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Beauty ideals the bluest eye study
Beauty ideals in the bluest eye
The bluest eye introduction
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The Bluest Eye There are many themes that seem to run throughout this story. Each theme and conflict seems to always involve the character of Pecola Breedlove. There is the theme of finding an identity. There is also the theme of Pecola as a victim. Of all the characters in the story we can definitely sympathize with Pecola because of the many harsh circumstances she has had to go through in her lifetime. Perhaps her rape was the most tragic and dramatic experience Pecola had experiences, but nonetheless she continued her life. She eliminates her sense of ugliness, which lingers in the beginning of the story, and when she sees that she has blue eyes now she changes her perspective on life. She believes that these eyes have been given to her magically and in some respects her eyes begin to corrupt her as an individual. The story begins to take a turn and the reader realizes that the main character has begun to entirely rely on self-image in order to build confidence. This leads to the question of how significant are the "Blue eyes" to society and how does the theme of beauty and ugliness linger throughout the story. With this in mind, how does this make Pecola a victim of society and a victim in herself? If any person can be credited for creating the obsession of beauty that Pecola builds it is Pauline (Pecola’s mother). Pecola experiences many insecurities and it can definitely be said that many of these are because of the way that Pauline acts in society and around Pecola. It was stated in the story that Pauline would always go to the movies and rate the characters on their beauty. This is one example that shows the obsession that Pauline has with beauty and looks. This rubbed off on to her daughter and that is where Pecola received her lack of self-esteem. It is clear that Pecola idolizes the ideals of being beautiful. It is interesting that Pecola is not the person telling the story in this book, and it is Claudia instead. It seems that the author wants the reader to build an immense amount of sympathy for Pecola because it would just be less effective if Pecola was telling the story. If it Pecola that was narrating in many parts then it would be more difficult to see her as a "total victim". The structure and way this book is organized is a good clue of how Morrison wants us to see Pecola’s and all black peoples situations. Instead of ord... ... middle of paper ... ...could work miracles." This comes from the character Soaphead who finally realizes what it must be like to be an African American in a racist society. If only Pecola could literally see life through the eyes of someone who is not oppressed by their society. Pecola only wants to live up to the image of a blue-eyed white person. This is important, and it shows that the author is not only speaking to the black person about their sorrows, but also to the white person which shows how a racist social system can wear down an innocent mind. Basically being white is being successful and Pecola has no hope in this society. It is not solely because of racism that Pecola is not accepted. Not only does she have to deal with the hatred she receives from the white person, but also she is an outcast in the black infrastructure. This proves that Pecola is a "total victim" because she has no way out and the only way she can be normal is to try to change who she is in order to be someone she is not. Basically Pecola is totally entrapped by everything, her past (rape etc..), her present (society both black and white) and her future (she has very little hope at being an contributing member of society).
He imagined his mother lying desperately ill and his being able to secure only a Negro doctor for her. He toyed with that idea for a few minutes and then dropped it for a momentary vision of himself participating as a sympathiser in a sit-in demonstration. This was possible but he did not linger with it. Instead, he approached the ultimate horror. He brought home a beautiful suspiciously Negroid woman. Prepare yourself, he said. There is nothing you can do about it. This is the woman I have chosen. (15)
In the novel, “The Bluest Eye”, Toni Morrison exposes the roots of a broken community, unveiling the effects it has on its members. Morrison illustrates various disturbing characters that are insecure, lost and troubled. Through extended metaphors she is able to trace back these behaviors to the characters’ past. The structure of her novel follows a repetitive rationale of the character’s behavior after revealing their gruesome actions. The passage (116) further develops the text’s theme of a dysfunctional community. Although the exposure the effects of racism seems to be the main theme, Morrison goes deeper and explores the reason how and why the community continues to live in oppression.
Toni Morrison depicts the hard ship and intersectionality strongly within Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove, and “The whores,” by expressing the cultural and economic tumors of being a Black woman during the 1940s. Though the 1940s, after the Great Depression, it was hard for Black women to prosper in what was a white world. This cause many black people to migrate. During the Great Migration, African Americans began to build a new place for themselves in public life, actively confronting economic, political and social challenges and creating a new black urban culture that would exert enormous influences in the decades to come (History.com.). Blacks moved from the south to the north in hopes of finding better living conditions and to start a family. Morrison shows readers this by placing Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove, and “The whores” as adversities in the Black community. Racially biases was still a prevalent issues and this played a role in each character. The Bluest Eye also provides an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards alter the lives of black girls and women.
