The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

Food and appetite is a relatable experience for everyone. Many believe food is strictly just for enjoying while you eat, however within Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eyes” she makes many distinct references to food. Through these means, she creates each individual personality of the characters. She goes on to use this association for most food references within her novel. The result enables the reader to have a more relatable experience with each of her characters regardless of color. Overall, these food and appetites references allow the reader to have a more hands-on approach and bring about a greater understanding of her character 's mentality while helping to disregard racial associations.

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.

Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about

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

    The character of Pauline tries so desperately to fit into society's typecast of beauty that she loses the ability to love herself for who she is as well as her ability to appreciate what she does have. For example, when Pauline is made to feel inferior by other black women, Morrison  emphasizes, "Pauline felt uncomfortable with the few black women she met. They were amused by her because she didn't straighten her hair. When she tried to make up her face as they did, it came off rather badly. Their goading glances and private snickers at her way of talking... and dressing developed in her desire for new clothes" (Morrison 118). Pauline is aggravated because of her physical appearance. She feels ugly and wants to fit in with society's women. She tries fitting into what is thought by those around her to be the  ideal characterization of beauty instead of accepting herself for whom she is. Pauline Breedlove's insecurities only deepen as a result of her attempts to look a certain way. In addition, when Morrison explains how Pauline would rather be around nice things at work than at her own

“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.

Racist ideology is institutionalized when how people’s interactions reflects on an understanding that they share the same beliefs. However, in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the topic of racism is approached in a very unique way. The characters within the novel are subjected to internalizing a set of beliefs that are extremely fragmented. In accepting white standards of beauty, the community compromises their children’s upbringing, their economic means, and social standings. Proving furthermore that the novel has more to do with these factors than actual ethnicity at all.

Throughout history, beauty standards have been enforced on females. They are taught what the ideal beauty is by the media and current culture of that time. Society creates certain expectations that require women to look a certain way to be beautiful and if not they are considered ugly. They change their appearances in order to conform to the established beauty standard and often lose a part of their identity in the process. In Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, she captures the struggle young girls and women face to meet the expectations that popular culture has on the ideal beauty in the early 1940s.

When one thinks of the word house, a place of comfort, love, and support comes to mind. Meanwhile, society tends to forget that initially home is a house: a constructed place of living that has all the materialistic essentials to survive in it; but is not a home because it has no feeling of love, safety or serenity within it. These two words, “home” and “house” seem so similar, but are very different in their meanings. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, houses and homes are depicted very neatly and compared with one another, as the residents of those. Even though everything origins around Breedloves’ family and shown through their lives, almost all of the characters are preoccupied with defining their social class status in Midwestern society during the Great Depression. There is an evident desire to escape poverty and the limiting circumstances of the time and their social classes; represented through houses and physical space characters in. In addition to the social and economical influences, houses in the novel also symbolize the emotional situations and values of the characters who inhabit them. At the time, owning a house says something about one 's income and social class status, especially for African Americans, which are coming out of the age of slavery. However, the pressure from the environment creates emotional situations that hard to overcome and cuts all accomplished efforts to none. Followed by the mental state characters’ values change and are projected onto

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 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.

Child sexual abuse before the 1970s was secretive and socially unspeakable. It was only after 1970s that it became legally punishable. Toni Morrison raised this issue in her novel "The Bluest Eye" speaking about the unspeakable. Second wave feminism brought sexual abuse and violence against women to the forefront making them public and political issues.

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shows that one’s family determines a character’s feeling of self-worth. According to Morrison, the world is teaching little black girls that they are not beautiful and unworthy of love. The world teaches this by depicting white people and objects that resemble them, as symbols of beauty. In this world, to be worthy of love you must be beautiful. Morrison shows that if a little black girl believes what the world is telling her, her self-esteem can develop low self-esteem and they may yearn to be white. Even in the absence of economic and racial privilege, Morrison suggests that a little black girl can look to her family to build up her self-esteem. For Morrison, having a family is

A common misconception that only external looks dictate beauty has toggled with the minds of millions of people. In today’s era, social media has become a huge aspect of defining beauty. As twenty-first century social media might suggest, “beautiful” girls tend to be skinny, tan, long-legged, and white-teethed. People begin to idolize these figures that they see on social media, and they characterize beauty by these standards, even though it is fruitless to do so. This is also true in The Bluest Eye as most all people in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940’s glorified white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. People revered public figures like Shirley Temple, and conceived those without the aforementioned attributes as “ugly.” Toni Morrison organizes the The Bluest Eye into seasonal chapters, shifts to different perspectives throughout the novel, and includes the Dick and Jane epigraph to illustrate the trivial ideal of external beauty that often dominates life.