Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about the racism of lighter colored blacks against darker colored blacks and rich blacks against poor blacks. Along with racism within the black community, sexism is exemplified both against women and against men. As Morrison investigates the racism and sexism of the community of Lorain, Ohio, she gives the reader more perspective as to why certain characters do or say certain things.
Morrison provides the reader with a light-skinned black character whose racist attitudes affect the poorer, darker blacks in the community, especially the main characters, Claudia MacTeer and Pecola Breedlove. Maureen Peal comes from a rich black family and triggers admiration along with envy in every child at school, including Claudia. Although Maureen is light-skinned, she embodies everything that is considered "white," at least by Claudia's standards: "Patent leather shoes with buckles...fluffy sweaters the color of lemon drops tucked into skirts with pleats... brightly colored knee socks with white borders, a brown ...
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...m or desert him.
It should be understood that Morrison's novel is filled with many characters and many examples of racism and sexism and the foundations for such beliefs in the black community. Every character is the victim or an aggressor of racism of sexism in all its forms. Morrison succeeds in shedding light on the racism and sexism the black community had to endure on top of racism and sexism outside of the community. She shows that racism and sexism affect everyone's preconceived notions regarding race and gender and how powerful and prevalent the notions are. 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. Afterward by Toni Morrison. New York: Penguin, 2004.
In this passage, Frieda and Pecola adore Shirley Temple, but Claudia hates the young actress. As an allusion, Shirley Temple represents white
With the contrast between Twyla and Roberta, the comparison of Mary and Maggie, and the allusion to “The Wizard of Oz”, Toni Morrison puts together an effective short story against racism and prejudice. People must transcend their racial barriers in order to see each other as a human being as they all go through the same experiences of life. Acknowledging each other’s strengths and weaknesses is the key that will open the door for a prosperous future.
7). Consequently, one can define this use of race as individuation; which Ito and Senholzi’s article define as a process “involve[ing] discriminating individuals through attention to their unique attributes” (1098) in their article on race perception. Unique attributes such as speech, behavior or motives which Morrison develops within the story can greatly affect the reader’s perceptions of the
Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye", is a very important novel in literature, because of the many boundaries that were crosses and the painful, serious topics that were brought into light, including racism, gender issues, Black female Subjectivity, and child abuse of many forms. This set of annotated bibliographies are scholarly works of literature that centre around the hot topic of racism in the novel, "The Bluest Eye", and the low self-esteem faced by young African American women, due to white culture. My research was guided by these ideas of racism and loss of self, suffered in the novel, by the main character Pecola Breedlove. This text generates many racial and social-cultural problems, dealing with the lost identity of a young African American women, due to her obsession with the white way of life, and her wish to have blue eyes, leading to her complete transgression into insanity.
Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye provides social commentary on a lesser known portion of black society in America. The protagonist Pecola is a young black girl who desperately wants to feel beautiful and gain the “bluest eyes” as the title references. The book seeks to define beauty and love in this twisted perverse society, dragging the reader through Morrison’s emotional manipulations. Her father Cholly Breedlove steals the reader’s emotional attention from Pecola as he enters the story. In fact, Toni Morrison’s depiction of Cholly wrongfully evokes sympathy from the reader.
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, the struggle begins in childhood. Two young black girls -- Claudia and Pecola -- illuminate the combined power of externally imposed gender and racial definitions where the black female must not only deal with the black male's female but must contend with the white male's and the white female's black female, a double gender and racial bind. All the male definitions that applied to the white male's female apply, in intensified form, to the black male's, white male's and white female's black female. In addition, where the white male and female are represented as beautiful, the black female is the inverse -- ugly.
