The Bluest Eye Beauty Essay

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Recommended: Beauty standards and how they affect women

According to Victoria Moran, “As a society, we need to get lots more flexible about what constitutes beauty. It isn’t a particular hair color or a particular body type; it’s the woman who grew the hair and lives in the body.” Society as a whole can be very judgmental and condemning. Interestingly, society has created its own standards of what is considered beautiful. Some people have such a great desire to be accepted into society that they will go through drastic measures in order to fit in. Society’s definition of beauty has the ability to negatively influence the actions taken by adolescents. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Pecola’s self-hatred towards her appearance is portrayed by the harsh society that surrounds her. The novel, …show more content…

The Shirley Temple cup was a symbol of Pecola’s desire to be beautiful. Pecola continuously drank milk out of the cup so she could admire how beautiful Shirley Temple was. “‘...We knew she was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirley’s face.” (Morrison 23). She saw how much people loved Shirley Temple and wished to be loved that much also. She longed to have light skin, curly, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She believed that if she had blue eyes she would be considered beautiful to society. The harsh society that surrounds her, makes Pecola feel isolated and insecure. According to Jeffrey Buchanan, “Because Pecola fits a shorthand formula for prejudging unattractiveness, she is despised; because she disappears when one looks at cultural standards of value and worth, she is judged, logically, value- and worthless. As a result, she is taunted. She is acted upon rather than felt for. …Hence, Pecola comes to wear her ugliness and worthlessness, for she fails to exist without it, and takes on the role of scapegoat, bearing the blame for all the mistakes and crimes of others who escape responsibility through

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