Traumas Of Beauty

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

In The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s uses her critique of racism so that white readers can imagine or understand what it feels like to be the on the other side of what is not considered beauty as Pecola, Claudia, and Freida suffer from the stigma of ugliness and being African-American (Bump). Through Morrison’s ability to convey the truth to readers about how beauty is socially structured, she uses Claudia, the narrator, to signify the search for the truth, “..the edge, the curl, the thrust of their emotions is always clear to Frieda and me. We do not, cannot, know the mean-ings of all the words, for we are nine and ten years old. So we watch their faces, their hands, their feet, and listen for truth in timbre” (Morrison). We all were the ages of

The novel The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison is subjected on a young girl, Pecola Breedlove and her experiences growing up in a poor black family. The life depicted is one of poverty, ridicule, and dissatisfaction of self. Pecola feels ugly because of her social status as a poor young black girl and longs to have blue eyes, the pinnacle of beauty and worth. Throughout the book, Morrison touches on controversial subjects, such as the depicting of Pecola's father raping her, Mrs. Breedlove's sexual feelings toward her husband, and Pecola's menstruation. The book's content is controversial on many levels and it has bred conflict among its readers.

Does being outwardly beautiful make us feel more confident in ourselves? How often do we bring ourselves down because we don’t feel beautiful, but what is beauty? Alice Walker addresses the topic of not accepting and embracing oneself because of outward appearance. In Alice Walker’s narrative, “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self,” she describes her story of feeling beautiful to completely ugly and then beautiful again. Her story gives the reader a better understanding of what true beauty is. Narrative rhetorical pattern, pathos, and rhetorical questions help Alice Walker teach her audience about beauty.

A standard of beauty is established by the society in which a person lives and then supported by its members in the community. In the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, we are given an extensive understanding of how whiteness is the standard of beauty through messages throughout the novel that whiteness is superior. Morrison emphasizes how this ideality distorts the minds and lives of African-American women and children. He emphasizes that in order for African-American women to survive in a white racist society, they must love their own race. The theme of race and that white skin is more beautiful is portrayed through the lives and stories told by the characters in the novel, especially the three girls Claudia, Pecola and Frieda. Through the struggles these characters have endured, Morrison shows us the destructive effect of this internalized idea of white beauty on the individual and on society.

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

The Standard of Beauty In the novel “The Bluest Eye”, by Toni Morrison depict the story of a young girl brainwash that the pigment of her skin color makes her ugly and worthless. She thinks that her life would be different if only she had blue eyes If only she had blue eyes. Women of color having learned to hate their own bodies because of their skin color even take this hatred out on their own children. Pecola has desire for blue eyes; she believes that everything she is experiencing has to do with the way she looks.

In the novels, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison and The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, the two authors portray masculine traits through their primary female characters to symbolize a disconnection from society. Morrison portrays Claudia and Pecola as characters that many people can relate to. In the novel, Pecola is criticized for many points that are entirely not her fault such as her looks, her unwanted pregnancy, and the unfeminine way she acts. These criticisms eventually drive Pecola to the point of insanity, where she becomes obsessed with the thought of having idyllic blue eyes although she still possesses “ugly” brown eyes. Claudia is the youngest and exhibits many masculine traits that are viewed negatively among the female figures in her life, making her feel like an outcast. This idea of never being perfect enough is a prominent one throughout the novel and is especially relatable to the modern day female in society due to the immense beauty market that constantly exploits women’s insecurity. Morrison and O’brien show this trope of insecurity through masculine traits in women and how this manifests an “unconventional” personality.

In both novels, women are subjected to society’s harsh standards of love and beauty. In The Bluest Eye this is seen through the characterization of Pecola Breedlove, Pauline Breedlove, and Geraldine. Toni Morrison purposefully emphasizes the ideas of love that both Pauline Breedlove and Geraldine have, for the intention of highlighting the misconceptions of love they both have as a subject of society. When Mrs. Breedlove was two years old she stepped on a rusty nail that pierced her foot and left her with a permanent limp. She quickly learned that she was different from others and let society define her as damaged goods, unworthy and undeserving of love or attention because of her physical deformity. Society

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison brings to light the often unrecognized struggle that many people in the black community face. She exposes the “whitewashing” that has been prevalent in society for decades and the societal imposition of impossible beauty standards. Morrison uses the book to show us the psychological tolls on children and adults that stem from these unattainable goals. Children, like Pecola Breedlove, are so indoctrinated by society and the quest for superficial “perfection” that they lose sight of what truly matters. Those desires for superficial superiority even carry over into adulthood, as seen by Mrs. Breedlove’s “skin deep values.” The Bluest Eye even shows that anyone and everyone is affected by the desire to become perfect; even the Maurine Peals of the world have their own insecurities.

“If only the eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how very different our ideals of beauty would be”. Toni Morrison shows, to the black community and to the world, how white supremacists and false convictions on beauty and self-worth can cause serious mischief if believed and taken to heart. Throughout the book, the character who exemplified the best repercussions of racism through her actions was Pecola Breedlove. A very passive little girl who was lacking self-esteem and parental guidance buys into the sinkhole of society's perception of beauty and race resulting in believing herself to be one of the ugliest girls in the world. In the Bluest Eye, Morrison uses Pecola and the characters in Pecola's life such as China, Poland, and Miss Marie

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

Women now and from the past are a part of one of the most tedious battles that needs to end with the use of common sense. Some males have the tendency to think that they have unlimited power and that nothing is going to stop them from trying to harass their partners, or other women. An example of this harsh reality goes to the written book by Toni Morrison, dubbed ‘The Bluest Eye’, following behind its movie counterpart. The MacTeer family took Mr.Henry (a boarder) and a young girl named Pecola under their wing after the suffering of the Great Depression. The two sisters – Frieda and Claudia – met with Pecola’s admiration of Shirley Temple, whom she believed Shirley’s whiteness is considered captivating while her black skin tone is considered a disgrace. Pecola confesses of her home life being rather difficult since her father, Cholly, abuses the use of alcohol and constantly fights with his wife.

     The Bluest Eye opens with a Dick and Jane paragraph, a white American Myth far removed from the realities illustrated in the novel. Thereafter, the black narrator Claudia MacTeer relates much of the story, and the reminder, which concerns events that Claudia could not have witnessed, is narrated mostly by an unidentified voice. Claudia’s narrative reveals the guilt that for a long time plagued her and her sister in connection with another girl’s miscarriage. The girl, Pecola Breedlove, was pregnant with her own father’s child

Claudia who is now an adult is telling the story from past to present of her childhood friends and her home life. As the narrator she talks about her own family struggles of being poor.