. The impacts of one’s social class also impacts one’s perspective of their race. The vulnerability created by the low social class allows racism to protrude in society and have a detrimental effect for the young black girls in “The Bluest Eye” (Tinsley).The quotes explained above express the social and economic aspect of the Marxist theory. The theory that centers around the separation of social classes and the relationship surrounding them not one’s internalization of oneself
In the novel The Bluest Eye, one girl desires to have blue eyes. Pecola Breedlove sees importance in having blue eyes. She grows up in a town where in most cases she is not accepted for what she looks like. Her town is full of race and people judging others by the way they look. We see this even through her family atmosphere, her mother is convinced that everyone in the Breedlove family is not attractive in anyway. This has a negative effect on Pecola mainly because she wants to be like everyone else instead of always feeling different from those around her. In Pecola’s life she is surrounded by fighting and hate. Her parents are always fighting and she sees in her community problems with race. One of the reasons she wants blue eyes is so maybe she can see things with a new view. She hopes that there can be love and acceptance in her life. In Toni Morrisons’ novel The Bluest Eye, Pecola desires to have blue eyes because she reads the Dick and Jane pre primers with girls who have blue eyes, she desires love and acceptance in
Academic writing consists of many types of writing such as proposals, formal essays, informal essays, lab reports, comparative essays, and etc. With so many types of academic writing out there, some may question whether it is truly necessary to have so many optional types to choose from when writing. Although there are so many types of writing each one functions to convey what the writer is trying to explain or convey different. A lab report conveys the hard data and facts from experiments that a scientist documents to support their hypothesis. A proposal highlights the advantages of an action to convince someone else to follow through with that action. Both of these different types of writing achieve their own unique purpose to fully bring out the worth in the writers words. Although these two are important in academic writing, comparative essays are one of the most useful and basic types of academic writing that can be used in college and anywhere else.
She eventually convinces herself that the reason her mother can’t make eye contact with her and the reason no one talks to her is because they are jealous of her eyes. Toni Morrison’s Bluest Eye is a tragic narrative of how one black community loathes itself for not being white. Even more tragic is the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young girl who hates herself for not being white. The constant criticism, the bullying received at school, and her rough family life at home lead Pecola to seek escape from her misery. In order to escape from her misery, Pecola fantasizes about becoming beautiful.