Claudia tries to resist loving white girls that her sister, Frieda, and friend, Pecola, admires for their beautiful features blonde hair and blue eyes. Claudia does not believe that Frieda and Pecola should admire girls who do not look like them physically. Unable to convince Frieda and Pecola that white girls are not the only standard of beauty, Claudia begins to have intense feelings of resentment and anger toward the white beauty standard:
In Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye,” a character named Pecola Breedlove had always been wishing to have the bluest eyes, since it was considered as pretty in the novel’s world. Also, a lighter skin African American, Maureen Peal, bullied Pecola, who has darker skin, because Maureen thinks that she is cute, while she thinks Pecola is ugly. Similarly, Pecola always thought that she was ugly, because she does not have blue eyes. On the other hand, Maureen Peal came from a wealthier family and that made her think highly of herself. Although Pecola didn't come from a wealthy family but rather a lower class family and she went through hard times throughout her life. Morrison’s novel shows the difference between the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant world and the world of the characters in the novel by showing us how the characters in the novel are not living a good life. They were treated differently because of their skin color, and the social classes that they are in. Also, the kids are being neglected by their own parents, and there is child molestation in the family. In today's world, I think that it is slowly changing but there is still some divisions between people, because there is still racism out there. However, people are starting to stand up for themselves and appreciate their own culture and ethnicity more in today’s world.
In the novel “Sula”, Toni Morrison presents a very different view on gender in the black community between 1919 and 1965. Written in 1973 after the Civil Rights movement and during the feminist movement, Morison breaks down the traditional gender barriers from as early as 1919, proving that black females were “women” much sooner than their white “lady” counterparts. Morrison depicts matriarchal homes where the women are the dominant figures who even go as far as to emasculate their male opposites. All the women are presented as being independent due to being either abandoned by their husbands or refusing to conform to the convention of marriage. The relationship between Nel and Sula goes far beyond the bounds of a normal relationship. They are doubles or ‘doppelgangers’ whose bonds are severed when Nel conforms to the expectations of the community and marries Jude. Both are able to express the desires or dreams of the other and Sula escapes from Medallion, just as Nel wished when she was a child.
Morrison also does not emphasize the way blacks were discriminated against white people in early 20th century. Through Cholly we do see a glimpse of how African Americans were discriminated through the woods scene, but she did this to show the reader why he acted the way he did. The novel instead focuses on another element that usually does not get discussed in literature, which is self-loathing. Wether the character was lighter skinned or darker skinned African American, we see how all of them want to conform to the white culture instead of embracing their
The difference of color is seen through the eyes, but the formulation of racial judgement and discrimination is developed in the subconscious mind. Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif (1983)” explores the racial difference and challenges that both Twyla and Roberta experience. Morrison’s novels such as “Beloved”, “The Bluest Eye”, and her short story “Recitatif” are all centered around the issues and hardships of racism. The first time that Twyla and Roberta met Twyla makes a racial remake or stereotype about the texture and smell of Roberta’s hair. Although they both were in the orphanage because of similar situations, Twyla instantly finds a racial difference. The racial differences between Twyla and Roberta affects their friendship, personal views of each other, and relationship with their husbands.
The use of characters as symbols is a common literary device, and Toni Morrison employs it to great effect. In Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, the central theme is the influences of the family and community in the quest for individual identity (Baker, 2008). This theme is recurrent throughout the novel and she uses the characters of Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove as symbols for it. However, these characters are not merely symbols of the effects of the family and community on an individual’s quest for identity, they are also representative of the quest of the many black people that were migrating north in search of better opportunities.
Her mother was a church-going woman and sang in the choir. Her mother didn’t work; she just stayed home and took care of the family. By being black, her parents faced lots of racism living in the south (1). Both of her parents had moved from the south to escape the racism and to find better opportunities. Living in an integrated neighborhood, Morrison did not become fully aware of racial divisions until her teens (2).
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, is a story about the life of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who is growing up during post World War I. She prays for the bluest eyes, which will “make her beautiful” and in turn make her accepted by her family and peers. The major issue in the book, the idea of ugliness, was the belief that “blackness” was not valuable or beautiful. This view, handed down to them at birth, was a cultural hindrance to the black race.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”: A Marxist reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye