However unfortunate, one of the most enduring consequences of human evolution is society’s inherently racist preoccupation with physiognomy. The detrimental generation of guilt that is continually thrust upon those of an undesired complexion or physical composition therefore encourages the internalization and longevity of such oppressive prejudice and ultimately allows racial culpability to reside as a cultural norm. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye illustrates the adverse effects of society’s innately chauvinist standards of beauty through the magnitude of character Pecola Breedlove’s subsequent identity crisis. Pecola’s insatiable desire to reflect the pale porcelain skin and sapphire blue eyes that delineate her mentally construed picture of beauty ultimately causes her to reject the essence of …show more content…
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
Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye", is a very important novel in literature, because of the many boundaries that were crosses and the painful, serious topics that were brought into light, including racism, gender issues, Black female Subjectivity, and child abuse of many forms. This set of annotated bibliographies are scholarly works of literature that centre around the hot topic of racism in the novel, "The Bluest Eye", and the low self-esteem faced by young African American women, due to white culture. My research was guided by these ideas of racism and loss of self, suffered in the novel, by the main character Pecola Breedlove. This text generates many racial and social-cultural problems, dealing with the lost identity of a young African American women, due to her obsession with the white way of life, and her wish to have blue eyes, leading to her complete transgression into insanity.
The novel The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison is subjected on a young girl, Pecola Breedlove and her experiences growing up in a poor black family. The life depicted is one of poverty, ridicule, and dissatisfaction of self. Pecola feels ugly because of her social status as a poor young black girl and longs to have blue eyes, the pinnacle of beauty and worth. Throughout the book, Morrison touches on controversial subjects, such as the depicting of Pecola's father raping her, Mrs. Breedlove's sexual feelings toward her husband, and Pecola's menstruation. The book's content is controversial on many levels and it has bred conflict among its readers.
"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 Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, the struggle begins in childhood. Two young black girls -- Claudia and Pecola -- illuminate the combined power of externally imposed gender and racial definitions where the black female must not only deal with the black male's female but must contend with the white male's and the white female's black female, a double gender and racial bind. All the male definitions that applied to the white male's female apply, in intensified form, to the black male's, white male's and white female's black female. In addition, where the white male and female are represented as beautiful, the black female is the inverse -- ugly.
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 book seeks to define beauty and love in this twisted perverse society, dragging the reader through Morrison’s emotional manipulations. Her father Cholly Breedlove steals the reader’s emotional attention from Pecola as he enters the story. In fact, Toni Morrison’s depiction of Cholly wrongfully evokes sympathy from the reader.
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 Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye,” a character named Pecola Breedlove had always been wishing to have the bluest eyes, since it was considered as pretty in the novel’s world. Also, a lighter skin African American, Maureen Peal, bullied Pecola, who has darker skin, because Maureen thinks that she is cute, while she thinks Pecola is ugly. Similarly, Pecola always thought that she was ugly, because she does not have blue eyes. On the other hand, Maureen Peal came from a wealthier family and that made her think highly of herself. Although Pecola didn't come from a wealthy family but rather a lower class family and she went through hard times throughout her life. Morrison’s novel shows the difference between the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant world and the world of the characters in the novel by showing us how the characters in the novel are not living a good life. They were treated differently because of their skin color, and the social classes that they are in. Also, the kids are being neglected by their own parents, and there is child molestation in the family. In today's world, I think that it is slowly changing but there is still some divisions between people, because there is still racism out there. However, people are starting to stand up for themselves and appreciate their own culture and ethnicity more in today’s world.
Pecola now finds herself feeling really close to the beautiful girl on the candy wrapper. This here is showing another reason on how the media builds a strong image on the world’s perfectionist and beauties. “If those eyes of her were different, that is to say beautiful, she herself would be different”. (Morrison 46) Pecola has now come to believe that to be beautiful you have to have blue eyes. She begins to pray to God that she can be blessed with blue eyes. Everyone is involved to what Pecola is feeling in the novel. “Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.” (Morrison 46) Pecole is relating to what she see’s on the media. Today numerous celebrities make commercials and take pictures for articles in magazine to show how you need to look in, if you want to fit in, in this world or like I say how they want you to
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
In “The Bluest Eyes”, the author Toni Morrison portrays the idea of beauty and its standard on African Americans live in the white American society through a narrator named Claudia. The protagonist of Morrison’s novel, Pecola Breedlove, is the truest of all victims, for she is an innocent little girl born into a family that does not provide her with any support to endure society's racial prejudices. The little black girl Pecola is in a mad desire for blue eyes, which shows white-dominated culture has almost assimilated African American women and made them lost. The Bluest Eye reveals the truth that the black Americans will not be able to live with dignity if they give up the black culture under the impact of the dominant culture of the white people in the American society.
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, is a story about the life of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who is growing up during post World War I. She prays for the bluest eyes, which will “make her beautiful” and in turn make her accepted by her family and peers. The major issue in the book, the idea of ugliness, was the belief that “blackness” was not valuable or beautiful. This view, handed down to them at birth, was a cultural hindrance to the black race.
Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and the brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with, and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when it concerns gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society.
Brought up as a poor unwanted girl, Pecola Breedlove desires the acceptance and love of society. The image of "Shirley Temple beauty" surrounds her. In her mind, if she was to be beautiful, people would finally love and accept her. 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 pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty [blue] eyes'" (Morrison 46). Many people have helped imprint this ideal of beauty on her. Mr. Yacowbski as a symbol for the rest of society's norm, treats her as if she were invisible. "He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper... see a little black girl?" (Morrison 48). Her classmates also have an effect on her. They seem to think that because she is not beautiful, she is not worth anything except as the focal point of their mockery. "Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepsnekked. Black e mo black e mo ya dadd sleeps nekked.
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
"Starlight star bright" make me beautiful tonight. So many young girls gaze into the stars wishing that they could be beautiful so they would be accepted at school, as well as loved and acknowledged more. Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is no different than any other little girl. She too wants to be beautiful. America has set the standards that to be beautiful one must have " blue eyes, blonde hair, and white skin" according to Wilfred D. Samuels Toni Morrison (10). This perception of beauty leads Pecola to insanity because just as society cannot accept a little ugly black girl neither can she.