). She agrees with the idea that maintaining a healthy mental state requires a good perception of one’s own self. Through her hatred of her current self and constant fantasy about obtaining blue eyes and a new identity, Pecola has been creating a second identity from delusion and alienating her former identity without realizing it. Similarly, throughout Disgraced, Amir has invested so much effort to distance himself from his family’s religious background, and after finding out about Emily’s affair with Isaac, he lashes out and beats her. The stage instructions for this scene states for the portrayal of “uncontrolled violence as brutal as it needs to be in order to convey the discharge of a lifetime of discreetly building resentment” (Akhtar 75). Amir …show more content…
He constantly internalizes his anger towards society’s view of Pakistani people and feels shame for being one. Akhtar wants to emphasize the release at once of all his internalized insecurities and self-loathing Amir has been masking and building up for years when he realizes that his vision of himself living the perfect American life has been shattered within one night. At the end of both The Bluest Eye and Disgraced, both protagonists reveal their unhealthy mental states and identity crisis that ultimately leads to the tragic ending of both stories. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove functions as a scapegoat for the black community’s self-loathing, which reveal just how deeply the idea of beauty and self-worth judged by race has been integrated and ingrained throughout the entire community. At the end of the novel, Claudia realizes the cause of Pecola’s insanity and truth behind why she was looked down upon. She states, “All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us—all who knew her, felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her”
The concept of physical beauty and desire to conform to a prescribed definition of what is considered beautiful can destroy a person's life. In Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye, many characters are obsessed with attaining the idealist definition of what is considered beautiful. The characters of Geraldine, Pauline, and Pecola all believe that physical perfection leads to acceptance; however, it is the same belief that causes their personal downfalls and prevents them from recognizing their own inner beauty.
Hence, “she, stepped over into madness” (T. Morrison 1970) and spent her days talking to her imaginary friend about her imaginary blue eyes. As Vickroy says, “Pecola’s belief that she has blue eyes more importantly symbolize the trauma of not being loved.” (L.Vickroy, 2002). We see in the novel that Pecola innocently seeks a physical reason for her lack of being loved by her parents and classmates “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her Morrison 1970) as well as a stable source of food “Three quarts of milk. That’s what was in that icebox yesterday.”
In the novel, The Bluest Eye, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove. Pecola longs for acceptance from the world. She is an innocent little girl, however, she is rejected practically by the whole world, and her own parents. Pecola endures physical and verbal abuse at home, and also at school. She is always the main character in the jokes that usually refer to her very dark skin. Her mother cherishes the white daughter of the family she works for and calls her own daughter a "rotten piece of apple. Her father Cholly is constantly drunk, and sexually molests her daughter more than once, eventually rapes and impregnates her.
My report is on a wonderful story called 'The Bluest Eye' written by Toni Morrison and published by the Penguin Group. This book was originally published in 1970.
"And Pecola. She hid behind hers. (Ugliness) Concealed, veiled, eclipsed--peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the return of her mask" (Morrison 39). In the novel The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, the main character, Pecola, comes to see herself as ugly. This idea she creates results from her isolation from friends, the community, and ever her family. There are three stages that lead up to Pecola portraying herself as an ugly human being. The three stages that lead to Pecola's realization are her family's outlook toward her, the community members telling her she is ugly, and her actually accepting what the other say or think about her. Each stage progresses into the other to finally reach the last stage and the end of the novel when Pecola eventually has to rely on herself as an imaginary friend so she will have someone to talk to.
In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the narrator Claudia tells the story of a girl named Pecola who dreams to have blue eyes so she can feel beautiful in a white society. At the beginning of the novel, Pecola moves into Claudia’s home and becomes friends with Claudia and Frieda, who is Claudia’s older sister. This particular passage on page nineteen describes the three girls eating and playing together. Using three allusions, Shirley Temple, Bojangles, and Jane Withers, this passage highlights the importance of white beauty to the girls, its emphasis in society, and shows that Claudia is independent.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a tragic coming-of-age story that switches between the first person point of view of character Claudia MacTeer and an omniscient third person narrator. The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio 1941, a time when racism was still extremely prevalent, especially in the southern United States. African American women often faced many setbacks, simply because of their race and gender. Toni Morrison’s background helped to lay the foundation for her novel The Bluest Eye; racism, self-hatred, women’s roles, and rape culture are all societally imposed elements that follow Pecola Breedlove, Morrison’s main character,
Claudia's desire to dismantle her doll depicts her simple understanding of racism, as well as her resistance towards embracing white culture. blood. The novel, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, portrays the end of The Great Depression and the economic struggles and poverty faced by families, particularly those in black communities. Despite these pressing economic concerns, prejudice is the underlying theme throughout the novel.
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.
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 major characters in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison were Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, Claudia MacTeer, and Frieda MacTeer. Pecola Breedlove is an eleven-year-old black girl around whom the story revolves. Her innermost desire is to have the "bluest" eyes so that others will view her as pretty in the end that desire is what finishes her, she believes that God gives her blue eyes causing her insanity. She doesn't have many friends other than Claudia and Frieda. Throughout the book we see how Pecola is picked on by other children her age and then later on abused by Cholly, her own father. Her mother doesn't care for her either her actions toward Pecola are not without contempt. Cholly Breedlove is Pecola's drunken father. He has never known a loving family; his father deserted him and his mother who then left him to die in a garbage can. His great aunt saves him and raises him until her death, which occurred when Cholly was only thirteen or fourteen years old. Cholly himself deserts his family, not physically but he is always in a drunken state and doesn't provide the family with the barest necessities. Cholly dies alone in a warehouse. Claudia MacTeer is the main narrator in the story. She is about nine years old when they story takes place, she is remembering the story. Claudia is black and doesn't see anything wrong with that. She isn't like the other girls who think it would be better if she was white, she doesn't buy into that idea, she destroys the white dolls that she receives for Christmas. Claudia has learned from her mother how to be a strong black female and express her opinion in a white dominated society. Frieda is a lot like her sister and had the same morals imposed on her by her mother. Frieda is about ten years old when the story takes place.
Tiani McCarthy Professor Morris April 2014 The Bluest Eye Identity Crisis: The Bluest Eye The Bluest Eye describes the lives of three young black girls living in Ohio after the Great Depression in the 1940s. One of which acquires an inferiority complex after years of abuse, not only mental and physical, but also sexual. This constant abuse and criticism leads the main character Pecola Breedlove to long for a happier life where she is loved by all for having beautiful blue eyes like some of the iconic white celebrity children of that time. Morrison believes portraying a “whiter” physical appearance will improve her life.
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.
The idea that blue eyes are a necessity for beauty has been imprinted on Pecola her whole life. " If [I] looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they would say, Why look at the pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty [blue] eyes'"
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.