Personal Identity In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

As citizens of the contemporary world, we apt to regard ourselves as unique and nonpareil individuals. We regard our personal identity as something to which we alone have privileged access and in which we are especially entitled to speak. We, citizens of the free world, think of ourselves as singular beings, who are capable of self-knowledge and who can differentiate between the authentic self and the unauthentic self. So therefore with this self-knowledge, we tend to project our own belief onto the less fortunate. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, one of the main characters, Pecola Breedlove wants blue eyes. In the 21st century, this is possible, but in 1941, the dream was not feasible. Pecola bought into the conviction that a person who has blond hair and blue eyes can achieve success because of their appearance.

She did not believe black is beautiful. Idealization such as these have dominated American culture since the 18th century. In order to appease society, a person will have to achieve specific physical attribute, obtain a particular career and habituate in a particular neighborhood. In The Bluest Eye, characters associate beauty and fulfillment with being white. The African American characters have grown up in a society that does not deem them beautiful because of the color of their skin. Pecola Breedlove is constantly being referred to as ugly. She longs to be what society considers beautiful—blue eyes and blond hair. Pecola’s belief that blue eyes will make her beautiful shows specific effects of racism on young African American girls, which is the envy of white