The Bluest Eye Essay

In the course of The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove has shown signs of low self esteem. She would always be the one to compare herself to something she admires to be beautiful. Perhaps, sometimes problems surround her get a little too much, she has not yet realized the fog will clear up. For example in the autumn chapter, a quote has said “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” There is no such thing as a “Pecola’s point of view”. She lives off of people's judgements and believe physical appearance is all there is to a person. Her desire to be beautiful is not having attractive long black hair and golden skin color, but blonde hair with a white pigmentation. Which causes her to dream and want even more.

Throughout Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, she captures, with vivid insight, the plight of a young African American girl and what she would be subjected to in a media contrived society that places its ideal of beauty on the e quintessential blue-eyed, blonde woman. The idea of what is beautiful has been stereotyped in the mass media since the beginning and creates a mental and emotional damage to self and soul. This oppression to the soul creates a socio-economic displacement causing a cycle of dysfunction and abuses. Morrison takes us through the agonizing story of just such a young girl, Pecola Breedlove, and her aching desire to have what is considered beautiful - blue eyes. Racial stereotypes of beauty contrived and nourished by

The Bluest Eye tells a tragic story of a young girl named Pecola who desperately wishes for beautiful blue eyes. Pecola believes that the only way she will ever be beautiful is if she has blue eyes. This story takes place in the 1970’s, a time where African Americans were second class citizens in society. They were often exploited and dehumanized because of the way they looked, and this will leave a long lasting effect. Americans would often think that the only way to be beautiful is to have white characteristics like pale skin, blue eyes, and to be very feminine. Racism in the 1970 and in the setting of the Bluest Eye caused self hatred in the black community. The effects of self hatred and racism in the

After she meets Pecola, her concerns go to Pecola. She explains about each and every incident that occurs to Pecola and the reasons behind leading to those incidents. According to Claudia, the narrator of the story, not just Pecola but it was the Breedlove family members who treated themselves the uglier rather than the society. Only the difference is that they make a different mindset deal with it. The narrator vividly mentions by saying, “Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction/And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it” (Morrison 39). This explains more of what they were dealing with. It is impossible to make them believe that they aren’t relentlessly and aggressively ugly (38). Being young, vulnerable and more importantly, female, Pecola is the one who gets abused frequently and endures the damage in greater

She also wrote "No one could have convinced them that were not relentlessly and aggressively ugly." (Morrison 38), and “You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.” (Morrison 39). This shows the attitude that the whole family had about themselves. It says that they felt no one could prove to them that since they were black, that they were not ugly. They just didn’t think very much of themselves. Then she describes how Pecola and her whole family were reminded every day that they are not beautiful, not white.

As stated before, it is based or should one say inspired by the life of the slave Margaret Garner, who was an African American slave . She attempts to escape in 1856 Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, which was a free state. A mob of slave owners, planters and overseers arrived to repossess her and her children under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which gave slave owners the right to pursue

The affiliation between beauty and whiteness limits the concept of beauty only to the person’s exterior. The characters are constantly subjected to images and symbols of whiteness through movies, books, candy, magazines, baby dolls and advertisements. Another example of the images and symbols in the novel is when the black protagonist, Pecola, feasts on a ‘Mary Jane’ candy.

Racist ideology is institutionalized when how people’s interactions reflects on an understanding that they share the same beliefs. However, in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the topic of racism is approached in a very unique way. The characters within the novel are subjected to internalizing a set of beliefs that are extremely fragmented. In accepting white standards of beauty, the community compromises their children’s upbringing, their economic means, and social standings. Proving furthermore that the novel has more to do with these factors than actual ethnicity at all.

