How Is Pecola's Conformity To White Standards Of Beauty

Pauline Breedlove, Pecola's mother, experiences racism within the black community when she moves to Lorain, Ohio. Being a dark-skinned black woman from the south, she does not understand why "northern colored folk was different... [and why they were] no better than whites for meanness" (117). She recognizes the hierarchy, or the "difference between colored people and niggers" within the black community, especially from the light-skinned women she encounters (87). One of these light-skinned black women is Geraldine, Junior's mother, who believes "colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud" (87). She even tells her son

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

Is whiteness only a matter of skin pigmentation? Nyack (2007) questions what would happen if we were to see whiteness as more of an organizing principle. Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), she explains, provides a radically different way to think about race and challenge whiteness as the universal norm. If, additionally, we think of whiteness as a social construct that includes white culture, ideology, racialization, experiences and emotions, we can understand that CWS “focuses on problematizing the normality of hegemonic whiteness which has allowed whites to deflect, ignore or dismiss their role, racialization and privilege in race dynamics”

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,

“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.

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.

Pauline eventually meets Cholly, who is Pecola’s biological father, and they fall in love. "He seemed to relish her company and even to enjoy her country ways and lack of knowledge about city things. He talked with her about her foot and asked, when they walked through the town or in the fields, if she were tired. Instead of ignoring her infirmity, pretending it was not there, he made it seem like something special and endearing. For the first time Pauline felt that her bad foot was an asset. And he did touch her, firmly but gently, just as she had dreamed. But minus the gloom of setting suns and lonely river banks. She was secure and grateful; he was kind and lively. She had not known there was so much laughter in the world." (Morrison, p. 115)

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.

Alongside its umbrageous depiction of African American female identity and its shrewd criticism of the internalized racism cultivated by American cultural definitions of beauty, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison has been inspiring a propagation of literature written by African American women about their experience as women of color. Inspired by a conversation Morrison had with one of her students who wished for blue eyes, the novel portrays the subconscious demolition of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who searches for love and acceptance in a world that underrates people of her own race. Pecola hopelessly longs to possess the traditional American standards of feminine beauty—white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes—as presented to her by the popular icons of the white culture. The Bluest Eye is portrayed as a powerful expression of Toni Morrison’s ethnic cultural feminism, impotence, and loss of positive self-image represented by Pecola who feels that blackness has condemned her to ugliness and scorn. The purpose of this paper will further demonstrate how the Bluest Eye makes a withering attack on the dissimulation of white standards of beauty on black women and the creation of cultural debauchery, from a feminist perspective.

For decades there has been an ongoing discussion on society’s standards of beauty and what makes someone beautiful. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye she challenges white standards of beauty. Just like today, the society in Loraine, Ohio establishes a standard of beauty, and this beauty is defined as being as close to white as possible, having blonde hair, blue eyes, and a “Jack and Jill” family. Most of the characters in The Bluest Eye attempt to conform to society’s standards (complicating this idea) and believe if they can achieve at least one of the aspects of beauty their life will be better and they will be treated in higher regards. Through the female characters of Pecola, Claudia, Maureen, Geraldine, and Rosemary it is prevalent that there is a spectrum of beauty and the person who is closest to this standard, white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, is considered pretty and is respected by society, while a person who is not close to this standard is considered ugly and is treated poorly by society. By ascribing to society’s expectations of beauty, Geraldine extends the role of white supremacy and undermines her own self-worth.

Because race, beauty and sexuality are all mediated through concern with bodily appearance, I designed this project to allow for the possibility of studying the intersection of these issues. For this reason I conducted the research both in Penang and Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, and in Sydney, in Australia, and 16 of the 19 beauty retail employees I interviewed were of Asian origin. On its own, this statistic is not revealing, as 60% of the world’s population is of Asian background. Of more interest is the fact that these retail employees work in an industry that is dominated by Western brands. Were these brands, I wondered, responsible for offering ‘White’ assumptions about beauty? Did employees with Asian backgrounds adopt

With the media being a very popular way of communication and self expression in today’s culture, it influences the way of younger generations to be more involved in today’s technology, and to allow them to influence the world by the press of a button. But one of the topics that is very controversial is that in today’s society is the high expectations of what they think a girl has to look like, from girls not having stretch marks or scars, to magazines and photographers using photoshop to convince readers that the model looks like that. With all of these being factors that there is pressure is high for many girls around the world, this has to resolved.

Beauty standards have been socially constructed in diverse and various shapes in every society or culture in the world, and cause people to think they are not beautiful if they do not fit the common standard of beauty that has been set by the society. Most people are pressured into the standard by the social milieu. The people who are different from the socially pursued standard of beauty do not think the standard itself is absurd, but they rather tend to be insecure about their appearance. Once people see the beauty through individual’s perspective, not through the socially constructed standard, they would realize how much they have unconsciously forced each other to be fit in the beauty standard. This is something that I have also experienced. I was not a person who fit in the standard of beauty, and that made me shy and timid. However, once I saw myself through a different perspective of beauty, I could see it as a social problem that unconsciously forces one particular standard of beauty.

whiteness is basing the fact of state of belonging to a human group having light-colored skin. A person expressing or identifying themselves socially, attaching experiences, or even set of characteristics to either white race and/or white skin. Whiteness comes with a wide variety of privileges which assist with the association and perception. For example, positive relationships with police, favored at schools, learning about "white” race in schools, escaping violent stereotypes associated with whiteness, and a host of many other benefits. Even when describing race such as African American, Indian American, or Mexican American their common phrases used on applications, stated verbally, or on a host of other documents. Versus “European American” or Caucasian Americans labeling is unheard of within our society.

My “moment” is the infamous Dove Ad that recently went viral for its insensitive and racialized use of promotion. This Ad displays a black woman transforming into a white woman after using the Dove soap. The Dove brand has also been criticized for labelling their products for “normal to dark skin”. This use of language conveys the idea that there is a more socially accepted skin tone whereas darker skin is less accepted as it is something outside of the “normal” skin. From a sociological perspective, this ad is more than just a creative way to demonstrate that soap will make someone clean by taking “the dirt”off them. It exemplifies society’s rigid standards of beauty due to the social pressures of conforming to the dominant standards of western beauty. Through the use of my sociological imagination, this essay will analyze how this ad is an example of how race and beauty are socially constructed as well how these larger social forces such as advertising companies impact individual’s behaviours, perceptions and lifestyles.