Standards of Beauty in the Bluest Eye Bluest Eye Essays

1416 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Positive and negative effects of the standards of beauty

Standards of Beauty in the Bluest Eye The characters within The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, all attempt to conform to a standard of beauty in some way. This standard of beauty is established by the society in which they live, and then supported by members of the community. Beauty is also linked with respect and happiness. Both people who reach the standard of beauty, and those who try, are never really satisfied with who they are. This never-ending race to become beautiful has devastating effects on their relationships and their own self-esteem. Geraldine, a respected woman living in the community, does conform to the standard of beauty, and she feels that anyone else is greatly inferior. So as to retain the beauty, Geraldine loses her culture and her individuality. Pecola Breedlove, a young girl, also feels that she must be aesthetically beautiful. She, on the other hand, believes that beauty is the only way for her and her family to be happy. When Pecola finally thinks that she has this beauty, she becomes temporarily happy, but is not really satisfied with what she has. Eventually, Pecola becomes obsessed with being more and more beautiful, a state that she can never truly reach because she is black. The fact that a rigid standard of beauty is established, and all of the members of the community are pressured to conform to it, causes overwhelming effects on those who do fit it, and those who merely try. The society within The Bluest Eye, just as our society, establishes a standard of beauty that its members must conform to. Since the whites are still the dominant force in the community, beauty is considered being as close to white as possible. Black people and black culture is looked down upon as being dirty and inappropriate. Beauty, in essence, is having blond hair, blue eyes, and a clean, plastic family. The roles of each member of the family are fixed, and each person fulfills them with good cheer. This standard of beauty is then applied to everyone as a kind of scale of quality. A person who matches this standard is "good" and is respected for being so. A person who does not match the standard, or does not choose to conform to it, is not looked down upon. Not only are all people measured by this standard, people are aware of it at an early age. The "Dick and Jane" books read by children in school, clearly define beauty. More importantly, these books show that happiness can only be attained through beauty, and that an ugly person can never really be happy or good. Geraldine is an example of the devastating effects of conforming standard of beauty, even if it is reached. Geraldine, and the other women like her work their entire life to reach and maintain a standard of beauty. The women are constantly concerned with their appearance or the cleanliness of their house and belongings. The house, the clothes, the linens, everything is kept spotless. In fact, this obsession with appearance is so complete, that the women are only concerned with their hairpins while having intercourse. This obsession of retaining the standard of beauty also separates the women from their family. In Geraldine's case, the husband married her because of her pervasive cleanliness, and does not expect anything more. The relationship between the couple is very machinelike and without feeling. The effects on the child are even more profound. From on early age, Junior is taught that he is better then the other children, that playing with them is beneath him. Not only does this create extreme feelings of superiority within Junior, it also isolates him from the other children. Although he wants to have fun, he is not allowed because he would no longer be clean. Without a relationship between his pears, Junior can only have one with his mother, but he is failed in this sense also. Geraldine feels that it is her duty to bring up a clean and moral child, but she does not feel that she must have any bond with him. In truth, any emotions between Geraldine and Junior are almost nonexistent. The relationship deteriorates to such a degree, that Geraldine feels more love towards her cat, a clean and proud creature, than she does towards her son. In reaching the standard of beauty, Geraldine is actually abandoning that which makes her unique. She is, in essence, washing herself of her culture and her identity, and becoming a faceless member of society. By becoming "beautiful", Geraldine is actually becoming like everyone else. In the process, she destroys the relationship between her and her family, and isolates her child. Pecola Breedlove is another example of the damage brought on by submitting completely to a standard of beauty. Pecola gradually becomes more and more fixated on reaching the standard of beauty, and she is never satisfied. Pecola feels that beauty is the only way to solve all of her problems. She feels that if she becomes beautiful, her parents will no longer fight, her family will not be poor, and her father will no longer be a rapist. Pecola reached this mindset through minor and extreme events in her life. One of the subtler of these events is her purchase of a Mary Jane candy bar. When Pecola approaches the shopkeeper to buy some candy, the man does not even bother to look at her. To him, she is so sub-human that he does not feel that she deserves to be acknowledged with a glance. Although this does not seem important to the man behind the counter, Pecola picks up on and understands all of his movements and thoughts. She knows that he does not even recognize as a human being worth looking at, because she is ugly. This reinforces her attitude that beauty is the only way to gain any respect from others. Pecola's meeting with Geraldine is also an example of the basis for her attitudes. When Pecola is seduced into Junior's house, and he kills his cat, Pecola is thrown out by Geraldine, Junior's mother. Geraldine thinks that Pecola killed that cat because Pecola does not fit the standard of beauty. Geraldine does not even bother to ask Pecola what happened, she simply assumes that Pecola is bad, and throws her out. This also reinforces Pecola's view that physical beauty is a means of being respected and treated well. These seemingly minor occurrences had a great effect on Pecola's mindset. At the other end of the spectrum is the treatment that she receives from her father. He treats her as if she were a toy that he can use as he pleases. Cholly, Pecola's father, rapes her without any real concern for her feelings. He does not care what happens to her or how she responds, he is simply looking to fulfill his own desires. He has so little disregard for Pecola's feelings, that he rapes her on multiple occasions. Pecola thinks that her father does not care about her because she is not beautiful. She becomes convinced that beauty would make people respect her, and would solve all of her problems. Most important, is the fact that Pecola is not content even when she thinks that she has become beautiful. She becomes obsessed with being the most beautiful person possible. Pecola does not realize that beauty is not the answer to her problems, even when she achieves it. When, after thinking that she has blue eyes, no real changes occur in her life, Pecola starts wishing for even bluer eyes; even more beauty. Through the treatment that she has experienced, Pecola is now trapped in a race to become more and more beautiful, even though this does not really make her happier in the long run.

