Similarities Between The Bluest Eye And The Color Purple

Claudia, another character who goes through a similar situation compared to Pecola. She is a young girl who came out from a loving family and is intrusive, yet sensitive.

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 Color Purple elicits multitudinous generalizations upon bitter circumstances. The novel possesses a surfeit of themes. One of the major themes in The Color Purple is the sexual relationships between the male and female characters, sexism. Walker stages her story of the transformation of Celie from a female that is passive to one who eventually becomes an independent black woman in the culture of the rural society from the 1920s to the early 1940s. Celie is dominated by her father who turns out to be her stepfather at the beginning of the story. In the latter part of the anecdote her husband Albert takes over as her foreperson. Shug Avery`s relationship with Celie was the cause of Celie`s personality change. Celie wrote letters to God because her stepfather Alphonso, told her to tell no one but God of sexual molestations he inflicted upon her. Through the letters, Walker wanted readers to generate a taste of Celie`s actuality, which at first is discrete, but eventually becomes stable and independent.

The Color Purple revolves around the life of Celie, a young black woman growing up in the poverty-ridden South.  In order to find herself and gain independence, Celie must deal with all manner of abuse, including misogyny, racism and poverty.  When she is a young girl of just 14, Celie is sexually assaulted by a man she believes is her father.  She has two children by her rapist, both of who

Each of the women face hardships with family, life in general, and men. Antonia a young, Bohemian girl is faced with many challenges and hardships throughout her life. After the death of her father, Antonia is obliged to start living by working in the fields alongside the men. Every member in her family depends on her both physically and emotionally. “With the death of her father, Antonia is forced to work on the family farm for her family to survive, and this shift in her role sparks a change in her identity. Antonia now wears some of her father’s belongings to suggest that she has indeed moved into a role that her father was supposed to play” (Everton). Antonia’s brother, Ambroch, makes use of her abilities as much as he can. When she works out on the fields he profits from the cash that she earns because he is the man of the household. “Antonia worked as a hired girl at the Cutters, and she was worried about Cutter’s intentions towards her. The moneylender, Wick Cuter, was known in Black Hawk as stingy towards his customers and over friendly to young girls . . . . Wick’s wife needed to go to Omaha for the weekend, and as a result of Wick’s infidelity she forced him to go with her. Although it seemed that Wick had left with his wife, Antonia still feared his intentions and pleaded with Jim to stay the night at the Cutters in her place . . . during the

Morrison contrasts Pecola’s home life is "crippled and crippling" (Morrison 210): her mother is cold and distant, her father is an alcoholic who rapes her and impregnates her when she is barely twelve years old. Although Claudia’s family is neither rich nor terribly close, her provide for and protect her and her elder sister Frieda. Claudia finds

            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

Both Claudia and the narrator show sympathy. Claudia wants to show Cholly’s love for Pecola even though he raped her, and the narrator provides Cholly's story to understand why he raped her and how it fit into his life.

The Colour Purple is a novel that was written by the 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner, Alice Walker. The Novel was published in 1982 and was later turned into a film by Steven Spielberg in 1985. The book is about a young girl, Celie who was oppressed and seek to find happiness in life. Despite her inner turmoil, she had a strong belief in God, and also hopes that she would find her estranged sister, Nettie who loved her with all her heart. She got pregnant at an early age by the man she thought was her father. Celie was also a young bride who was being abused by her husband.

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.

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 MacTeer sisters, Frieda and Claudia are friends of the troubled 11-year-old Pecola. They often tried to protect her from fights and bullying from other kids at school, chanting about her blackness and abused mentally and physically. She suffered from her father who slept naked at night, which added insult to injury.

Joyce Carol Oates, an American writer, once proclaimed, “Love is an indescribable sensation- perhaps a conviction, a sense of certitude” (QuotesGram). Love, in the most profound sense, is entirely indescribable in every aspect. Each individual has been exposed to a different sense of love that has either affected or altered their emotional or mental state of being. The feelings associated with love come from a sincere interaction, or likewise, lack of this sensation. Celie, from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, although dealt with many hardships throughout her lifetime, identified and grew effectively from her perception of the infatuation with her partner, Shug Avery. Their bond throughout the novel not only introduced readers into a dysfunctional, heartfelt relationship, but shaped Celie into a substantial, independent character, influenced her decisions for the good of her wealth, and showed her the true meaning and purpose of her place in the world.

In The Color Purple and The Bluest Eye both Celie and Pecola struggles with how they look because they aren't seen as beautiful because they were black but also because they are girls and this caused them to struggle with themselves. Celie in The Color Purple was constantly knocked down about her appearance throughout the story. “She ugly. He say. But she ain’t no stranger to hard work. And she clean. And god done fixed her. You can do everything just like you want to and she saint gonna make you feed it or clothe it” (Walker 8). In this quote it shows how Celie is described as ugly and she keeps that with her for most of her life. She is talked down to and called ugly, so why wouldn't she believe that and it affects her self-esteem throughout the stories. Her relationships through the story cause Celie to finally realize her self worth. “Shug teaches Celie much about herself: to stand up for herself to Mr. _ , about her own beauty and self-worth” (Slomski). Celie’s relationship with Shug Avery is the relationship that helps restore Celie’s little self-worth through the story. Shug empowers Celie to stand up for herself against the demeaning actions and words of Albert. Celie is finally able to see the beauty in herself after

The narrative shift also serves to compare how Pecola and Claudia react to the concept of blue eyes as the ultimate beauty and shows the psychological strength of each girl.