The Bluest Eye Analysis

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Recommended: Societal standards of beauty

The Master Narratives of the Bluest Eye Toni Morrison introduces readers to a concept called a “master narrative” in her novel “The Bluest Eye.” She is critical of these world views, but not blatant. She presents this master narrative in a way that makes the reader feel the effects of it, not just see them plainly in black and white. Morrison criticizes two main views. The first is that being white automatically gives a person superiority. The second is that ugliness is equivalent to worthlessness, and specifically, that blackness constitutes ugliness. Morrison captures the reader’s attention with her excellent stylistic choices and forces the reader to see the danger of accepting everything the world tells you at face value. To begin, Morrison One prominent example of this unworthiness is in people’s reactions towards Pecola’s baby. Townspeople comment that it “ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly. Be better off in the ground (Morrison, pg. 190).” Others claim that since the baby is destined to be ugly Pecola would “be lucky if it don’t live (Morrison, pg. 189).” Not one person besides Claudia or Frieda considers that perhaps the baby is worth something despite its physical appearance. Morrison uses these feelings towards the baby to show how innocent victims of the master narrative can be. The baby was assumed to be ugly because of its blackness, and therefore worthless without any regard to intelligence, creativity, or special abilities. Morrison 's idea to have the baby deemed worthless before birth is an excellent method of criticizing the master narrative because it causes the reader to ask some important questions. If the baby was deemed ugly before birth, without seeing the child, then is beauty defined by what is seen, or by what we want to see? Is someone’s life worthless if he or she defined as ugly by the world’s standards? Is being black a concrete reason to be considered ugly? Morrison eloquently causes the reader to grab the master narrative, look it in the eye, and decide whether or not he or she buys into

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