Show More
Related

  • Toni Morisson's The Bluest Eye

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    Toni Morisson's novel The Bluest Eye is about the life of the Breedlove family who reside in Lorain, Ohio, in the late 1930s (where Morrison herself was born). This family consists of the mother Pauline, the father Cholly, the son Sammy, and the daughter Pecola. The novel's focal point is the daughter, an eleven-year-old Black girl who is trying to conquer a bout with self-hatred. Everyday she encounters racism, not just from the White people, but mostly from her own race. In their eyes she is much too dark, and the darkness of her skin somehow manifests that she is inferior, and according to everyone else, her skin makes her even "uglier." She feel she can overcome this battle of self-hatred by obtaining blue eyes, but not just any blue. She wants the bluest of the blue, the bluest eye.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Joan Morgan From Fly Girls To Bits And Hos

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article “ From Fly to Bitches and Hoes” by Joan Morgan, she often speaks about the positive and negative ideas associated with hip-hop music. Black men display their manhood with full on violence, crime, hidden guilt, and secret escapes through drugs and alcohol. Joan Morgan’s article views the root causes of the advantage of misogyny in rap music lyrics. In the beginning of the incitement her desires shift to focus on from rap culture condemnation to a deeper analysis of the root causes. She shows the hidden causes of unpleasant sexism in rap music and argues that we need to look deeper into understanding misogyny. I agree with Joan Morgan with the stance that black men show their emotions in a different way that is seen a different perspective.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    1866 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The novel addresses the psychological and political implications of black people’s commitment to a standard of beauty (the blonde-haired, blue-eyed ideal)…” (Smith 364). Her desire to have blue eyes was so strong that once she was told her prayers had been granted, she never saw herself the same way again. From that moment on Pecola Breedlove believed that her eyes were blue. The last chapter of The Bluest Eye shows the dialogue between Pecola, and an imaginary figure whom Pecola had created, discussing the blueness of her

    Read More

  • Sexual Content in the Bluest Eye

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • When Adults Fail, Children Change

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison that reveals many lessons and conflicts between young and adult characters of color. The setting takes place during the 1940s in Lorain, Ohio. The dominant speaker of this book is a nine year old girl named Claudia MacTeer who gets to know many of her neighbors. As a result of this, Claudia learns numerous lessons from her experience with the citizens of Lorain. Besides Claudia, The Bluest Eye is also told through many characters for readers to understand the connection between each of the adults and children. Many parents in the novel like Geraldine and Pauline Breedlove clearly show readers how adults change their own children. Furthermore, other adult characters like Cholly Breedlove simply show the continuation of how one is affected from the beginning of childhood through adulthood. The characters who have shared experiences and moments of hardship in their lives support the lessons Toni Morrison reveals to readers in The Bluest Eye. The failure of adults is an important theme Toni Morrison shows all readers in The Bluest Eye because the failures of adults affect children. One example that shows how the failures of adults affect children in this novel is through Geraldine. Geraldine fails to love her son and parent well. Geraldine is a middle class woman who is married and has a son named Junior. She sees herself as a “colored person” rather than a “nigger” because she hates the blackness in her and fears the differences of these two interpretations. Because of this Geraldine has so much self-hatred that she expresses it towards her family. In this quote, Morrison reveals to readers that Geraldine has greater love for her cat than Junior.

