The Bluest Eye Research Paper

Toni Morrison is America’s most prominent contemporary authors, that published her first breathtaking novel “The Bluest Eye” in 1970’s, right after the peak of the African-American movement in the late 1960’s. The mass popular movement was indeed a poignant reminder of the passing of time. As the novel has gained increasing attention from literary critics around the world, it has set the very definition of black standard beauty and its conformity to white standards. Morrison gives the audience an insight of how Pecola Breedlove, a passive and impressionable 11- year old, views her own standard of beauty amongst the cruelty of the white society. For Pecola, there are two things in this world; beauty and ugliness. Beauty is varied through different

During their outing, Maureen is questioning Pecola about seeing her father naked and about periods. The girls end up getting in an argument because Maureen will not stop asking uncomfortable question. Maureen calls the other girls black and ugly. When the girls arrived home, Henry is in the house the Marie and Poland receiving “entertainment.” When spring arrives, Henry touches Frieda

She is raped and impregnated by her father, Cholly and this wrong is never truly righted. Her mother decided at the time of her birth that Pecola was ugly. Pecola’s mother either ignores and neglects her or abuses her. Pecola, Frieda, and Claudia visit her mother, whom she calls Mrs. Breedlove, at work where she is the nanny and housekeeper to a young white girl. While visiting her, she knocks over a blueberry pie and burns her legs.

A surge of love and understanding swept through him, but was quickly replaced by anger. Anger that he was powerless to help her”(Morrison 175). Pecola persevered through her struggles against life at home and colorism from the others around her but never triumphed against the adversity she was faced

In addition, of all characters, Pecola has been most damaged by her circumstances in life, beginning with having a family incapable of normal expressions of love and protection. Nearly every event in her life leaves her a victim, "Although their poverty was traditional and stultifying, it was not unique. Their ugliness was unique" (Morrison 53 ). The novel examines what influences led to her fate and what influences kept her from being helped. She believes she deserves the abuse and neglect she experiences at home based on her self-perceived ugliness.

In the novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison introduces us to three young girls who have different perspective among the 1930s child film star Shirley Temple. Although Frieda McTeer, the older sister of Claudia McTeer admires Shirley, and the sisters' friend Pecola Breedlove has an obsession with Shirley, Claudia hates the actress with a passion. Even though Freida may like Shirley, because society loves Shirley and she is suppose to follow what society values and admires, being the oldest, Pecola's obsession for the actress and Claudia's hatred for Miss Temple highlights their self-worth. Pecola's excessive adoration of Shirley is what is getting in the way of her acknowledging how much she is really worth.

Pecola goes through this story constantly getting ignored by everyone. Claudia even becomes jealous of a girl who is light skinned and falls into the belief that she wishes she was white. The reference of the mother just laughing and the father being strong relates to the characters in the story as well. Cholly is not strong in this story as he has had a tough life.

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.

The topic of rape is prominent during most of the book and is a very controversial topic in society. According to the Ohio state laws “rape is any form of unwanted sexual conduct without the victim's consent” and can be punished as a first-degree felony; however, in the book Pecola’s father came

In doing so, Cholly connects the image of his daughter in front of him, to the first time he sees her mother. “When he met Pauline in Kentucky, she was hanging over a fence scratching herself with a broken foot” (160). Taken by Pauline’s tenderness, Cholly finds himself “bending down tickling her broken foot and kissing her leg” (115). He applies the emotions he feels in that moment to when he sees “Pecola [standing] on one foot scratching the back of her calf with her toe” (162). When Cholly tickles Pauline’s leg, he “started Pauline into laughter. [So] he did it now” (162). Cholly’s actions show his inability to separate the love of a father and the love of a

Claudia MacTeer, Pecola Breedlove, and Cholly Breedlove experience the tension from their guardians the most. Their parents seem to not have any patience or tolerance for things that they perceive as foolish. Mrs. MacTeer, Claudia’s mother, and Samson Fuller, Cholly's father, are extremely aggressive, when they feel like their children are being a bother. A recurring theme in this novel is ‘children being a burden’ because of how Mrs. MacTeer reacts when Claudia is sick, how alarmed Mrs. MacTeer is by Pecola drinking too much milk, and how

In doing so, she rejected the needs of her family entirely, not even her own daughter could call her “mother” instead she was forced to call her “Mrs. Breedlove”, a symbol of the unfamiliarity of the connection that should be filled with love, but was only filled with hatred and rejection. This increased when Pecola was raped by her father, followed by her mother beating her until the baby died. This final blow, the hopelessness of rejection caused by both the internal and external racism, was what drove Pecola insane, and would drive any person to madness, because the pain that this racism caused is the pain of being alone, a pain which no human can bear. The abuse from racism is never forgotten, it leaves a scar; the pain may recede after time, but the scar remains.

father 's burning the front part of their house. The sisters cannot help but to acknowledge Pecola 's

When Pecola accidentally knocked down a hot cobbler all over her legs, her mother just yelled at her then went to comfort the Fishers’ daughter. Even though Pecola is just some homeless kid that was interfering with her life, Claudia

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye explores the impact of home on childhood, the formative years of any human. Throughout the book, she describes the childhoods of both adults, namely Polly Breedlove and Cholly Breedlove, and children, specifically Pecola, Claudia, and “Junior,” and leaves the reader to figure out how their childhoods shaped who they are. In the novel. Morrison argues that the totality of one’s childhood, including one’s home and experiences, is key in forming one’s disposition and character later in life. In doing so, Morrison wants the reader to see that the best defense against a predatory, racist society is the home.