The story I read independently is called The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The story is told by two narrators: Claudia Macteer who is a grown woman reflecting back on her childhood, and an unknown narrator. This Novel is about how America's standards of beauty affect African Americans. In this novel the community has accepted blond hair, blue eyes, and light skin, as the only forms of beauty and they pass these beliefs onto their children. This theme is very prevalent in today’s society because the media portrays it often through things like People’s Most Beautiful Woman. Lupita Nyong’o was named people's most beautiful woman. She is the first Kenyan most beautiful woman as well as the first most beautiful woman with dark skin. When Lupita won the award she talked about how all she seen on television when she was a child was images of women with long, straight hair and light skin and that made her feel like she wasn’t beautiful. When Lupita found out that she had been named people’s most beautiful woman she was happy because she felt like “it would help people who looked like her feel a little more seen.”
The novel opens up with a Dick and Jane narrative which immediately gives the reader a glimpse into the stereotypical middle class Caucasian family and how different this lifestyle is from the characters in the story. The narrative is repeated 3 times: First it is shown grammatically correct, Secondly it is shown with no punctuation, and thirdly it is shown with no spaces or punctuation. The transition from the first narrative to the third one takes this Dick and Jane narrative from a simple story to a meaningless one. The main character of this story is Pecola Breedlove she is described as an ugly girl with dark skin and kinky...
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...she would only be seen as beautiful and treated as an equal if she had blue eyes. Instead of realizing that the way she was treated was because of her unsupportive community she blamed it on herself.
Works Cited:
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York. Vintage. 2000. Print
Saad, Nardine. “Lupita Nyong'o Named People's Most Beautiful Woman of 2014” www.latimes.com. Accessed 5-7-14
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York. Harper Perennial. 2006. Print
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York. Simon & Schuster. 1978. Print
Shakespeare. A Midsummer Nights Dream. New York. Barron's. 1984. Print
Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Fall of the House of Usher” gutenberg.org. Accessed 5-7-14
Packer, ZZ. “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” thenewyorker.com. Accessed 5-7-14
Hughes, Langston “I Too Sing America” www.poets.org. Accessed 5-7-14
There is no greater critic than society. Society tells people how they should look, act, and live. Being a part of the right social class is also a very important thing because if you are not, you will be looked down upon and not treated as an equal. Marxism is a theory that explains these issues in society, mainly separated into two categories: class struggles, and materialism, stated in the article “Karl Mark and Marxism” written by Southern Utah University. Many people are under great stress and pressure as a result of society. Stated by Karl Marx in “German Ideology” “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” explaining that the people in higher classes seem to control everything. Marxism is a reflection of society because it explains the struggles of people in different social classes and the materialistic ways of life, two very important traits of society. In The Bluest Eye, an explicit novel written by Tony Morrison, the struggle of poverty and racial differences are reflected through a young black girl named Pecola, in a way that shows higher privileged individuals what a life with disadvantages can be like.
As Harper Lee phrased the famous quote, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Lee’s quote appears in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which explores racial and cultural stereotypes, exemplifies the differences between good and evil, and challenges the reader to find empathy for societal outcasts. Growing up in Lorain, Ohio during the Great Depression era, Morrison, raised by parents who moved to the North to escape southern racism, learned to value African American heritage and recognize situations, regarding alienated people, as unfair. Morrison’s unique upbringing has developed a conscientious perspective within her that gives her the advantage to speak not only with truth, but experience as well. While possessing a thoroughly defined perspective herself, Morrison is capable of weaving topics and messages meaningful to her into the divergent viewpoints of her many characters. Toni Morrison uses different points of view throughout the novel, The Bluest Eye, to give the reader a more detailed and realistic understanding of the characters’ situations and backgrounds and the novel as a whole. Morrison
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.
By supporting the competitive nature of dragging other girls down in order to raise themselves up, women are supporting their own oppression. In the Bluest Eye, Claudia is jealous of a young girl who she sees as the perfect white fantasy, taking her insecurities and imposing them upon the newcomer in an attempt to make herself feel whole. Because she has no basis for her hatred she then begins to find reasons to torment the little girl. She remembers, “Freida and I were bemused, irritated, and fascinated by her. We looked hard for flaws to restore our equilibrium… snickering behind her back and calling her Six-finger-dog-tooth-meringue-pie” (Morrison 63). In McBride's book The Color of Water, he shows how his mother experience this brand of hatred in her later years and how it isolated her. He remembered, ¨I noticed that Mommy stood apart from the other mothers, rarely speaking to them… ignoring the stares of the black women as she whisked me away”
...ror of Pecola’s first sexual experience: her father rapes her), and a difficult marriage situation (caused by his own drunkenness). The “bads” certainly outweigh the “goods” in his situation. Thus, the reader ought not to feel sympathy for Cholly. But, Morrison presents information about Cholly in such a way that mandates sympathy from her reader. This depiction of Cholly as a man of freedom and the victim of awful happenings is wrong because it evokes sympathy for a man who does not deserve it. He deserves the reader’s hate, but Morrison prevents Cholly covered with a blanket of undeserved, inescapable sympathy. Morrison creates undeserved sympathy from the reader using language and her depiction of Cholly acting within the bounds of his character. This ultimately generates a reader who becomes soft on crime and led by emotions manipulated by the authority of text.
In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the narrator Claudia tells the story of a girl named Pecola who dreams to have blue eyes so she can feel beautiful in a white society. At the beginning of the novel, Pecola moves into Claudia’s home and becomes friends with Claudia and Frieda, who is Claudia’s older sister. This particular passage on page nineteen describes the three girls eating and playing together. Using three allusions, Shirley Temple, Bojangles, and Jane Withers, this passage highlights the importance of white beauty to the girls, its emphasis in society, and shows that Claudia is independent.
...d person narrative to effectively depict Geraldine’s entire first impressions and judgments of Pecola. Geraldine’s snap reaction to Pecola is solely based on her appearance without even considering her situation. In this sad scene, the third person omniscient narrative conveys Morrison’s message of the severe stereotypes and the toxic nature of appearance-based judgment.
Two of the major instances of sexual abuse present in the novel involved both Mr. Henry with Frieda and Cholly with Pecola. The incident with Mr. Henry, while very serious...
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 novel opens with a passage about Dick and Jane, which, while it may look a little ridiculous initially, it conveys a lot of meaning in terms of social hierarchy. The story of Dick and Jane is considered to be the perfect representation of the ordinary white, happy all American family. This passage takes up a page and a half and is repeated in three en...
The novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is about a young girl named Pecola Breedlove before the novel begins the readers are told that Pecola will be raped by her father. The beginning piece frames the story so the readers know that Pecola’s story ends terribly. The novel focuses on Pecola and her family. In the novel, readers learned that the Breedloves have serious problems with their self-esteem and self-hatred. The Breedloves live their life believing in their ugliness.
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.
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.
The novel The Bluest Eye describes how society was in the 1940’s in America. The novel shows how behind the national image of wealthy white families were the hard workers who faced real world issues. Toni Morrison exposes these problems through the horrific stories through the characters she wrote about. Since the start of the novel, she shows how lives of hard-working African-Americans were much different than the innocent and “clean” ideology.