Metamorphosis in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

The characters within The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, all attempt to conform to a standard of beauty in some way. This standard of beauty is established by the society in which they live, and then supported by members of the community. Beauty is also linked with respect and happiness. Both people who reach the standard of beauty, and those who try, are never really satisfied with who they are. This never-ending race to become beautiful has devastating effects on their relationships and their own self-esteem.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison takes place in Ohio in the 1940s. The novel is written from the perspective of African Americans and how they view themselves. Focusing on identity, Morrison uses rhetorical devices such as imagery, dictation, and symbolism to help stress her point of view on identity. In the novel the author argues that society influences an individual's perception on beauty, which she supports through characters like Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove. Furthermore, the novel explains how society shapes an individual's character by instilling beauty expectations. Morrison is effective in relaying her message about the various impacts that society has on an individual's character through imagery, diction, and symbolism by showing that

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

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,

Jeannette can see and understand what is going on to her and her family. Jeannette shares: ‘mom you can’t quit your job’ I said. “ we need the money.” mom asked. “you have a job. You can earn money. Lori can earn money too.”(218). jeannette gets into a conflict with her mother. Jeannette don’t want her mother quit the job; because Jeannette understands this time her family need the money than ever. Opposite to Jeannette, her mother do not care much for the family and her children. Jeannette also conflict with her father after she tells him about her mother problem. Jeannette shares: “who do you think you are” he asked. “Shes your mother.” “ then why she doesn’t act like one?” i looked at dad for what felt like a very long moment. Then I burted out, “and why don’t you act like a dad” (220). Instead go to the bar and drink; jeannette wants her father to get a job to help the family. Jeannette wants her parents have responsibility for their kids and their family. Jeannette matures in her mind and also her actions such as talks to her parents to get a job, and take care her siblings. She is a young lady, but she has a mature thinking. Jeannette says:” i was afraid that Mr.Brecker wouldn’t give me the job if he knew I was only thirteen, so I told him I was seventeen.”(215). Jeannette has to work to get the money to help her family when she only thirteen years old. At this age, most children are only focus on school, but

The mother/daughter relationship between Mrs. MacTeer and her two daughters, Claudia and Frieda, is loving and strong. They are taught their own self-worth through their mother’s strength and example, although this love isn’t fully appreciated by the girls until they are older. During Claudia’s illness, she is treated with a mixture of concern and anger. Although Claudia is scolded and her mother complains of cleaning her vomit, at the same time her mother is nursing her, giving her medicine, and checking on her throughout the night. Claudia discovers later that her mother’s anger is not directed at her, but at the world, as she must raise her black family in a world ruled by white culture. She protects her children and equips them for survival in a hostile environment.

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.

Although written decades apart, Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye both explore the trials and tribulations that young black girls must endure as they begin to step into womanhood. While the burdens that the protagonists in each of these texts differ in some key ways, one of the most interesting things that both Woodson and Morrison depicted was a sense of difficulty in coping with these changes, and rather than having any semblance of mastery over their circumstances, these young protagonists would instead project their emotions onto something else as they try to discover what causes their suffering.

The narration of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is actually a compilation of many different voices. The novel shifts between Claudia MacTeer's first person narrative and an omniscient narrator. At the end of the novel, the omniscient voice and Claudia's narrative merge, and the reader realizes this is an older Claudia looking back on her childhood (Peach 25). Morrison uses multiple narrators in order to gain greater validity for her story. According to Philip Page, even though the voices are divided, they combine to make a whole, and "this broader perspective also encompasses past and present... as well as the future of the grown-up Claudia" (55).

To begin with, Morrison starts her story by showing classism between kids within the very first paragraph of the text by illustrating the conflict between the Macteer girls and a next door neighbor, Rosemary Villanucci. Rosemary is a white child who seems to always be in Claudia and Frieda’s business by either telling on them to their mother, Mrs. Macteer, or just making fun of them for not being as privileged. Rosemary’s family is much better off than the Macteer family mainly due to the fact that her father owns his own café. Rosemary enjoys showing off her wealth to taunt Claudia and Frieda, who she knows has less privileges. Claudia and Frieda see Rosemary sitting in her family's 1939 Buick eating some bread and butter, she then rolls down the window just to tell Frieda that she cannot come in the car. Claudia’s thoughts reflect that “Rosemary Villanucci, our next-door friend who lives above her father's café, sits in a 1939 Buick eating bread and butter. She rolls down the window to tell Frieda and me that we can’t come in” (Morrison 9). Morrison uses the year of the Villanucci’s Buick to

By contrasting the homes of Claudia and Pecola throughout the entire novel, Morrison stresses the importance of home in defending against a predatory, racist society. In Claudia’s home, her parents truly care for her and her sister. In one instance, her father took out a gun to fend off a tenant that touched Freida’s breast. This completely contrasts with Pecola’s home, where her parents are both hateful and self-hating, and her father actually raped her. Even though both households are

Morrison introduces us to Claudia and promptly shows her apparent masculine personality when Pecola and Frieda are “Talking about how cu-ute Shirley Temple [is]” (Morrison 19) and Claudia explains, “Younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me

The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison that reveals many lessons and conflicts between young and adult characters of color. The setting takes place during the 1940s in Lorain, Ohio. The dominant speaker of this book is a nine year old girl named Claudia MacTeer who gets to know many of her neighbors. As a result of this, Claudia learns numerous lessons from her experience with the citizens of Lorain. Besides Claudia, The Bluest Eye is also told through many characters for readers to understand the connection between each of the adults and children. Many parents in the novel like Geraldine and Pauline Breedlove clearly show readers how adults change their own children. Furthermore, other adult characters like Cholly Breedlove

Claudia, unfortunately, is isolated in her rejection of white beauty. Claudia’s role models have been swept away, disregarding their own features and admiring white ones. After Claudia destroys the doll, Morrison shows the adult’s anger and admiration of these features: “Now-you-got-one-a-beautiful-[doll]-and-you-tear-it-up-what’s-the-matter-with-you?” (21). Morrison shows the adult’s anger, but this anger is exemplified because the doll is “a-beautiful-[doll]” (21). The adults are bewildered by Claudia’s action, not finding the reasoning behind Claudia’s actions. Morrison also shows the brain washing of adults when she shows Claudia’s reaction of Shirley Temple: “I hated Shirley…because she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me” (19). By Claudia symbolizing Bojangles as her friends and family, Morrison shows how the people around Claudia have been tainted with the belief

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison narrates the lives of two families, the MacTeer family and the Breedlove family. The novel digs into the themes of love, envy, and weakness, while maintaining a thick and interesting plotline. These themes are conveyed thoroughly through Morrison’s literary style. Toni Morrison’s powerful writing and structural techniques add depth to the novel, enhancing certain emotions while developing a riveting plot.