Morrison's Bluest Eye Essay: The American Way

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.

Morrison utilizes the physical appearance to portray racial stereotypes among her readers. The physical description of Twyla’s mother represents an ambiguous description of a black woman. The author denotes her beauty and conspicuous behind, portraying her as a black woman, who ordinarily have larger behinds than white women. It is, therefore, possible for a reader to assume that Mary is black, an assumption that could be wrong since she could be a white woman with an equally more rounded bottom (Morrison 1175). The church, a place of worship, where humans are expected to set aside their differences is not spared from the racial stereotypes. The dressing of the girl’s mothers comes into play, Twyla’s mom dresses indecently, while Roberta’s

The affiliation between beauty and whiteness limits the concept of beauty only to the person’s exterior. The characters are constantly subjected to images and symbols of whiteness through movies, books, candy, magazines, baby dolls and advertisements. Another example of the images and symbols in the novel is when the black protagonist, Pecola, feasts on a ‘Mary Jane’ candy.

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 comparing the childhoods to the adulthoods of certain characters in the story, Morrison argues that

            Pecola's friend Claudia is angry at the beauty of whiteness and attempts to dismember white dolls to find where their beauty lies.  There is a sarcastic tone in her voice when she spoke of having

And as a black girl/little woman living in this society where “blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned” beauty is what “the world said was lovable” (Morrion, 21), Pecola has always been told that she is ugly, with her visit to Yacobowski’s store being the most telling example, during which she detects in the way he saw her a complete “absence of human recognition—the glazed separateness” (Morrison, 48). And in this environment, Pecola grows up drinking from a Shirley Temple and eating Mary Jane candies, because she believes that “to eat the candy is somehow to . . . eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane” (Morrison, 50). As far as this little girl is concerned, she is not truly human until she has blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. This belief is a result of being birthed into and then living in destructive dominant culture that marks “blackness” as contemptible, as entirely “other”, as less than human. So, convinced in her unworthiness, Pecola prays “fervently” (Morrison, 47) for blue eyes, so that not only she would feel more human, the world around

The reader can visualize the picturesque doll with blue eyes, blonde hair, and pink porcelain skin, sitting on the top shelf of everyone’s favorite store. The utilization of imagery to describe an individual’s physical appearance is Morrison's way of displaying the unequal treatment that Pecola encounters as a young black girl in a condemnatory society. The colors of one’s appearance is noted by Morrison throughout the novel, for physical appearance is highly significant in the imagery that Morrison depicts. Society casts its dark hatred upon those who do not conform to the standards of beauty that society sets, expediting self negativity to those who do not fit the perfect physical

The Breedloves are “poor and black” and “their poverty was traditional” (38) Additionally, Rosemary Villanucci, the white girl that lives next door in her father's cafe, “sits in a 1939 Buick eating bread and butter.” This shows that African Americans are lower than whites because the white girl lives above a cafe that her father owns and has the privilege to eat bread in a fancy car. Furthermore, Morrison strengthens this idea by introducing Maureen, a light skinned African American girl. “She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of the white girl, swaddled in comfort and care” (62) “Black boys didn't trip her in the halls; white boys didn't stone her, white girls didn't suck their teeth when she was assigned to their work partners; Black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls’ toilet.” (62) This shows that she was well respected by everyone due to her wealth. She had better food, better clothes, and everyone adored her because of this. Claudia and Frieda were not even remotely close to having the kind of wealth that Maureen was privileged enough to have, “the quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me. Patent-leather shoes with buckles, a cheaper version of which we got only at Easter and which had disintegrated by the end of May.”

“Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs - all the world had agreed that a blue eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘this is beautiful, and if you are on this day ‘worthy’ you may have it” (Morrison 20). One day, a new student, named Maureen Peal, arrives at the school Pecola attended. She fit the bill for society’s beauty standards: pampered, light-skinned and a green eyed black girl. “A high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back. She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of white girls, swaddled in comfort and care. The quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me” (Morrison 62). She intimidates Pecola and her school friends with her beauty and possessions. They envy her because she has what they desire. “If she was cute - and if anything could be believed, she was - then we were not. And what did that mean? We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser. Dolls we could destroy, but we could not destroy the honey voices of parents and aunts, the obedience in the eyes of our peers, the slippery light in the eyes of our teachers when they encountered the Maureen Peals of the world” (Morrison 74). Maureen’s character emphasizes the desire for an “easier” life just because of her physical appearance. Both black and white people treat Maureen with equal respect. It is as if following society's guidelines give her a fast pass throughout her

Another comparison that is able to be made between the two novels is the expectations of the American society. Property is set in 1828 where slavery was still

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.

Have you ever experienced or seen racism and/or sexism and you were not able to help make the situation better? Throughout the novel The Bluest Eye, the author, Toni Morrison takes us on a journey of an eleven-year-old girl named Pecola Breedlove whose love for blond hair and blue eyes affects how she perceives everyone around her. The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio where Morrison grew up. Pecola wishes for blue eyes because she thinks that people will look at her and treat her better. Her family is very dysfunctional; her father drinks. Her mother is not affectionate and the two of them fight very often. Her older brother, Sammy, runs away. Instead of being loved and

Even though it has been more than half a century since the time setting of The Bluest Eye, children like Claudia are still to some degree forced to deal with the constant pressure of white culture – its beauty standards, lack of representation, and its bigoted norms dictating whiteness as something to be desired even by people of colour. It is no wonder that some like Pecola Breedlove might even crumble under such an enormous pressure. Claudia however, has not yet reached the age of succumbing to the indoctrination of the white beauty myth; she has not yet accepted its truths as her own and for now, she is still just a curious child not understanding what all the fuss is about. Why was she expected to love and care for such an alien ugly thing? Why was she supposed to treasure this unwanted Christmas gift?

The year of 1919 through the year of 1965 was not an easy period in Medallion, Ohio. There was a little town called The Bottom and it is described by the author of Sula, Toni Morrison. Morrison provides information about the community and its people through Sula. The author does not only provide information about the town but also describes the ambience of the area and how the public was treated during this time. In the novel, the women of The Bottom are not described in a desirable way due to racism, segregation and the fact that men were thought of as superior to any women. Morrison establishes this message throughout the novel successfully. Readers later realize the different