The Bluest Eye Comparison

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 concept of physical beauty and desire to conform to a prescribed definition of what is considered beautiful can destroy a person's life. In Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye, many characters are obsessed with attaining the idealist definition of what is considered beautiful. The characters of Geraldine, Pauline, and Pecola all believe that physical perfection leads to acceptance; however, it is the same belief that causes their personal downfalls and prevents them from recognizing their own inner beauty.

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.

In the afterword of “The Bluest Eye”, Morrison describes the narrator of the story as “the sayer, the one who knows…a child speaking, mimicking the adult black women on the porch or in the backyard” (Morrison 213), in essence, a child acting as the narrator and imitating black women when speaking, possessing intimate secrets waiting to be divulged to the reader. By having a child act as the narrator and introduce emotionally taxing topics to the reader, the weight of these topics would be cushioned by creating skepticism about the truth behind a child’s statements in providing lots of seemingly “trivial information” (Morrison 213) and thereby “altering the priority an adult would assign the information” (Morrison 213). But rather than just being an arbitrary character in the story, Claudia can be justified as being the very embodiment

In Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye”, a character named Pecola Breedlove had always been wishing to have blue eyes, because it was considered as pretty in the novel’s world. Also, a lighter skins African American, Maureen Peal, bullied the Pecola, who have darker skin, because Maureen Peal thinks herself is cute while Pecola is ugly. Similarly, Pecola always thought of herself in a negative way, in which, she calls herself ugly. On the other hand, Maureen Peal, think highly of herself, because she came from a wealthier family and more people like her. Furthermore, Pecola did not have an easy life due to all those hardships that she had to come across through her life. Morrison’s novel shows a contrast between the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant world and the world the characters of the novel live in by showing us how the characters in the novel are not living a good life and they get treated differently because of their skin color, and they are in a lower class than the others. Also, the kids are being neglected by their parents and there are child molestation in the family. I think today’s world is slowing changing but still has some similar divisions, because there is still racism out there. However, people are starting to stand up for themselves and appreciate their own culture and ethnicity more in today’s world.

This can be seen toward the end of the novel, on page 199, where, in a conversation between Pecola and a figure of her thoughts, Morrison reveals that Pecola may have been raped twice. “You said he tried to do it to you when you were sleeping on the couch. ‘See there! You don’t even know what you’re talking about. It was when I was washing dishes,’” reads the exchange. These lines also tell the reader that even with this information, Pecola is still internally unsure of what happened herself. Through internal dialogue, her personal insecurities are projected. Dialogue is key in presenting major ideas in the novel.

However, when Pecola was raped by her father, she told her mother and she didn't believe her, therefore she did nothing. Even though Frieda likes Shirley, she had her sister and parents to help her through this horrible event, although Pecola had nobody. Since Pecola isn't able to love herself, she has to love Shirley. On the other hand, Claudia McTeer hates Shirley. She was brought in the same family as Freida, but since nobody expects anything of Claudia, she is able to have her own opinions and is able to despise the actress.

Perception is the process of selectively choosing and assigning meaning to information. The set of perceptions people own are a result of the selection, organization and interpretation of information. In Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, the author effectively reveals the girl as an extremely developed character, despite her age. Morrison introduces the young girl as confident, innocent, and most importantly, familiar and comfortable with her identity and environment. Throughout the excerpt, utilizing literary techniques, Morrison successfully demonstrates a change in the girl’s perceptions of herself and the world as she becomes self-conscious of her skin color and feels new uncomfortable feelings of shame and anger.

Logic has just recently released a new album speaking out about problems in today's society. Toni Morrison’s novel can be compared and contrasted to Logic’s album Everybody. Although in different ways, Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye and Logic in his album Everybody develop the theme that race shouldn't be the standard that determines beauty. Both develop this theme through the use of internal, external conflicts and by utilizing imagery.

This was the first time I made an annotated bibliography. When I got an instruction sheet on how to make one, it was really confusing. I chose to work on The Bluest Eye because I have read it once in High School and I really like it. On the day that we chose the group, we just simply raised our hand and Joshua put the names on the board. My group has only four people: Altheas, Tasnia, Ashlie, and me, however, I forgot to write down the names and to ask my members for their email. I couldn’t contact anyone, but Altheas since we usually talk on a daily basis.

Not too long ago, my friend and I agreed that a student was beautiful. Her skin was caramel in the light, her face shape was an oval, her style was subtle urban and her eyes were the perfect size. She was indeed beautiful. But why was her beauty more irrespirable than her friends, who was walking right beside her? Many are subjected to the specifications of social beauty. Pecula, the main character of The Bluest Eye, destroyed white baby dolls. The tortures act of dismantling and configuring the baby doll acted as a combination to unlock the beauty within the doll. Soon she finds nothing but a metal sphere. Here I understood the metal sphere to be power. Within the doll was nothing integral, but an innate physically

In the novel The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison in 1970, she stated that romantic love and physical beauty are “probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.” During the time period of when this book was written there was a lot of racism and segregation and the beauty standards just has stated in this novel is blond hair and blue eyes.The narrator at this point will be Pauline Breedlove. This statement is related to Pauline because of how she struggled with her romantic love with Cholly and also how she struggled with the idea of beauty. Romantic love and physical beauty are the most destructive ideas in human history because it can have a huge effect on anyone and the idea of beauty and the idea of love can drive

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.

     In the novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison incorporates various techniques, such as her use of metaphors, the ironic use of names, and the visual images that she uses. The theme of The Bluest Eye, revolves around African Americans’ conformity to white standards. A woman may whiten her skin, straighten her hair and change its color, but she can not change the color of her eyes. The desire to transform one’s identity, itself becomes an inverted desire, becomes the desire for blues eye, which is the symptom of Pecola’s instability.