Racism is like a disease; when it hits, it spreads like wildfire. In Toni Morrison’s, The Bluest Eye, a young African American girl strives for beauty while enduring a racial society. Pecola Breedlove, the main character, deals with oppression due to the dark pigmentation of her skin throughout the novel. She is constantly belittled and made to feel as if she is ugly. However, those with lighter skin, such as whites, were considered superior and acquired the power in the hierarchy structure. Many consumed whiteness in desperation and hope of gaining beauty due to the idea, formed by society, that having white skin was considered beautiful In the first chapter, Claudia expresses her hatred for a doll that she continuously receives each Christmas. She is a caretaker for the Fisher’s, a white family. The Fisher’s have a young daughter who Polly cares for. It is ironic that Polly cares for this young girl, because she does not care for her own young daughter. She consumes whiteness by working for this white family. The Fisher’s home is her sanctuary from the reality of her own African American family. She gains, “power, praise, and luxury” while working for the Fisher’s (Morrison 128). Due to society’s idea that being dark skinned means one is dirty, Polly enjoys being in the white, clean home. The Fisher’s home is not the only place that Polly consumes whiteness, Having blue eyes were related to white skin, which was considered superior and beautiful. By gaining that, Pecola believed she would also be considered beautiful, and in return, gain love from others. Though, she does not literally receive blue eyes. Church provides her with false hope, resulting in the loss of Pecola’s sanity (Morrison 173-176). By the end of the novel, Pecola’s need for love ultimately ruins her sense of reason. Upon mentally receiving her blue eyes, she feels as if they are not blue enough. No matter what she receives, it will never be good enough for her need. Pecola experiences the need for love, acceptance, and to be beautiful. She never obtains what she desires, and instead, loses her
Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.
This book touches on many different aspects of racial inequality by bringing together the works of many different African American authors, and discusses all of the major themes of “whiteness studies”. The author speaks of how whites attempt to maintain a neutral ground by focusing on extreme acts of white supremacy, which blinds the main steam to the problem of white dominance as a whole. They also discuss how there are differences in the wages between whites and blacks. One of the chapters discusses how there are whites who are committed to the equality of the races, and yet cannot empathize with the races they are trying to help. In another chapter they discuss how Pecola Breedlove undergoes racial deformation through biopower mechanisms occurring throughout the characters life. In another chapter an author discusses how racial excoriation cannot be the focus any longer if we wish to make progress in the realm of race. Instead he suggests we need to focus on the rehabilitation of racial whiteness. He argues that in order to accomplish this we must address the fears and greediness of whites.
A common human behavior due to illusory superiority is to overestimate skill, capability or perception of oneself in comparison to others or underestimate it. Alice Walker, a black woman herself, a partaker of feminist and anti-racist activism has created a scenario that nearly every person from any cultural background can identify with. Miss Millie in the Color Purple has, in fact, internalized racism and refuses to acknowledge it, maintaining that she is “less racist” than the “other white people”. While viewing herself as superior among blacks and whites, Miss Millie remains in denial about her subtle racism and is unaware of the fact that her comments are insults rather than the compliments she assumes them to be. This disconnect fuels Sofia’s response, “Hell no”, as an offended person of color. With the use of imagery, language, and the character’s unconscious and conscious motives, Walker accurately depicts a scene bursting with themes of racism, sexism, and cultural stereotypes.
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye provides social commentary on a lesser known portion of black society in America. The protagonist Pecola is a young black girl who desperately wants to feel beautiful and gain the “bluest eyes” as the title references.
Racism is defined by merriam-webster.com as ‘1. A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. 2. Racial prejudice or discrimination.’ Racism exists among all races and ethnicities, but most prominently between whites and blacks. The most basic cause of racism begins with the idea that there is something different between different ethnicities. Though that thought is illogical, it is one that seems inevitable. The amount of hatred one can hold against another because of the difference in their skin pigmentation is uncanny. There are an uncountable amount of sources on racism to be found just by merely looking on the internet. In The Bluest Eye, a novel written by Toni Morrison, alone one can find a series amount of racist comments and “ways of thinking”, but beyond that racism can be found in poems, films, and everyday life.
In the novel, the Black narrator Claudia talks about how the ideal beauty of their society is White women, stating, “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘this is beautiful, and if you are on this day “worthy” you may have it’ (Morrison 20). This quote is significant because it proves that the culture promotes the appearance of White women over Black women. Due to the large amounts of racism, many African Americans believed they lived in poverty because they were black. The narrator explained, “The Breedloves did not live in a storefront because they were having temporary difficulty adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they were ugly” (Morrison 38). The discrimination was so extreme in the novel that the African American characters started to idealize the white race. One example of this is when Pecola, a black girl, yearned for blue eyes because she believes all of the cruelty in her life will then go away. This strong desire ultimately leads to insanity (Morrison 174). The psychological suffering that many of the young female characters went through is result of discrimination towards a racial
The idea that blue eyes are a necessity for beauty has been imprinted on Pecola her whole life. " If [I] looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they would say, Why look at the pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty [blue] eyes'"
Maureen, a well-endowed girl with mixed parents is treated with the extra respect due to her whiter appearance than the other girls. When she makes an appearance at her new school, she is greeted with attention from the teachers, boys, and acceptance from the white girls (Morrison, 47-48). Maureen, with her light skin, demonstrates a hierarchy of skin tone and idealized physical attributes when she at first accepts and defends Pecola, but eventually, she succumbs to her privilege, and insults her, calling her ugly. Maureen subscribes to the toxic whitewashed standard of beauty by feeling superior to Pecola and the other black girls because she looks lighter. By insulting her friends, she is insulting the black part of herself which is self-destructive.
