Beauty in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Essay

Besides the inherent self-confident issue, the outside voice from community is also affecting Pecola’s view. For example, in the “accident” when Pecola went into Junior’s house, Junior killed the cat and impute to Pecola. His mother, Geraldine, saw Pecola was holding the dead cat. Without any thought and didn’t even ask for the truth, Geraldine simply called Pecola a “nastylittle black bitch.” This event, again, reinforces Pecola’s view of what beauty means.

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 concept of physical beauty and desire to conform to a prescribed definition of what is considered beautiful can destroy a person's life. In Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye, many characters are obsessed with attaining the idealist definition of what is considered beautiful. The characters of Geraldine, Pauline, and Pecola all believe that physical perfection leads to acceptance; however, it is the same belief that causes their personal downfalls and prevents them from recognizing their own inner beauty.

If she had beautiful blue eyes, Pecola imagines, people would not want to do ugly things in front of her or to her. The accuracy of this insight is affirmed by her experience of being teased by the boys—when Maureen comes to her rescue, it seems that they no longer want to behave badly under Maureen’s attractive gaze. In a more basic sense, Pecola and her family are mistreated in part because they happen to have black skin. By wishing for blue eyes rather than lighter skin, Pecola indicates that she wishes to see things differently as much as she wishes to be seen differently. She can only receive this wish, in effect, by blinding herself. Pecola is then able to see herself as beautiful, but only at the cost of her ability to see accurately both herself and the world around her. The connection between how one is seen and what one sees has a uniquely tragic outcome for

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,

Unlike so many works in the American literature that deal directly with the legacy of slavery and the years of deeply-embedded racism that followed, the general storyline of Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye”, does not engage directly with such events but rather explores the lingering effects by exploring and commenting on black self-hatred. Nearly all of the main characters in ”The Bluest Eye”, by Toni Morrison who are African American are consumed with the constant culturally-imposed notions of white beauty, cleanliness, and sanitation to the point where they have disengaged with themselves and have a disastrous tendency to subconsciously act out their feelings of self-loathing on other members of the black community. This is accomplished by offering readers multiple examples of this through the viewpoint-shifting narration of events and revelations that led to tremendous character complexity, as suggested in this literary analysis of “The Bluest Eye”, Toni Morrison is ultimately engaging her readers in a dialogue about how these characters (not to mention readers themselves) can overcome these hindrances to having a healthy relationship with self-images and interpersonal relationships. In presenting the various modes of escape and retreat into hollow notions of whiteness, Morrison demonstrates how this is a damaging way to work through so many years of being abject and objectified. However, as suggested in this

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, depicts characters desperately seeking to attain love through a predetermined standard of beauty established and substantiated by society. Morrison intertwines the histories of several characters portraying the delusions of the ‘perfect’ family and what motivates their quest for love and beauty. Ultimately, this pursuit for love and beauty has overwhelming effects on their relationships and their identity.

Throughout the story there is a strong sense of abandonment on Pecola’s part. She is a lonely character that is heavily influenced by society and what it thinks. Pecola is very concerned on meeting the standard in society despite her past life. She is determined but in some respects this is one of the downfalls to her character. "Why, she wonders, do people cal them weeds? She though they were pretty". Mr. Yacobowski humiliates her, and she passes the dandelions and thinks, "They are ugly and they are most definitely weeds". This shows how Pecola can easily be manipulated by others and society. In a sense, Pecola has transferred society’s dislike for her to the dandelions. She cannot accept the fact that she is not wanted. At one point in the story the narrator says, "We tried to see [Pecola] without looking at her, and never went near. Not because she was absurd or repulsive, or because we were frightened, but because we had failed her. Our flowers never grew so we

In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, the audience is provided with different interactions between white and black characters that gives the interpretation of whiteness as the standard of beauty, which distorts the lives of black characters through messages everywhere that whiteness is superior and equal to cleanliness. The theme of white superiority is portrayed through the lives and stories told by the characters Pecola, Claudia, and Pauline. Through the struggles these characters have endured with the internalized idea of white beauty, Morrison shows how the interactions between whites and blacks affect the characters in this book and how that has an effect on race in America.

In the Autumn section of The Bluest Eye, the reader constantly sees Pecola Breedlove thinking with a low sense of self-esteem and dignity specifically towards her appearance and the way others view her. Taking her ugliness, she begins to compare herself to members of the world around her, in turn beating herself up over it. During the chapter, she approaches Mr. Yacobwski’s candy store and buys three pieces of a candy called “Mary Janes.” For some background, the wrapper of the candy has “A picture of little Mary Jane, for whom the candy is named. Smiling white face. Blonde hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort” (50). These physical descriptions are exactly how Pecola wants to look which has been brought across through her constant prayers for blonde hair and blue eyes, therefore,

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison weaves stories of violation and hardship to examine the ugliness that racism produces. In this novel, the childhood icons of white culture are negative representations instrumental in engendering internalized racism. For the black child in a racist, white culture, these icons are never innocent. Embodying the ideals of white beauty, they expose the basis for Claudia's bewilderment at why she is not attractive and Pecola's desperate desire for beauty. They nourish neither innocent desire, nor the need for acceptance, but denigrate the very idea of blackness. The worship of ideal white beauty, by adults as well as by children, coalesces into a

The concept of "the bluest eye" symbolizes unattainable beauty based on the blonde-haired, blue-eyed model that permeates 1940s Lorain, Ohio. Morrison initially presents the concept with a literary

Racism is a social construct that has plagued America since its conception and is something that continues to do so to this day. In America’s earliest times racism presented itself in the concept of slavery. When that was abolished it presented itself in the Jim Crow Laws and separate but equal. Today racism presents itself in more discreet, sinister ways like mass incarceration, or the recent rash of police shooting of unarmed black teenagers. However, the most sinister way that racism affects us today and the way it infects those in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye is the importance that is placed on the all-American family and how this excludes African Americans. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye details how American ideals often contradict with the reality of what goes on in America and how vast the difference is between the two especially when it comes to race.

People like to dress up themselves in nice clothes. Most people are instinctively attracted to good looking, well dressed people. In our society, outer appearance is important, and unfortunately, many people will judge you by the way you look. Some judge people by their skin color. I think that discriminating against people because of their skin color was very wrong. Thus, a number of intellects continue to issue warnings about racial discrimination. The author of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison, criticizes the danger of race discrimination for any kinds of situations with no exception. The purpose of the paper is explain how pervasive and destructive social racism was bound to happen in American society. The intended audiences are not only black people, but also other races had suffered racism until now. I could find out and concentrate on the most notable symbols which are whiteness, blue eyes and the characterization while reading the novel.

She drinks several quarts of milk at the home of her friends Claudia and Frieda McTeer just to use their Shirley Temple mug and glaze at young Temple’s blue eyes. One day Pecola is raped by her father, when the child the she conceives dies, Pecola goes mad. She comes to believe that she has the bluest eyes of anyone.