The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison’s first novel, is written during her teaching at Howard University, focuses on the oppression of the Black female characters Pauline, Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda. The American concept of beauty becomes necessary for black African- American in order to mingle into the mainstream. Pecola suffers an inferiority complex since from her childhood because she is ugly and black and nobody loves her as Pecola comes from a poor family, cut off from the normal life of a community and faces final humiliation and betrayal from her own father. Cholly rapes Pecola. Pecola’s move to the company of the whores shows the signals of her utter sense of loneliness. Pecola Breedlove in the novel is oppressed not only due to racism but also due to classism and sexism. Ugliness, poverty and violence are the reasons of her humiliation. Sufferings are the friend of Pecola and her hunger for love and respect leads her to the world of fantasy. Key words: Oppression, inferiority, ugly,black, humiliation, betrayal, loneliness, racism, classism, sexism and fantasy. INTRODUCTION The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison’s first novel and is written during her teaching at Howard University. The main character, Pecola is inspired by a real life girl whom Morrison met when she was 11 years old. She and the little girl argued whether or not there is a God. Morrison thought so but the little girl disagreed. The main conflict in this novel is about Black women that become the central object of oppression as black women characters in the novel are described as the victim of different sex or gender and also the victim of class and race that are imposed on them. The Bluest Eye is linked to the Black Power movement of th... ... middle of paper ... ... 1947. Davis, Cynthia. “Self, Society and Myth in Toni Morrison’s Fiction,” Contemporary Literature, 23, 3 (1982). Gibson, Donald B. (1989), “Text and Counter text in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, Lit: Literature, Interpretation, Theory, Vol. 1 No. 1-2, pp. 19-32. Grewal, Gurleen (1998). Circles of sorrow, Lines of struggle: The novels of Toni Morrison, Boston, Louisiana State University press. Janeway, Elizabeth. Women’s Literature, in Hoffman(1979). Morrison, Toni The Bluest Eye (1970; London: Random House, Vintage: 1999) Morrison,Toni. “ Behind the Making of The Black Book,” Black World,23(1974). Strouse, Jean. “Toni Morrison: Black Magic.” Newsweek, 30 March (1981).
Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye", is a very important novel in literature, because of the many boundaries that were crosses and the painful, serious topics that were brought into light, including racism, gender issues, Black female Subjectivity, and child abuse of many forms. This set of annotated bibliographies are scholarly works of literature that centre around the hot topic of racism in the novel, "The Bluest Eye", and the low self-esteem faced by young African American women, due to white culture. My research was guided by these ideas of racism and loss of self, suffered in the novel, by the main character Pecola Breedlove. This text generates many racial and social-cultural problems, dealing with the lost identity of a young African American women, due to her obsession with the white way of life, and her wish to have blue eyes, leading to her complete transgression into insanity.
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. The book seeks to define beauty and love in this twisted perverse society, dragging the reader through Morrison’s emotional manipulations. Her father Cholly Breedlove steals the reader’s emotional attention from Pecola as he enters the story. In fact, Toni Morrison’s depiction of Cholly wrongfully evokes sympathy from the reader.
Topic: Discuss the issues of self-hatred and the aesthetics of beauty in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. What role do they play in the novel and how do they relate to its theme?
Blond hair, blue eyes. In America these are the ideals of a woman’s beauty. This image is drilled into our minds across the lifespan in the media and it conditions people's standards of beauty. We see Black women wish that their skin was lighter. In an episode of "The Tyra Banks Show", a Black girl as young as 6 talks about how she doesn't like her hair and wishes that it was long and straight like a white woman's. Some minorities get surgery to change their facial features, or only date white men. Having been taught to think that white people are more attractive than people of their own ethnicity. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the character of Pecola exemplifies the inferiority felt throughout the black community due to the ideology that white qualities propel you in social status. Pecola’s mother, Pauline Breedlove, said it best when she was introduced to beauty it being the most destructive ideas in the history of human though. From which the envy, insecurity and disillusion have been derived by the ideas of beauty and physical appearance. Pecola’s story is about the consequences of a little black girl growing up in a society dominated by white supremacy. We must not look at beauty as a value rather an oppressive discourse that has taken over our society. Pecola truly believes that if her eyes were blue she would be pretty, virtuous, and loved by everyone around her. Friends would play with her, teachers would treat her better and even her parents might stop their constant fights because, in her heart of hearts, no one would want to “do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.”
Maureen Peal, by insulting the other black girls for being ugly rejects the black side of her identity, conforming to the oppressive qualities of the whitewashed beauty standards demonstrated in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest
In the novel “The Bluest Eyes”, by Toni Morrison, Racial self-loathing and hatred is a major theme through the text, and is even evident in the title. Instead of making the plot center around events over racism, the book shows a deeper portrayal of racism, emphasizing on the way racial self-hatred and loathing plagues the black characters. The novel shows an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards distort the lives of the black characters. The author shows this by having African Americans who have lighter features, Maureen Peal, Geraldine and Soaphead Church, and characters with darker features, Pecola and her Parents Cholly, and Pauline Breedlove. Through them we are able to see racial self-loathing, there
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.
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.
The Bluest Eye, demonstrates numerous examples of prejudice. Author, Toni Morrison, portrays the ending of The Great Depression and families, particularly those in black communities, faced with economic struggles and poverty. Despite the pressing economic concerns, prejudice is the underlying theme throughout the novel. Vivid, descriptive imagery reveals how social classes were distinguished among Pecola’s community. Segregation and prejudice were displayed between Pecola, her family, community members, and children in her social circles. One prominent example of prejudice is seen when Pecola’s mother displays a preference for her white employer’s children over her own, which furthers Pecola’s feelings of insignicance even with her own mother. Pecola was even beaten by her mother in front of the “little white girl.” Pecola’s mother understood the supremacy of the white family, and the enjoyment and comfort she received motivated her to jeopardize and damage her relationship with her own flesh and
With The Bluest Eye, Morrison has not only created a story, but also a series of painfully accurate impressions. As Dee puts it "to read the book...is to ache for remedy" (20). But Morrison raises painful issues while at the same time managing to reveal the hope and encouragement beneath the surface.
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 mass media contribute to the status at which young African American girls find themselves early on and throughout their lives.
Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and the brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with, and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when it concerns gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society.
Throughout The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison includes a number of background stories for minor characters along with the main plotline in order to add dimension to the novel and further convey the intense racial prejudice felt by almost all African Americans. Her main story tells of the outrageous landslide of wounding events that Pecola Breedlove experiences, a young black girl constantly patronized by her peers, and the things that eventually make her go crazy. The struggle for a deep black skinned person can be significantly different from what a lighter skinned black person feels, and Toni Morrison adds secondary story lines to stress that difference, and the extremes that racism can force people into. The back-story of Geraldine expresses the desire to be white supported by social circumstances, the comparison of how much easier whiter life could be on Pecola and her family, but also the poor results that can come from shying away from one’s own nature and history.
In the novel Pecola questions her perception of beauty and the ideal family. She often compares her life with the life of the primer Dick and Jane. Throughout the novel Pecola tries to counter act the tyranny in her life by praying for blue eyes hoping that with this feature her life would change for the better and she would be beautiful. Within the novel the author uses the theory of Marxism. Created by Karl Marx in the 19th century, Marxism is the central analysis of the complex development of relationships between two social classes (Ollman). In the novel “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison questions the essence of true beauty and its influence on societal standards threw the theory of