Is The Relationship Between Pecola's Ugliness And Self-Loathing

Pecola’s misery is so complete, so deep, that she convinces herself that her only hope for a better life rests in changing her eye color. Even more pathetically, "Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes … Although somewhat discouraged, she was not without hope" (Morrison 46). Pecola was doubly tragic in that she placed all her hope in something which could never really happen and, despite her earnest belief, change nothing if it did.

Pecola evaluated herself ugly, and wanted to have a pair of blue eyes so that every problem could be solved. Pecola was an African-American and lived in a family with problems. Her father ran away because of crime, her brother left because of their fighting parents, and was discriminated simply because she has dark-skin. Pecola is a passive person. She is almost destroyed because of her violent father, Cholly Breedlove, who raped her own daughter after drinking. Because of this, Pecola kept thinking about her goal- to reach the standard of beauty. However, she was never satisfied with it. Pecola believed once she become beautiful, fighting between her parents would no longer happen, her brother would come back, and her father would no long be a rapist. No problem would exist anymore.

The immoral acts of society raped Pecola Breedlove, took her innocence, and left her to go insane. The Random House Dictionary defines “rape” as “an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation.” The Random House definition perfectly describes what happens to Pecola over the course of the novel. From Pecola’s standpoint, society rapes her repeatedly, by their judgmental attitudes towards everything that she is; she is “ugly,” she is poor, she is black. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Morrison shines a critical light on society, illumining the immoral acts that it participates in, through the story of how a little girl is thrown by the wayside since she does not embody the societal ideal. Instead of one human

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.

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.

For instance, symbolism is represented through the blue eyes that is repeatedly mentioned in the novel. The blue eyes represent the idealistic white middle class life that Pecola dreams of having since white people commonly have blue eyes. The reader can infer this suggestion because whenever Pecola is experiencing bad things she wishes to have blue eyes. Morrison writes, "If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different and Mrs. Breedlove too…Each night, without fail, she prayed for the blue eyes…To have something as wonderful as that happen would take a long, long time"(46) This line from the text indicates that to Pecola this white feature represents beauty and the end of her problems. Furthermore, symbolism can also be found in the homes of the characters. In the novel, homes are a symbol of economic status. The reader can infer that the nicer the home is, the richer the character. Take the example of Mrs. Breedlove's employers house compared to her own home. Mrs. Breedlove's employer's home is described asx "the large white house with the wheelbarrow full of flowers…We circled the proud house and went to the back"(Morrison 105,106). Based on this description of the house the reader can assume that Mrs. Breedlove's employer is wealthy. However, the Breedloves' living situation is described

Desperation for something so out of reach can drive a person mad. Pecola in "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, has an identity crisis. She strives to have blue eyes. In a world where black, usually brown-eyed people are seen as a lesser being than the blue-eyed blonde, white, counterparts, Pecola is at a disadvantage. Not only within society but with her family and school life. Pecola has to deal with a violent, loveless home, living with her rapist father. Then she has to go to a school where she is constantly abused and mistreated. Pecola sees blue eyes as a saving grace. That just maybe her life wouldn't be so bad.

The Different Effects That Society’s Definition of Beauty Can Have on Children as Found in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Anne Sexton’s Cinderella Although some may readily say that childhood is an enjoyable experience filled with everyday learning and laughter, Toni Morrison and Anne Sexton describe childhood as something that is unpleasant to go through. With the different effects that representations of beauty in society can have on children, found in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Cinderella written by Anne Sexton, each protagonist is a female child who has in some form endured a hardship due to their physical appearance. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the protagonist of the novel is a young child named Pecola.

The social standards of beauty and the idea of the American Dream in The Bluest Eye leads Mrs. Breedlove to feelings of shame, that she later passes on to Pecola. The Breedloves are surrounded by the idea of perfection, and their absence of it makes them misfits. Mrs. Breedlove works for a white family, the fishers. She enjoys the luxury of her work life and inevitably favors her work over her family. This leads to Pecola struggle to find her identity, in a time where perception is everything. Pecola is challenged by the idea that her mother perferis her work life, that they have an outdated house, and that she does not look like the shirley temple doll with blue eyes.

In The Bluest Eye, adult Black women and children have learned to dislike their blackness. The person who experiences the most from white beauty standards is Pecola. Mrs. Breedlove is convinced that her own daughter, Pecola, is ugly and she is not afraid to share this thought especially with Pecola. When Pecola was born Mrs. Breedlove (Pauline) describes her as ugly, so Pecola was bound to have these feeling. Pecola’s mother brought her own sense of ugliness onto Pecola. Pecola believes that if she possessed blue eyes, she will gain respect and affection. In the article, “Tragedy of the self-splitting—A psychological reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”by Yang Ding and Xiangguo Kong, they state, “[s]he [Pecola] is more of a victim to the dominant white mainstream culture. During her short life, she never has any opportunity to have a taste of

She thought that if she had blue eyes, the blue eyes of the accepted white ideal, she would be beautiful and therefore loved. The acquisition of the blue eyes she so fiercely covets signifies Pecola's step into madness. It was a safe place, where she could have her blue eyes, and where she could be accepted.

Pecola Breedlove in The Bluest Eye is a curious, young and innocent girl who tries to understand things that are even more complex than she thinks. A wondering eleven years old girl who is not near to recognizing the world she lives in; Pecola wants to be able to be something that she thinks is unreachable without the need of any special trait, and she does whatever she thinks it takes to achieve it. Toni Morrison created a character who is constantly driven by her actions and thoughts simultaneously according to what she thinks is correct of doing.

In this scene we get a deeper look in the workings of Pecola's mind when Morrison writes, "A picture of Mary Jane...Smiling white face. Blond hair... blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort...To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane"(50). The words in this scene are so powerful in reflecting Pecola's obsession to have blue eyes. She eats the candy and to her that is "somehow to eat the eyes" if Pecola eats Mary Jane, she can be Mary Jane or in a way beautiful. The candy's wrapper also helps to reassure her that being white is to be better by saying "blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort". Mary Jane is staring from a world of clean comfort, while Pecola is looking back from a world ravened by poverty and racism. Mary janes world looks full of love and Pecola's is full of

The Bluest Eye is a classic American novel that covers many topics of which are not often talked about in today's society such as racism and sexual harassment. In the beginning of the novel, it starts with the narrator, Claudia, and her older sister Frieda gaining a new member to their house, Pecola Breedlove. The plot is based on the terrible experiences of Pecola, who ends up being the main character. In the middle of the novel, it explains Pecola's parents' upbringing and why they act the way they do now as adults. After it explains their background, the book describes in extremely vivid detail what Cholly Breedlove does to his daughter.

During the 1940’s, about thirty years before The Bluest Eye was written, the standards of society caused young men and women of color to desire light skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. In a time where racism was prevalent, the African American culture longed for the freedom each and every white person was given. Fighting for their rights after the Great Depression, the confidence of the African American people, especially that of young girls, remained poor due to the wrongful bullying of the many racist white people. A good self image and upbringing for young African American individuals remain crucial for the well being and mental health of each young person. In The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, Pecola desires blue eyes because of societal views and her mother Paulines treatment, each affecting her self image.