The Bluest Eyes Analysis

In the course of The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove has shown signs of low self esteem. She would always be the one to compare herself to something she admires to be beautiful. Perhaps, sometimes problems surround her get a little too much, she has not yet realized the fog will clear up. For example in the autumn chapter, a quote has said “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” There is no such thing as a “Pecola’s point of view”. She lives off of people's judgements and believe physical appearance is all there is to a person. Her desire to be beautiful is not having attractive long black hair and golden skin color, but blonde hair with a white pigmentation. Which causes her to dream and want even more.

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.

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.

To better understand the mindset of the characters and society as a whole during the early 1940s, one must first analyze the setting of the novel. This allows for the reader to understand what causes the characters to think and act the way they do throughout the novel. For instance, the story is set in the rural south of Lorain, Ohio, during the fall of 1941 to the summer of 1942. During this time period, the Great Depression was coming to an end and World War II was breaking out throughout the world. People, especially African Americans, were seeking economic security and opportunities for mobility. This can be seen with the MacTeers, a poor African American family, who all collect coal at Zick’s Coal Company to earn more money. It can also be seen when Pecola Breedlove’s parents, Pauline and Cholly, move up north to Ohio in search of better

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

Pecola represents everything that Geraldine despises: disorder, black poverty, and filthy ugliness which illustrates her outcast status. Pecola's humiliation takes place in the pretty house with the pretty lady's ugly words calls her a "nasty little black bitch". The last image Pecola sees as she is absorbed into the cold March wind is the sad and unsurprised gaze of Jesus The same Jesus whom she prays to every night, begging for blue eyes. (page 91-93)

In the novel, Claudia Macleer, the narrator and childhood friend of Pecola is given white baby dolls, which she dismembers. As Claudia reflects on the fact that she occasionally feels the impulse to do the same to little white girls, she asks: “what made people look at them and say, ‘awwwww,’ but not for me” (22)? While the circumstances in which she has this revelation are a bit extreme, it shows that in her society, there is an implicit message that being white is equal to being beautiful and that if you’re a young white girl, you’re beautiful but, if you’re a young black girl, you’re a monster. At the age of eleven, Pecola detests everything about herself. She thinks that because she’s black she’s ugly and doesn’t deserve to be loved.

In the Bluest Eyes, Tori Morrison portrays society’s disgusting attributes such as sexual violence, racism and trauma by examining the life of Pecola. Pecola’s obsession of having blue eyes has grown throughout the novel. At first she believes by consuming candy she can one day have blue eyes. After Cholly rapes her, she believes her eyes have actually turned blue. At first blue eyes in the novel symbolizes society’s beauty standard, which is whiteness.

The consequence of the adults not knowing what love was and how to show it, caused the children to suffer. Children like Pecola longed to be love, although she was forced into “the act of love” it only made her life worse. She had even more demons and was no longer happy with herself. Even though she lost the baby, all the traumatic experiences of her young life caused her to want to escape her life and she eventually went crazy. She felt that she did not have anyone there for her besides her imaginary friend in her mind, whom at the end of the book she pleaded “oh. don’t leave

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.

None of the parental figure are inspirational to her. Cholly, father of Pecola makes her more traumatizing. Because of his disoriented, undignified past, he rapes her own daughter. Perhaps, Cholly would not have done it if he hadn’t had to go through his gruesome haunting past. He is abused inhumanly by white men by making him expose his intimate activity.

And as a black girl/little woman living in this society where “blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned” beauty is what “the world said was lovable” (Morrion, 21), Pecola has always been told that she is ugly, with her visit to Yacobowski’s store being the most telling example, during which she detects in the way he saw her a complete “absence of human recognition—the glazed separateness” (Morrison, 48). And in this environment, Pecola grows up drinking from a Shirley Temple and eating Mary Jane candies, because she believes that “to eat the candy is somehow to . . . eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane” (Morrison, 50). As far as this little girl is concerned, she is not truly human until she has blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. This belief is a result of being birthed into and then living in destructive dominant culture that marks “blackness” as contemptible, as entirely “other”, as less than human. So, convinced in her unworthiness, Pecola prays “fervently” (Morrison, 47) for blue eyes, so that not only she would feel more human, the world around

The social standards of beauty and the idea of the American Dream in The Bluest Eye leads Mrs. Breedlove to feelings of shame, that she later passes on to Pecola. The Breedloves are surrounded by the idea of perfection, and their absence of it makes them misfits. Mrs. Breedlove works for a white family, the fishers. She enjoys the luxury of her work life and inevitably favors her work over her family. This leads to Pecola struggle to find her identity, in a time where perception is everything. Pecola is challenged by the idea that her mother perferis her work life, that they have an outdated house, and that she does not look like the shirley temple doll with blue eyes.

The title “the Bluest Eye” refers to the desire of the girl to have blue eye to feel comfortable, happy and looks beautiful. And, the desire to observe the world differently is also reflected. It is not only concerns the issue of beauty but the way that Juda Bennett defines that the title stresses the level of the “pernicious effect of the white beauty standards” (142). Pecola wants to have such beautiful eyes as the doll Shirley Temple. The most interesting