One motif I have noticed so far is that blue eyes represent the cultural beauty of being white in America. For example, Claudia resents the blue eyes of her white dolls, but Pecola strives to have blue eyes. She believes that is she had blue eyes people would see her with a different perspective and give her the reassurance of being beautiful to the white Americans. Pecola also believes that with blue eyes she would live a carefree life of a white middle class child. Morrison`s purpose is to demonstrate how we depict certain cultures and how we discriminate between white and black people. Throughout the book there is a great amount of detail regarding the lives inside and outside of the homes of black and whites.
Pauline is Pecola’s mother,
A common misconception that only external looks dictate beauty has toggled with the minds of millions of people. In today’s era, social media has become a huge aspect of defining beauty. As twenty-first century social media might suggest, “beautiful” girls tend to be skinny, tan, long-legged, and white-teethed. People begin to idolize these figures that they see on social media, and they characterize beauty by these standards, even though it is fruitless to do so. This is also true in The Bluest Eye as most all people in Lorain, Ohio in the 1940’s glorified white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. People revered public figures like Shirley Temple, and conceived those without the aforementioned attributes as “ugly.” Toni Morrison organizes the The Bluest Eye into seasonal chapters, shifts to different perspectives throughout the novel, and includes the Dick and Jane epigraph to illustrate the trivial ideal of external beauty that often dominates life.
One of the most prominent themes found in Toni Morrison’s acutely tragic novel The Bluest Eye is the transferal or redirection of emotions in an effort on the part of the characters to make pain bearable. The most obvious manifestation of that is the existence of race hatred for one’s own race that pervades the story; nearly every character that the narrator spends time with feels at some point a self-loathing as a result of the racism present in 1941 American society. The characters, particularly the adults, have become bitter and hate themselves because of the powerlessness they feel in the situation. They transfer the anger and hatred onto themselves, or at times the others around them, because they
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison narrates the lives of two families, the MacTeer family and the Breedlove family. The novel digs into the themes of love, envy, and weakness, while maintaining a thick and interesting plotline. These themes are conveyed thoroughly through Morrison’s literary style. Toni Morrison’s powerful writing and structural techniques add depth to the novel, enhancing certain emotions while developing a riveting plot.
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).
In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, the audience is provided with different interactions between white and black characters that gives the interpretation of whiteness as the standard of beauty, which distorts the lives of black characters through messages everywhere that whiteness is superior and equal to cleanliness. The theme of white superiority is portrayed through the lives and stories told by the characters Pecola, Claudia, and Pauline. Through the struggles these characters have endured with the internalized idea of white beauty, Morrison shows how the interactions between whites and blacks affect the characters in this book and how that has an effect on race in America.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison takes place in Ohio in the 1940s. The novel is written from the perspective of African Americans and how they view themselves. Focusing on identity, Morrison uses rhetorical devices such as imagery, dictation, and symbolism to help stress her point of view on identity. In the novel the author argues that society influences an individual's perception on beauty, which she supports through characters like Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove. Furthermore, the novel explains how society shapes an individual's character by instilling beauty expectations. Morrison is effective in relaying her message about the various impacts that society has on an individual's character through imagery, diction, and symbolism by showing that
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,
Toni Morrison’s use of color symbolizes the dynamic relationship between Cholly and Pauline Breedlove. Pauline first makes the connection between her relationship and color when speaking of the first time she met Cholly. She explains that it felt like “all the bits of color for that time down home” (Morrison 115). It is interesting for a colored person to use color as a hopeful symbol, after color is viewed for so much of the novel as a negative term. However, unlike her dark skin, Pauline refers to bright and cheerful colors when speaking of her first meeting with her future husband.
One of the significant themes that Morrison 's, The Bluest Eye scrutinizes is the relationship between race and beauty. The novel examines how white society 's view of beauty serves to degrade, ignore, and criticize African Americans. The Bluest Eye depicts the story of an eleven-year-old black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who desires have blue eyes on the grounds that she sees herself and is viewed by most of the characters in the novel as “ugly.” The standard of “beauty” that her peers aspire to is personified by the young white child actress, Shirley Temple, who has desirable blue eyes. White standards of beauty, an affection of the “blue-eyed, blonde haired" look, are forced upon the black individuals who personalize such social standards, tolerating rejection as real and undeniable, and being not able to meet such standards. They are degraded in their own eyes, producing self-hatred and internalized racial disgust. This perception of their own inadequacy and the mediocrity of their race, when all is said, is strengthened every day through their connections with white individuals and the admired white culture in their general surroundings. Morrison reveals insight into the shielded and implicit truth that everybody to some degree is racist. In The Bluest Eye, by utilizing direct portrayals, symbolic imagery, and racial tension in a black society, Morrison exhibits the darkness of undeniable racism in American society.
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, the struggle begins in childhood. Two young black girls -- Claudia and Pecola -- illuminate the combined power of externally imposed gender and racial definitions where the black female must not only deal with the black male's female but must contend with the white male's and the white female's black female, a double gender and racial bind. All the male definitions that applied to the white male's female apply, in intensified form, to the black male's, white male's and white female's black female. In addition, where the white male and female are represented as beautiful, the black female is the inverse -- ugly.
Beauty is not always skin deep. Although many first impressions are based off of appearance, what really counts is what is on the inside. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison influences from propaganda and other people affect the confidence of the characters. The people of color during this time long to be just as accepted as the white people. Racism and discrimination are still apparent during this time and crushes the confidence of the African American youth. A common misconception is that beauty and skin color results in complete acceptance and happiness. Propaganda during this time focusses on portraying beautiful white people with blonde hair and blue eyes. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, society’s concept of beauty negatively affects Pauline’s perception of beauty, and Pecola’s opinions of her own self beauty.
Classic literature throughout time has controversial topics that make people feel uncomfortable. The Bluest Eye is a classic novel involving racism, rape, and vulgar language. The author, Toni Morrison, shares the topics through a beautifully written story that is extremely accurate and makes readers understand things from multiple perspectives. Therefore, the story has many positive qualities that give it the ability to be bold about uncomfortable topics and it should not be banned or challenged.
Toni Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye in order to discuss race, gender, and class. She does a careful and intentional dance along the axis of oppression she is speaking on. Her pointed stories of abuse, self loathing, and rape are juxtaposed to the soft imagery of nature. The book is separated into four sections named after the seasons. Rarely does a page go by where Morrison does not wax poetic about marigolds, or set a scene with forsythia. And yet, though she uses these images to soften the setting in which atrocities take place, they are often used in such a manner that the harshness of the events bleed into the imagery. Creating the malevolent force that is nature in the novel, and the streak of ironic imagery that runs through Morrisons writing.
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
“The little girl in pink started to cry…the tears of the little pink-and-yellow girl” (Morrison 109). In this passage of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses a simile and symbolism to show the relationship Mrs. Breedlove had with Pecola. Morrison uses symbolism when she writes “We could hear Mrs. Breedlove hushing and soothing the tears of the little pink-and-yellow girl” (Morrison 109). This shows the difference in the way Pecola was treated compared to the little girl.