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.

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

Throughout all of history there has been an ideal beauty that most have tried to obtain. But what if that beauty was impossible to grasp because something was holding one back. There was nothing one could do to be ‘beautiful’. Growing up and being convinced that one was ugly, useless, and dirty. For Pecola Breedlove, this state of longing was reality. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and pale white skin was the definition of beauty. Pecola was a black girl with the dream to be beautiful. Toni Morrison takes the reader into the life of a young girl through Morrison’s exceptional novel, The Bluest Eye. The novel displays the battles that Pecola struggles with each and every day. Morrison takes the reader through the themes of whiteness and beauty,

In The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove is a young african-american who wishes at a very young age to be blessed with blonde hair and blue eyes. Her natural skin tone is dark, which leads to her being constantly mocked by other children. Pecola believes that by having blonde hair and blue eyes, she will be accepted, and will no longer be isolated and disregarded. Later in the novel, Pecola was raped. While some people believe that Pecola was to blame for her rape, and while others think that Cholly was the one to blame, Morrison shows how society is to blame for Pecola’s rape, due to placing racial beauty and western aesthetics standards on her.

Russell M. Nelson once said, “We were born to die and we die to live.” Toni Morrison correlates to Nelson’s quote in her Nobel Lecture of 1993, “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” In Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, she uses language to examine the concepts of racism, lack of self-identity, gender roles, and socioeconomic hardships as they factor into a misinterpretation of the American Dream. Morrison illustrates problems that these issues provoke through the struggles of an African American community during the1940s. Through the characters’ challenges of being accepted by society, the reader can blatantly see corruption not only in America, but also throughout the entire world. Morrison uniquely applies multiple points of view to tell the story of a young black girl who desires blue eyes in order to be socially “beautiful”. The reason the book is so effective is that Morrison bases the themes on personal experiences. By the end of the novel, we do not directly gain a sense of hope, change and progress for the future, but instead raises awareness of racism, sexism and self-identity. To convey the importance of personal experiences vis á vis social issues, Morrison parallels crucial times in history to the novel. The author demonstrates how history affects her characters and how the characters’ lives in microcosm represent what was occurring globally at the time. The Bluest Eye offers the possibility for

Slavery, segregation, and discrimination are commonly viewed as some of the primary struggles African Americans contended with. However, in Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eyes, it reveals struggles not commonly discussed about, such as internalized racism within black society and the internal conflict with one’s own blackness. Throughout the novel, characters repeatedly try to consume whiteness as a mean to escape their own blackness. They submerge themselves with the notion that the white, Eurocentric culture is the superior culture, and being white means being beautiful and powerful. In doing so, they gradually disconnect and disassociate themselves from their own African American heritage.

Social class is a major theme in the book The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison is saying that there are dysfunctional families in every social class, though people only think of it in the lower class. Toni Morrison was also stating that people also use social class to separate themselves from others and apart from race; social class is one thing Pauline and Geraldine admire.Claudia, Pecola, and Frieda are affected by not only their own social status, but others social status too - for example Geraldine and Maureen Peal. Characters in the book use their social class as another reason for being ugly. Readers are reminded of the theme every time a new character enters into the book.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrision deals with the struggle of colored women in the 1930 's dealing with the ideals of beauty. The standard of beauty can be described as a community standard that if the women of this story do not live up too, they will be deemed ugly. This standard of beauty can be perpetuated through the treatment of certain characters based on how they look. There are three main symbols that the book and author convey. The first is the standard of beauty. The second is the concept of self-image that is warped to fit white standard of beauty, instead of cultivating a woman 's individuality. Self-image describes how a person perceives themselves through their own actions and internalized emotions. Many things can contribute to a person 's self-image such as, how they are treated by others, how their parents treat them, and how do they treat themselves through life experiences. The third concept of self worth and it is related to self-image. Self-worth is an understanding of personal satisfaction with who you are and the choices you make. For example, as we are first introduced to Pecola. We find that she moves into the Macteer 's house hold because her father is in jail for setting her house on fire. As she lives in this house hold, she falls in love with Shirley temple. This was the standard of beauty for young girls at the time. Pecola love to drink milk out of her Shirley Temple mug. I believe that Morrison added this detail to the story to symbolize her

In this novel, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the author depicts a culture in which white people and white lifestyles are idealized and the standards for beauty are very generalized around whites. In this novel, the author questions the truths by which white standards of beauty are held and depicts the impact and growth it has on her characters and the long-term effects of these “beauty standards”. Claudia was much better able to handle rejecting the white, middle class America’s standards of beauty. Claudia and Pecola are similar in the sense that they both suffered from racist beauty standards and abuse growing up. However, Claudia was always the stronger of the two and did not feed into the standards of beauty set in her society.

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

The title of the story explains the book basically. Pecola had a strong aspiration for blue eyes. She had a certain insight on having blue eyes that wasn’t necessarily correct. Pecola didn’t believe she was up to the beauty standards of the society. She honestly believed that the cruel things she is put through on the daily is the effect of how she is seen by others. She has a honest feeling that if she obtains blue eyes people will look at her and treat her differently because she feels like she’ll be closer to the beauty standards and being accepted. The thought process of Pecola was that if she had those pretty blue eyes people would not want to do negative things to or in front of her. The accuracy of this insight is confirmed by many of her daily experiences. There was a few times Pecola along with her family were being mistreated because of the color of their skin, which is showing how whites were superior

In the novel, The Bluest Eye, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove. Pecola desires for acceptance, but she is rejected by people around her, including her own parents. The one thing she truly desires is to belong, and to be loved by those around her. However, based on her experiences throughout the novel, Pecola’s idea of love is misguided.

Alongside its umbrageous depiction of African American female identity and its shrewd criticism of the internalized racism cultivated by American cultural definitions of beauty, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison has been inspiring a propagation of literature written by African American women about their experience as women of color. Inspired by a conversation Morrison had with one of her students who wished for blue eyes, the novel portrays the subconscious demolition of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who searches for love and acceptance in a world that underrates people of her own race. Pecola hopelessly longs to possess the traditional American standards of feminine beauty—white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes—as presented to her by the popular icons of the white culture. The Bluest Eye is portrayed as a powerful expression of Toni Morrison’s ethnic cultural feminism, impotence, and loss of positive self-image represented by Pecola who feels that blackness has condemned her to ugliness and scorn. The purpose of this paper will further demonstrate how the Bluest Eye makes a withering attack on the dissimulation of white standards of beauty on black women and the creation of cultural debauchery, from a feminist perspective.

Pecola is a little black ugly girl as Morrison states in the book The Bluest Eye. In Pecola’s society she’s surrounded by a ridiculous amount of racism and sadness. If the people weren’t light skinned they were automatically known to have a miserable life or be unhappy. This perspective in her society caused her to believe that the only way she will ever be beautiful if she were white and had blue eyes like them. Pecola seeked happiness and peace within herself, but with all that negativity suffocating her there was no way she could find it in that toxic environment. Pecola was affected tragically because everyone saw her ugly not only because of her complexion, but also her round belly that hold the child of her own father.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison starts with a pessimistic beginning. The reader is introduced to Pecola and her condition. Pecola’s family is dysfunctional, with her parents constantly verbally and physically assaulting each other. During one of those altercations, Pecola whispers into the palm of her hand, “Please, God”, “please make me disappear” (Morrison 45). Trying to disappear and failing because of her eyes, “she could never get her eyes to disappear. So, what was the point? They were everything.” (Morrison 45). For Pecola eyes were everything, because everything she saw was in them, the pictures the faces. She believed that because of her ugliness there was no point in running away because she will remain looking as herself. She has