"And Pecola. She hid behind hers. (Ugliness) Concealed, veiled, eclipsed--peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the return of her mask" (Morrison 39). In the novel The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, the main character, Pecola, comes to see herself as ugly. This idea she creates results from her isolation from friends, the community, and ever her family. There are three stages that lead up to Pecola portraying herself as an ugly human being. The three stages that lead to Pecola's realization are her family's outlook toward her, the community members telling her she is ugly, and her actually accepting what the other say or think about her. Each stage progresses into the other to finally reach the last stage and the end of the novel when Pecola eventually has to rely on herself as an imaginary friend so she will have someone to talk to.
Throughout Toni Morrison’s controversial debut The Bluest Eye, several characters are entangled in the extremes of human cruelty and desire. A once innocent Pecola arguably receives the most appalling treatment, as not only is she exposed to unrelenting racism and severe domestic abuse, she is also raped and impregnated by her own father, Cholly. By all accounts, Cholly is detestable and unworthy of any kind of sympathy. However, over the course of the novel, as Cholly’s character and life are slowly brought into the light and out of the self-hatred veil, the reader comes to partially understand why Cholly did what he did and what really drives him. By painting this severely flawed yet completely human picture of Cholly, Morrison draws comparison with how Pecola was treated by both of her undesirable parents.
Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye contributes to the study of the American novel by bringing to light an unflattering side of American history. The story of a young black girl named Pecola, growing up in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 clearly illustrates the fact that the "American Dream" was not available to everyone. The world that Pecola inhabits adores blonde haired blue eyed girls and boys. Black children are invisible in this world, not special, less than nothing. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you lesser was cultivated by both whites and blacks. White skin meant beauty and privilege and that idea was not questioned at this time in history. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person contaminated black people's lives in many different ways. The taunts of schoolboys directed at Pecola clearly illustrate this fact; "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth" (65). This self hatred also possessed an undercurrent of anger and injustice that eventually led to the civil rights movement.
The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison is an African American writer, who believes in fighting discrimation and segregation with a mental preparation. Tony focuses on many black Americans to the white American culture and concludes that blacks are exploited because racism regarding white skin color within the black community. The bluest eye is a story about a young black girl named Pecola, who grew up in Ohio. Pecola adores blonde haired blue eyes girls and boys. She thinks white skin meant beauty and freedom and that thought was not a subject at this time in history. This book is really about the impact on a child’s state of mind. Tony Morrison has divided her book into four seasons: autumn, winter, spring, and summer. The main characters in this book are three girls, Claudia and Frieds McTeer, and Pecola Breedlove. Why was Pecola considered a case? Pecola was a poor girl who had no place to go. The county placed her in the McTeer’shouse for a few days until they could decide what to do until the family was reunited. Pecola stayed at the McTeer’s house because she was being abuse at her house and Cholly had burned up his house. The first event that happens in the book was that her menstrual cycle had started. She didn’t know what to do; she thought she was bleeding to death. When the girls were in the bed, Pecola asked, “If it was true that she can have a baby now?” So now the only concern is if she is raped again she could possibly get pregnant. Pecola thought if she had blue eyes and was beautiful, that her parents would stop fighting and become a happy family.In nursery books, the ideal girl would have blonde hair and blue eyes. There is a lot of commercial ads have all showed the same ideal look just like the nursery book has. Pecola assumes she has this beautiful and becomes temporary happy, but not satisfied. Now, Pecola wants to be even more beautiful because she isn’t satisfied with what she has. The fact is that a standard of beautyis established, the community is pressured to play the game. Black people and the black culture is judged as being out of place and filthy. Beauty, in heart is having blond hair, blue eyes, and a perfect family. Beauty is then applied to everyone as a kind of level of class.
A reader might easily conclude that the most prominent social issue presented in The Bluest Eye is that of racism, but more important issues lie beneath the surface. Pecola experiences damage from her abusive and negligent parents. The reader is told that even Pecola's mother thought she was ugly from the time of birth. Pecola's negativity may have initially been caused by her family's failure to provide her with identity, love, security, and socialization, ail which are essential for any child's development (Samuels 13). Pecola's parents are able only to give her a childhood of limited possibilities. She struggles to find herself in infertile soil, leading to the analysis of a life of sterility (13). Like the marigolds planted that year, Pecola never grew.
Morrison provides the reader with a light-skinned black character whose racist attitudes affect the poorer, darker blacks in the community, especially the main characters, Claudia MacTeer and Pecola Breedlove. Maureen Peal comes from a rich black family and triggers admiration along with envy in every child at school, including Claudia. Although Maureen is light-skinned, she embodies everything that is considered "white," at least by Claudia's standards: "Patent leather shoes with buckles...fluffy sweaters the color of lemon drops tucked into skirts with pleats... brightly colored knee socks with white borders, a brown ...
She believes that if she could have blue eyes, their beauty would inspire kind behavior from others. Blues eyes in Pecola’s definition, is the pure definition of beauty. But beauty in the sense that if she had them she would see things differently. But within the world that Pecola lives in the color of one’s eye, and skin heavily influences their treatment. So her desperation for wanting to change her appearance on the account of her environment and culture seems child-like but it is logical. If Pecola could alter her appearance she would alter her influence and treatment toward and from others. In this Morrison uses Marxism as a way to justify Pecola’s change in reality depending on her appearance. The white ideologies reflected upon Pecola’s internal and external conflicts which allowed her to imagine herself a different life. The impacts of one’s social class also impacts one’s perspective of their race. The vulnerability created by the low social class allows racism to protrude in society and have a detrimental effect for the young black girls in “The Bluest Eye” (Tinsley).The quotes explained above express the social and economic aspect of the Marxist theory. The theory that centers around the separation of social classes and the relationship surrounding them not one’s internalization of oneself