Draft When I was 5 years old I wanted nothing then to be white. I wanted the blonde hair and blue eyes, I wanted nothing to be pretty like the girls on tv. I wanted to look like the girls in the movie that always got the boy at the end they were usually white. I was always angry because my skin was darker then most of my family that my skin was closer to white. My sister who I thought was blessed with her light skin called herself white. I didn 't understand it at first and just thought she just didn 't know any better. It wasn 't until I got old that I realized my sister never identified as black. She too thought that white was a dominant trait, a trait of beauty and a trait that she wished she had. In the book ' The Bluest Eyes …show more content…
Even though she can 't pinpoint where her ugliness is she can pinpoint what people find attractive. When we are first introduced to Pecola she is awe at the narrator’s(Claudia) sister (Frieda) Cup. The cup has a picture of Shirley Temple. The cute button noses girl with the curly blond hair that took all of our hearts with dancing and singing. I 'm the passage it states “... white Shirley temple cup. She was a long time with the milk and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face. Frieda and She had loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was.”(Bluest Eyes, Morris pg. 19) Pecola ready had it on her mind that Shirley Temple was beautiful, that Shirley Temple was the beauty standard and that she was not. At a young age Pecola realized that she might not be seen as pretty this a issue that can be seen quite often in the black community. In 2011 a young lady heard a small child declare herself hate a girl no older than 5 years old stated “mommy I want to be white; I don 't want to be brown anymore” (source 5, Courtney) as horrifying as it may seem most children don 't understand why they are black when white people seem to get more things in life. The media shows nothing but white people winning in life and black people be portrayed as thugs, killers and lazy. Even in movies and tv shows we are seen as villains while white people are given this essence
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.
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.
Besides the inherent self-confident issue, the outside voice from community is also affecting Pecola’s view. For example, in the “accident” when Pecola went into Junior’s house, Junior killed the cat and impute to Pecola. His mother, Geraldine, saw Pecola was holding the dead cat. Without any thought and didn’t even ask for the truth, Geraldine simply called Pecola a “nastylittle black bitch.” This event, again, reinforces Pecola’s view of what beauty means.
Prior to beginning my readings on white racial identity, I did not pay much attention to my white race. If someone had asked me to describe my appearance I would have said short blond hair, blue eyes, average stature, etc. One of the last things I would have noted was the color of my skin. Growing up in overwhelmingly white communities, I never thought to use the color of my skin to differentiate myself from others. Over the course of this dialogue I have learned that my white racial identity is one of the most defining aspects of my appearance in this society. There is a certain level of privilege that I am afforded based solely on the color of my skin. According to Peggy McIntosh, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless
Because society’s standard of beauty is being a pretty, white girl, she is labeled as ugly, and in Pecola’s society, ugly people do not get attention, they do not deserve attention.
Although there are many different characters in this novel that are affected by the great advertisement of the beauty of a female in society, Pecola is the one to end up being insane due to the images- the image that she couldn’t possibly attain. Pecola grew up believing that she was born into an ugly family, making her ugly also. The ugliness wasn’t just from the window signs and newspapers, it was from her family and her neighbors. Therefore, she seeks the next best thing in her life, to have those blue eyes of a white girl, thinking
If children can acknowledge these things subconsciously it is no shock that children with these views would turn into adults with similar views, subconscious or conscious. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye explores the psyche of a young girl that desires to have blue eyes and blonde hair like Shirley Temple so she too can be loved and have all the happiness young white girls have. Sharmila Devi’s research about the history of the desire for light skin reveals that,
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.
Her self worth is defined by the color of her eyes and the color of her skin, this delusion is a product of the effect that this idea has had on Pecola’s life. There is a constant pattern in the book where characters admire others as though they were hoping to one day attain their characteristics. Characters in the story develop an unrealistic and unhealthy admiration for white personas that further make them believe that they are worth less. For example, Pecola and her friend Frieda are mesmerized and almost hypnotized by Shirley Temples perceived beauty (put page number here). Similarly to Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove, consumes her days in an unrealistic world where she admires actresses and prefers to stay at work cleaning for what she believes to be the superior class than to go home and spend time with her family (put page number here).
