Beauty In Bluest Eye By Pecola Breedlove

Greece, was an ancient city built thousands of years ago that flourished with new ideas. A part of these new ideas, was the art of Greek mythology. Mythology was a large part in people’s lives, THe gods were also a important part of the civilians lives as well. People know about these myths, or ideas because of the many artifacts found archaeologically, or explained and detailed in the myths. Greek religion/mythology had an important impact on people’s lives, and was interesting to learn about.

Due to internalized racism, the African American community throws taunts about their body, hair, and skin color at each other, having internalized the hate and definition that White people have given them about what features are good and valuable. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Morrison captures this internalized racism within 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove, who prays for blue eyes like the ones White Americans have. Although

The novel The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison is subjected on a young girl, Pecola Breedlove and her experiences growing up in a poor black family. The life depicted is one of poverty, ridicule, and dissatisfaction of self. Pecola feels ugly because of her social status as a poor young black girl and longs to have blue eyes, the pinnacle of beauty and worth. Throughout the book, Morrison touches on controversial subjects, such as the depicting of Pecola's father raping her, Mrs. Breedlove's sexual feelings toward her husband, and Pecola's menstruation. The book's content is controversial on many levels and it has bred conflict among its readers.

She recalls her mother’s comments, “Could you imagine if she had light skin at all? [With her features] she’d be gorgeous” (Dark Girls). This shows the extent to which the color complex affected the minds of most people including mothers- the way they viewed their children. Both the book and the film show how colorism affected notions of beauty within the African American

taken by Americans. But most of the jobs that some of the immigrants take are

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

In the novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison confirms the existence of racism within the African American community. Unbelievably, many African Americans suffer from what is termed internalized racism. Internalized racism produces the same effect as racial racism: feelings of worthlessness, inferiority, and unattractiveness. In addition, the effect can produce the opposite feelings: superiority, hatred, and feelings of self-worth. Pecola, an 11-year-old black girl, desires to have the physical characteristics of a white person, namely blue eyes. Polly, Pecola’s mother, prefers the white culture living rather than her own. The feelings that the black race experience stem from the programming of a racist society to think that the white race is better. As a result, African Americans long to be white or look white. This consumption of whiteness represents internalized racism.

It’s sad that one day, I will have a daughter who will question her beauty because of the color of her skin. It’s an unnecessary milestone in so many young black girls’ lives, and it will continue to be unless people embrace black beauty. When I was younger, around twelve years old, I had posters of white women in my room. My mother asked why, and at the time, I didn’t understand her question, so I couldn’t possibly have an answer. Now that I’m seventeen, I understand. If I had understood then, my answer would be because those were the only representations of beauty I was given. This is why young and old black women struggle to believe in their

Throughout all of history there has been an ideal beauty that most have tried to obtain. But what if that beauty was impossible to grasp because something was holding one back. There was nothing one could do to be ‘beautiful’. Growing up and being convinced that one was ugly, useless, and dirty. For Pecola Breedlove, this state of longing was reality. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and pale white skin was the definition of beauty. Pecola was a black girl with the dream to be beautiful. Toni Morrison takes the reader into the life of a young girl through Morrison’s exceptional novel, The Bluest Eye. The novel displays the battles that Pecola struggles with each and every day. Morrison takes the reader through the themes of whiteness and beauty,

In Toni Morrison “The Bluest Eye” she examines the terrible outcomes of impressive white, middle-class American standards of attractiveness on the evolving female characteristics of a young African American girl for the period of the early 1940s. Morrison novel touchingly shows the psychological damage of a young black girl perception. Pecola Breedlove was a young girl who searches for love and approval in a world that rejects and undervalues people of her own race and culture. The title of the story bears great significance to Pecola obsession. Quite often Pecola mentions the conservative American values of womanlike beauty such as; white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. These are presented to her by the common icons and ethnicities of the

In the following text of Toni Morrison “The Bluest Eye” and the movie “The Color Purple”, blacks are portrayed as being ugly and less than compared to the white society. Writers Morrison and Walker depict the everyday issues that young African girls would face during that particular time period. In regards to this, protagonists Celie and Pecola are viewed struggling with the dominance of men, beauty, and identity. Throughout this paper I will discuss these themes in an effort to illustrate how each of these issues overlap and influence one another, resulting in the findings of either self-identity or madness for both protagonists.

In the stories of the patriarchs, the patriarchs took matters into their own hands instead of waiting patiently for God. In Exodus, the major sin seems to be grumbling from lack of trust. This may be just human nature because as individuals I suspect we are more likely to take matters into our own hands while as members of a corporate group, we are probably more likely to grumble. As someone else noted in a post, the Hebrews were also part of the slave class so they may have also felt powerless to do anything. The other interesting difference was that when Abraham was told to leave, he left for an unknown destination without any conversation. When God called Moses, Moses knew what he was being called to do and really wanted nothing to

When Pecola was born the first thing her mother said was, "Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly” (Morrison 126). Because Pecola doesn’t fit into middle class standards of beauty, as she grows, she begins to believe she is ugly, yet Morrison forces us to sympathize with her and by doing so challenges beauty standards to be more inclusive. “The fact is … ethics and aesthetics are inseparable in art” (Tanner) but The Bluest Eye subverts the traditional literary ethics and aesthetics theory: what is beautiful is good, by showing that Pecola’s perception of herself as ugly does not make her a bad person.

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

Like most characters in the novel, Geraldine displays her desire to conform to society’s standards of beauty by trying to be as respectable and white as possible. Geraldine is a “sugar-brown girl” who is a respected, well mannered, educated woman. Morrison describes these sugar-brown girls as, “thin brown girls…[who] live in quiet black