In the book The Bluest Eye Mrs. Breedlove talks about who was her motivation, who gave her drive to start dressing up nice and refashioning herself. She started using celebrities as role models or a mirror to help her find ways for her to get the same physical attractiveness they have. In the book Mrs. Breedlove mentions that,”I went to see Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. I fixed my hair up like I’d seen hers on a magazine. A part on the side, with one little curl on my forehead. It looked just like her… There I was, five months pregnant, trying to look like Jean Harlow, and a front tooth gone. Everything went then. Look like I just didn 't care no more after that. I let my hair go, plaited it

In this book, the society treats the white race better than the black race. For example, in part 2 of “The Bluest Eye”, Pecola is tricked by a boy named Louis Junior when he invites her back to his house and gets his cat to attack her. After unintentionally killing his own cat, Junior's mother returns home and treats Pecola with extreme disgust and hatred, immediately blaming her for the death of his cat. Junior’s mother act this way because of the society. In their society, the people call the Black race “niggers”(Morrison 87), ugly, and dirty. They blame everything on the Blacks and that’s why Pecola was blamed for the death of the cat. Junior’s mom doesn’t even know if Pecola kills or did not kill the cat, but since she’s black, she will be blamed. The society teaches the Blacks to hate their own race since this society teaches people to treat the Blacks badly with disgust while treating the Whites or light-color Blacks better with praise. People are races because the society is racist. Pecola envies the white race and that’s how she develops her self-image. She also thinks of herself as inferior, unwanted, and ugly when the society thinks of her and her race that way. The society also teaches the people that the Whites are more superior than the Blacks. For example, a little girl “calling Mrs. Breedlove Polly when even Pecola called her mother Mrs. Breedlove” (Morrison 108), showing that the white little girl is superior so she gets to call the black race by their name. Similar to this situation, when Pecola accidentally makes the pie fell to the floor, Mrs. Breedlove “yanked (Pecola) up by the arm, slapped her again, and… abused Pecola directly” (Morrison 109) and cares for the little girl when she cried for the fallen pie. This is also because of the society’s racist. The society teaches the people to treat the white race better than black race. Mrs.Breedlove follow the society’s racist and

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison strongly ties the contents of her novel to its structure and style through the presentation of chapter titles, dialogue, and the use of changing narrators. These structural assets highlight details and themes of the novel while eliciting strong responses and interpretations from readers. The structure of the novel also allows for creative and powerful presentations of information. Morrison is clever in her style, forcing readers to think deeply about the novel’s heavy content without using the structure to allow for vagueness.

Claudia is presented with two different mental capacities. Claudia is shown to have a very complex mind, understanding the world around her. However, Claudia is also shown having the mind of a naïve nine-year-old. Why does Claudia have this double personality in this story?

Firstly, even though the girls in this novel are scarcely in the double digits, they still have a defined idea of beauty. Pecola Breedlove is a eleven-year-old black girl who is, from day one, deemed to a fate of ugliness. Every night she sits in front of her mirror, wishing away her dark skin and brown eyes, willing herself to either change or disappear. “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that...if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (46). Pecola is routinely mocked and neglected by the people in her life. Her self image is tarnished with every step she takes, whether she is going to school, innocently stopping at a store, or heading home. On these walks, Pecola discovers something that she comes to relate with. “Dandelions. A dart of affection leaps out from her to them. But they do not look at her and they do not send love back. She thinks ‘They are ugly. They are weeds.’” Dandelions symbolize Pecola’s ugliness and the affection she does not receive because of it. Most people pick out dandelions and cast them aside. Pecola’s case is not different. She is disregarded by almost all of her peers unless they are bullying her and unwanted by her alcoholic father and Jesus-crazed mother. At this point in her life, all she wants is to be

The title “the Bluest Eye” refers to the desire of the girl to have blue eye to feel comfortable, happy and looks beautiful. And, the desire to observe the world differently is also reflected. It is not only concerns the issue of beauty but the way that Juda Bennett defines that the title stresses the level of the “pernicious effect of the white beauty standards” (142). Pecola wants to have such beautiful eyes as the doll Shirley Temple. The most interesting

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shows that one’s family determines a character’s feeling of self-worth. According to Morrison, the world is teaching little black girls that they are not beautiful and unworthy of love. The world teaches this by depicting white people and objects that resemble them, as symbols of beauty. In this world, to be worthy of love you must be beautiful. Morrison shows that if a little black girl believes what the world is telling her, her self-esteem can develop low self-esteem and they may yearn to be white. Even in the absence of economic and racial privilege, Morrison suggests that a little black girl can look to her family to build up her self-esteem. For Morrison, having a family is