Pecola is constantly labeled as inferior due to her ugliness and copes with her sorrow by conforming to society’s label. Throughout the novel, Pecola’s fascination with white girls is heavily expressed. It is first shown very early on when Pecola admires the Shirley Temple cup. Claudia narrates, “She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face” (19).
The meaning of beauty is abused emotionally because the characters consider whiteness beautiful. It is associated with beauty and cleanliness. Blue eyes mean beauty, “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes...were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different”(Morrison 46). Pecola dislikes herself because she doesn't have blue eyes. She wants people to view her differently and wants to view the world differently. Another instance of emotional abuse is when Pecola is framed for killing a cat . Junior frames Pecola for killing the cat because he feels that Geraldine his mother pays more attention to the cat rather than him, so he likes the cat to suffer .Geraldine says to Pecola, “Nasty little black bitch ”(Morrison 92). Pecola and Junior want people to love them but does not believe they do because of their actions and words towards them, which causes them to develop depression. Pecola's mother Mrs.Breedlove fails as a parent because she doesn’t believe in her daughter about being raped. “Regained consciousness, she was lying on the kitchen floor under a heavy quilt, trying to connect the pain between her legs with face of her mother looming over her ”(Morrison 163). Mrs. Breedlove fails to believe her daughter because she has gone through same circumstances of trauma as her. Someone one’s appearance, is taken
Unlike so many works in the American literature that deal directly with the legacy of slavery and the years of deeply-embedded racism that followed, the general storyline of Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye”, does not engage directly with such events but rather explores the lingering effects by exploring and commenting on black self-hatred. Nearly all of the main characters in ”The Bluest Eye”, by Toni Morrison who are African American are consumed with the constant culturally-imposed notions of white beauty, cleanliness, and sanitation to the point where they have disengaged with themselves and have a disastrous tendency to subconsciously act out their feelings of self-loathing on other members of the black community. This is accomplished by offering readers multiple examples of this through the viewpoint-shifting narration of events and revelations that led to tremendous character complexity, as suggested in this literary analysis of “The Bluest Eye”, Toni Morrison is ultimately engaging her readers in a dialogue about how these characters (not to mention readers themselves) can overcome these hindrances to having a healthy relationship with self-images and interpersonal relationships. In presenting the various modes of escape and retreat into hollow notions of whiteness, Morrison demonstrates how this is a damaging way to work through so many years of being abject and objectified. However, as suggested in this
The female characters are victims of the America society as they are taught at a young age what is considered as beautiful and what is not. The characters are continually subjected to America’s ideals of whiteness through many different ways such as dolls and sweets. In the beginning of the novel, Pecola and Frieda admire Shirley Temple 's beauty which consists of the white skin and blue eyes. The American society highly associates beauty with being white and although claims that there is no expectations, it clearly demonstrates that beauty is on the exterior rather than the interior making ones value inferior such as characters like Pecola who believes that her ugliness defines who she is and her role in society, which is still similar to the time where slavery was around as the American society is still restricting them without having to own them.
Some of us go through tough experiences as children. In Patricia Grace’s novel Baby No-Eyes under the chapter of Kura, the reader gets to see how Gran Kura’s traumatic experience as a child is finally revealed after being held secret for sixty years.
Pecola knew that as long as she remained invisible, she would not be dragged into fights or given any unwanted attention that may negatively impact her, whether it be from her mother, father, peers, etc. In the article, “The Danger Lurking Within: The African American Woman in Toni Morrison's the Bluest Eyes,” authors Gladys, P. V. Annie, et al. write, “The African American woman find themselves doomed under rejections both from society and from family. As a result of this they feel alienated and frustrated. […] Pecola innocently considers: "If she looked different, beautiful, may be Cholly would be different and Mrs. Breedlove too" (34). Each night she used to pray fervently for blue eyes” (Gladys, P. V. Annie, et al., 3). Pecola learned that invisibility was something to be strived for due to her home life, just as Bride learned that attention, accolades, and wearing masks around strangers was to be strived for, for her benefit. These two characters are ultimately products of their home lives.