    Read More

  • Blond Hair, Blue Eyed Beauty

    2310 Words  | 5 Pages

    Blond hair, blue eyes. In America these are the ideals of a woman’s beauty. This image is drilled into our minds across the lifespan in the media and it conditions people's standards of beauty. We see Black women wish that their skin was lighter. In an episode of "The Tyra Banks Show", a Black girl as young as 6 talks about how she doesn't like her hair and wishes that it was long and straight like a white woman's. Some minorities get surgery to change their facial features, or only date white men. Having been taught to think that white people are more attractive than people of their own ethnicity. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the character of Pecola exemplifies the inferiority felt throughout the black community due to the ideology that white qualities propel you in social status. Pecola’s mother, Pauline Breedlove, said it best when she was introduced to beauty it being the most destructive ideas in the history of human though. From which the envy, insecurity and disillusion have been derived by the ideas of beauty and physical appearance. Pecola’s story is about the consequences of a little black girl growing up in a society dominated by white supremacy. We must not look at beauty as a value rather an oppressive discourse that has taken over our society. Pecola truly believes that if her eyes were blue she would be pretty, virtuous, and loved by everyone around her. Friends would play with her, teachers would treat her better and even her parents might stop their constant fights because, in her heart of hearts, no one would want to “do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.”

    Read More

  • bluest eye

    1643 Words  | 4 Pages

    Toni Morrison's critique of the visual system within popular American culture and her rejection of white-defined female beauty are reflected in her first novel. Morrison's The Bluest Eye reveals the crippling effects of white standards of female beauty on a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove. This is done through the constant references to blue eyes and the comparison to vision as a whole; the way the characters view themselves, others and the world as a whole. This allegorical novel can be said to make statements not just on perceptions of beauty in general, but specifically the racially charged beauty ideals of America in the 1940’s. In one way or another, almost all of the characters are preoccupied with defining or examining beauty during the course of The Bluest Eye.

    Read More

  • Literature's Unique Talent: The Bluest Eye, Night, Flowers for Algernon

    1864 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Bluest Eye depicts the tone of passion. As the readers progress through the novel, the passion of black women expressed in-depth to the readers to show how their desires were to fit in with society. In the season Spring, chapter nine, page 138, Morrison writes:

    Read More

  • Quest for Personal Identity in The Bluest Eye

    2750 Words  | 6 Pages

    A main theme in Toni Morrison’s  The Bluest Eye is the quest for individual identity and the influences of the family and community in  that quest.  This theme is present throughout the novel and evident in many of  the characters.  Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove and 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.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Sexism Analysis

    1609 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison tells the story of several African Americans living in the rural south from 1910 to 1941. One of the main characters in the book happens to be Pecola Breedlove. Throughout the book Pecola encounters many hardships. Her problems range from home, school, extracurricular activities; even if she is walking down the street she has a problem with someone. It is very obvious that during this time period, white people are not that fond of African Americans and you would think that Pecola has the most trouble with. When in all actuality, many of the problems she encountered where her own people so to speak. The people who bullied her felt that because she was a darker skin tone that she was a target.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

    1122 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 1940's as well as present day, the media pushed on society an image of perfection and beauty. This image is many times fake, but the naive cannot deceive, and it can become an icon of beauty. If you do not fall within the image then you are ugly. In the book "The Bluest Eye," we witness the power that the media has on specific characters: Pecola Breedlove, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer. The icon of beauty at that point in time is Shirley Temple, a white girl with blond hair and blue eyes. She is also the first reference to beauty in the book. Claudia explains her feelings towards Shirley Temple by saying, "...I had felt a stranger, more frightening thing than hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world" (19). Claudia is relating the hatred that she felt towards Shirley Temple to the envy she has towards girls who are beautiful like Shirley. Claudia herself knows that the media is trying to imply this image she says, "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured" (20). This idea is repeated repetitively throughout the story, the idea that blue-eyed is beautiful. Frieda and Pecola love Shirley Temple while Claudia despises her with envy. Pecola once goes to purchase some candies called Mary Janes, she is very intrigued by the blue-eyed, blond girl in the wrapper. The narrator tells us that Pecola feels Mary Jane's eyes are pretty and that by eating the candy she feels the love that she has for the girl on the wrapper and she finds herself closer to her (50). The idea pushed by the media that blue eyes are beautiful builds up a strong destructive desire in Pecola.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye

    1323 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Social Issues in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    The concept of physical appearance as a virtue is the center of the social problems portrayed in the novel. Thus the novel unfolds with the most logical responses to this overpowering impression of beauty: acceptance, adjustment, and rejection (Samuels 10). Through Pecola Breedlove, Morrison presents reactions to the worth of physical criteria. The beauty standard that Pecola feels she must live up to causes her to have an identity crisis. Society's standard has no place for Pecola, unlike her "high yellow dream child" classmate, Maureen Peals, who fits the mold (Morrison 62).

    Read More

  • Racism and Sexism in the Bluest Eye

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    Within the community, racism affects how people's views of beauty and skin can be skewed by other's racist thoughts; sexism shapes everyone in the community's reactions to different forms of rape. Works Cited Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Afterwards, by Toni Morrison. New York: Penguin, 2004.

    Read More

  • Personal Identity In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

    543 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Standards of Beauty in the Bluest Eye Bluest Eye Essays

Open Document