The Bluest Eye: Pecola's Struggle With Beauty

Pecola’s Struggle with Beauty

Author and wellness coach, Amy Leigh Mercree, once said that “one woman filled with self love and self acceptance is a model more super than any covergirl.” However, not every woman learns this lesson. In the novel The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove, the central character, endures a very difficult family life which results in her living with another family until it is safe for her family to be together again because of her violent father. She is taken in by the parents of Frieda and Claudia whom then become her close friends. The setting of the novel is Lorain, Ohio, which happens to be the author’s hometown. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye explores Pecola Breedlove’s descent into madness as a result of Pecola’s

The Bluest Eye explores the impact the media has on Pecola and others in her life regarding their appearance and self worth. This control of the media on people’s opinions is evident when Pecola’s close friend, Claudia, describes her views on Shirley Temple, a movie personality. Claudia dislikes Shirley Temple because everyone sees Temple as adorable and Claudia does not understand the obsession. During this time Shirley Temple represented the beauty ideal and Pecola and Claudia’s sister, Frieda, believed that message. For them Shirley Temple was the epitome of beauty, a view Claudia does not buy into because she does not see Shirley Temple as adorable. Pecola’s mother is also obsessed with movies and their portrayal of beautiful women. This obsession was to the point that “She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen.” (pg. 122) It is obvious that this unhealthy habit of comparing beauty was passed down to Pecola because Pecola is always comparing herself to the societal standards of beauty, and in her judgment, she always falls

Children have always tried to find every little thing that makes another child different from the majority, pick out their weaknesses, and attack them verbally and physically. Maureen is the new girl in Pecola’s class, who possesses white features and is different from her peers but in a positive way. She is described as “a high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back. She was rich, at least by [their] standards, as rich as the richest of white girls, swaddled in comfort and care.” (pg. 62) Maureen knows that society sees her as more beautiful because she possesses the desired features and she expresses her awareness when she screams at Pecola that she is cute and Pecola is ugly. Not only did the children treat Maureen better than Pecola, so did the teachers. Consequently, Pecola spent "long hours … looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike.” (pg. 45) Pecola’s peers and teachers made her feel worthless diminishing further all the remaining respect she had for