Throughout the novel, Pecola is easily manipulated into believing what society tells her, and soon becomes fixated in achieving “beauty”. Due to certain events, Pecola comes to believe that beauty is the panacea to her life’s problems and the key to happiness, demonstrating how manipulating the Master Narrative can be. One of the more subtle events that affect Pecola’s mindset is when she goes to purchase a Mary Jane candy bar. When Pecola goes up to Mr. Yacobowski with her money, he barely acknowledges her: “At some fixed point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see” (48). To Mr. Yacobowski, Pecola is so far from the socially acceptable standards: she is a black, poor, and ugly child. Mr. Yacobowski’s blunt ignorance is similar to many other people’s reactions when Pecola is around. Pecola doesn’t know how to think for herself yet, and from this encounter she is forced to see herself, in the eyes of Mr....
She is envious of people with blue eyes because she thinks that those people have better lives. “Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty....A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes…” this quote is from Soaphead, a man that runs a church and he pretends to be God, after Pecola has asked him to give her blue eyes. Even a terrible man that has committed many terrible sins, feels sympathy for Pecola because of the terrible life she has
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).
and white society has conditioned her to believe that she is ugly. Pecola.s physical features
Social class is a major theme in the book The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison is saying that there are dysfunctional families in every social class, though people only think of it in the lower class. Toni Morrison was also stating that people also use social class to separate themselves from others and apart from race; social class is one thing Pauline and Geraldine admire.Claudia, Pecola, and Frieda are affected by not only their own social status, but others social status too - for example Geraldine and Maureen Peal. Characters in the book use their social class as another reason for being ugly. Readers are reminded of the theme every time a new character enters into the book.
Pecola has a deep admiration for Shirley Temple and therefore thinks that she is ugly because she looks nothing like Shirley. All across socie...
...er known what it should have been like. His past was laced with rejections and so he never knew how to give anything else but rejection. And so even if he thought he loved her, he was rejecting her. Which brings me to Pecola. Pecola doesn't have much of a past because no one allows her to have any. Everyone is always giving her their past, enforcing restrictions upon her and placing her into categories. Because of this she lives vicariously through these much wanted blue eyes. She is given this offspring of hate and rejection and forced to live in a present more vile than any past of any one particular character.
...Pecola as an individual. She instead sees Pecola as an abstracted representative of a whole social class, a social class she hates, and consequently she was merciless and cruel to Pecola.
The story told in “Beloved” contains a process of memorialization and change. In this process, the relationship between women is very important. Some relations are dominated by violence and hate, others are full of confidence and love. In those relationships rememory and storytelling are important factors, because the women get to know each other better by telling stories about the past. They get to know much more about each other, through which their relationship dóes change.
Society defines the true definition of beauty. This affected Pecola and haunted her on a daily basis. The blonde hair, blue eyes that Pecola so desperately wants is represented by the white culture. She eats the candy to try and make herself like Mary Jane “smiling white face, blonde hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort” (50). Pecola’s innocents allows her to believe
The tragedy of Pecola Breedlove is an examination of the ideological and character villains of thematic narratives. This is not an avant garde idea, but Toni Morrison delivers the best methodical breakdown of a villain in any tale. The history provided for each villainous character explains that their acts, while monstrous, cannot be dismissed as evil for evil’s sake. The Bluest Eye delves into the black depths of racism by utilizing a hyperbolistic, singular example of the effect that racism has on an incredibly vulnerable member of society. She follows the journey of Pecola who has internalized the white standards she is trapped with. Her internalization is parallel to the devolving, obsession with having blue eyes. Her parents are not representative
When Pecola goes out to buy Mary Janes candies for herself and she has to pay a white salesman. In his eyes she sees the distaste for her, because of her skin colour (Morrison, 47). ‘She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people’ (Morrison, 47). Society shows the distaste of a black person just by looking at them. This shows that Pecola thinks she is ugly because of her black skin colour and as she wants blue eyes to solve this distaste for her, we can conclude that she feels self-hatred.