Yancy, George. What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
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.
Bloom, Harold. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1999. Print.
This book discusses the viewpoints of many expert critics through extracts of their critical essays on the novel “The Bluest Eye”. Harold Bloom states Michael Woods narrative is the best he has seen of the book, “Each member of the family interprets and acts out of his or her ugliness, but none of them understands that the all-knowing master is not God but only history and habit; the projection of their own numbed collusion w...
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...hoods have a lower verbal ability. This lowered verbal ability then results in poor performance in school and the labor force, which results in them being more primed towards violence. Although they find that other factors may be involved in this behavior, verbal ability is considered a primary factor. They argue that by educating these children properly, we can steer these children away from the negative emotions they may get when they are unable to respond to their environment due to their inability to properly process what is happening. Their findings suggest that if we are able to improve the living conditions in poor neighborhoods, we may be able to reduce the race difference in verbal ability and adolescent violence, which will create a more stable environment for the children to learn, as well as provide them a more social and positive environment in school.
Trends that can be noticed in these entries are the main focal point, which the authors all seem 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 took 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, loses her true self. The authors would then blame the white culture for this deficiency in the young mind of an African American girl.
that her son does not kill the cat. She trust him more than Pecola. Pecola
To conclude, the criticisms of the book The New Negro are mostly distributed by the experience of the author who did not get exposed enough to understand his own race even though he seems to show his
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. 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 further psychological deconstruction and rejection of the African American as an entity through racism results in characters such as Geraldine. The character of Geraldine in the novel serves several purposes that furthermore demonstrates and promotes another level of racism in humanity. The first purpose of Geraldine’s character is to present a character who has achieved a certain level of superiority and this gives her acceptance above other African Americans of the community that deems her certain privileges gained through her light skin. Geraldine presents the perfect picture of a successful African American woman who is able to separate herself from the “lesser” blacks in the community. However, in the process she has developed an obsession
The Bluest Eye fits into our study of the American novel because it tells the story of a group of Americans, men and women and children who are descendants of slaves, and live in a society where, even though many people deny it, the color of your skin determines who you are and what privileges you are entitled to. I think that Morrison does a wonderful job of telling a story that is real, that makes the reader feel something, and that makes the reader relate, regardless of your skin color.
Over the past half century, violence in the United States has increased dramatically. Children who were raised in a tough, low-income neighborhood often fail to escape exposure to violence. They may witness homicides, assaults, and some may even have had a friend who had been killed. According to recent research, these children have higher violence rates than those kids who grew up in a non-violent neighborhood.
Quest for Personal Identity in The Bluest Eye A main theme in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is the quest for individual identity and the influence of the family and community on that quest. This theme is present throughout the novel and evident in many of the characters. Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove 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.
Throughout Toni Morrison’s controversial debut The Bluest Eye, several characters are entangled with the extremes of human cruelty and desire. A once innocent Pecola arguably receives the most appalling treatment, as not only is she exposed to unrelenting racism and severe domestic abuse, she is also raped and impregnated by her own father, Cholly. By all accounts, Cholly should be detestable and unworthy of any kind of sympathy. However, over the course of the novel, as Cholly’s character and life are slowly brought into the light and out of the self-hatred veil, the reader comes to partially understand why Cholly did what he did and what really drives him. By painting this severely flawed yet completely human picture of Cholly, Morrison draws comparison with how Pecola was treated by both of her undesirable parents. According to literary educator Allen Alexander, even though Cholly was cripplingly flawed and often despicable, he was a more “genuine” person to Pecola than Pauline was (301). Alexander went on to claim that while Cholly raped Pecola physically, Pauline and Soaphead Church both raped her mental wellbeing (301). Alexander is saying that the awful way Pecola was treated in a routine matter had an effect just as great if not greater than Cholly’s terrible assault. The abuse that Pecola lived through was the trigger that shattered her mind. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses the characters of Cholly Breedlove and Frieda McTeer to juxtapose sexual violence and mental maltreatment in order to highlight the terrible effects of mental abuse.
Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye contributes to the study of the American novel by bringing to light an unflattering side of American history. The story of a young black girl named Pecola, growing up in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 clearly illustrates the fact that the "American Dream" was not available to everyone. The world that Pecola inhabits adores blonde haired blue eyed girls and boys. Black children are invisible in this world, not special, less than nothing. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you lesser was cultivated by both whites and blacks. White skin meant beauty and privilege and that idea was not questioned at this time in history. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person contaminated black people's lives in many different ways. The taunts of schoolboys directed at Pecola clearly illustrate this fact; "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth" (65). This self hatred also possessed an undercurrent of anger and injustice that eventually led to the civil rights movement.
In “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, the audience is shown the skewed idea of beauty and how whiteness in the 1940s was the standard of beauty. This idea of beauty is still prevalent today which is why the novel is powerful and relevant. Narrated by a nine year old girl, this novel illustrates that this standard of beauty distorts the lives of black people, more specifically, black women and children. Not only was it a time when being white was considered being superior, being a black woman was even worse because even women weren’t appreciated and treated as equal back then. Set in Lorain, Ohio, this novel has a plethora of elements that parallels Toni Morrison’s personal life. The population in Lorain back then was considered to be ethnically asymmetrical, where segregation was still legal but the community was mostly integrated. Black and white children could attend the same schools and neighborhoods by then would be inhabited by a mix of black and white families. The theme of race and beauty is portrayed through the lives of three different families and stories told by the characters: Claudia, Pecola, and Frieda. Through the exploration of the families’ and character’s struggles, Morrison demonstrates the horrid nature of racism as well as the caustic temperament of the suppressed idea of white beauty on the individual, and on the society.
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.
This is a harsh inversion of the consumprion motif that occurs in that her Black self has been devoured by these White images of beauty. She is even further abjected when the community that failed to see its part in what happened when she exchanges her mind for the blue eyes she “though would make her loved” (Smith, 2012: 3 of 8).
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.
The Bluest Eye is an innovative novel whose touching and compelling story could not have been told without Morrison's unique structural devices. One such tool is the use of seasons to divide the narrative and put an interesting twist on the order of events. Perhaps the most unique structural element is the three primer passages that begin the novel. The first passage introduces a model household to which the rest of the families in the novel are compared. Finally, an equally innovative structural element is the use of lines from the primer passages to head subsections in the novel, illustrating the vast differences between the mythological Dick and Jane world and the reality of black family life.