bluest eye

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Recommended: Themes on Toni Morrison's the bluest eye

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.
Blue eyes seem to symbolize the culturally attributed beauty and status of whiteness in America. Throughout the book different characters respond to blue eyes in different ways. Claudia, for example, resents the blue eyes of her dolls, viewing their association with beauty contemptuously. But for Pecola, blue eyes are the ultimate achievement. Her desire for blue eyes is first mentioned in chapter three of the “Autumn” section of The Bluest Eye. “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (Morrison, 46). These lines demonstrate the complexity of Pecola’s desire—she believes that having blue eyes would not only change the way other people see her (as fitting into the white American standard of beauty), but that she would also see life differently through blue eyes. It’s as if she believe...

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...four page conversation with her supposed ‘friend’), "what if there's someone with bluer eyes?"(Morrison, 201-204) At the end of the day, there will always be someone out there more beautiful than you, and Pecola seems to be an example of how you can drive yourself crazy if you don't face this fact. Pecola, who, for her entire life, has gone unnoticed by the eyes of others and in turn has been unable to see herself and to realize her own self-worth, has now manufactured a way to see herself. Her imaginary friend is the companion she has never had, as well as the devoted admirer of her blue eyes. Pecola, who could not figuratively see herself before, has remedied the problem. Now, she literally sees herself in the most twisted and tragic way possible. We see Pecola cling to the standards of the white world, all the way to the end, even as her sanity deteriorates.

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