Similarities Between The Bluest Eye And To Kill A Mockingbird

I found The Bluest Eye on an online list of books for people who enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird. I could see the similarities between the books only a few chapters in. Like Mockingbird, The Bluest Eye explains pressing social issues from (for the most part) a naïve child’s point of view. It makes the tale incredibly captivating, and the tragedies that occur all the more heartbreaking. The children don’t comprehend the extent of the situations they and their friends are put into, and don’t understand the community’s morals. They think like children, judge like children, and make decisions like children, without the impact of social norms and conditioning. However, The Bluest Eye takes a different turn. The novel is unique in that it gives insight

Though different in subject matter, The Bluest Eye and To Kill A Mockingbird both present compelling narratives on racism from sincere, child-like points of view. Although both novels are beautifully written, overall, The Bluest Eye triumphs when examined for the purpose of explaining and condemning racism. One enormous difference between the two novels is that the narrator in Mocking Bird is white while The Bluest Eye’s narrator is black. This discrepancy displays a startling internalized self-hatred that contrasts with Mockingbird’s white vs. black litany. It shows the effect that racism has on each and every one of the characters’ lives, far beyond the more stand-alone incidents in Mockingbird. Lee’s Scout is a happy white girl in her town. Although she remains unprejudiced unlike many of her classmates and family members, she lives a fairly charmed life, playing with friends, acting in plays, and making mistakes. She faces a world-view altering moment in the incarceration of a black man. Morrison’s characters, on the other hand, are typical black children of their time. They deal with prejudice and bullying from teachers and classmates, parents, and even themselves. Their pivotal events are also centered around racism, but these children experience the consequences

In an age when many love claiming that “racism doesn’t exist,” it’s important to examine the internal consequences of current and past acts of racism, of perpetuating ideals of a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl. The Bluest Eye shows the tragic consequences of girls taught to hate themselves. It shows what happens when a man is powerless to hate the white men causing him harm, and turns his anger on his own wife and family instead. Of a man, who takes the label of a crazy supernatural to make his living, demonized by white society and taking their projection and becoming the monster that they fear he is. But it also offers a bit of hope. In the direst of circumstances, it is the children, the children that make the novel so great, who have the power for change. Frieda and her sister give up their hard earned money to try and save Pecola and her baby. They don’t understand why she is so shunned; they only know of basic human love and dignity. It is Pecola, on her heart-breaking quest for the very bluest eyes, who compels Soaphead Church to write a striking letter to God. The outcasts of the outcasts, like Pecola’s prostitute friends, are willing to come together as well. Often, change works its way up from the bottom. Unfortunately, change never comes quickly enough in the life of Pecola, or in the lives of many of the other characters. The novel stays starkly honest. It didn’t get better in Frieda or Pecola’s lifetimes. But it’s