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Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye narrative
Racism and sexism in Toni Morrison Sula
Racism and sexism in Toni Morrison Sula
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Toni Morrison depicts the hard ship and intersectionality strongly within Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove, and “The whores,” by expressing the cultural and economic tumors of being a Black woman during the 1940s. Though the 1940s, after the Great Depression, it was hard for Black women to prosper in what was a white world. This cause many black people to migrate. During the Great Migration, African Americans began to build a new place for themselves in public life, actively confronting economic, political and social challenges and creating a new black urban culture that would exert enormous influences in the decades to come (History.com.). Blacks moved from the south to the north in hopes of finding better living conditions and to start a family. Morrison shows readers this by placing Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove, and “The whores” as adversities in the Black community. Racially biases was still a prevalent issues and this played a role in each character. The Bluest Eye also provides an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards alter the lives of black girls and women. In the “The Bluest Eye,” Mrs. Pauline “Polly” Breedlove is a black …show more content…
Back in the 1940s, lighter skin was a better look. If you were a dark black girl, you were seen as dirty and lesser. Since Pecola was a dark skin with wooly hair, she was accepted openly. To be beautiful, you need “blue eyes.” Pecola’s hardship of being an “ugly” black girl growing up around whites was hard for her. She believed she was ugly, because she is bullied and tormented. Pecola is a fragile and delicate child when the novel begins, and by the middle of the book, she has been almost completely worn-out by hurt and shame. Pecola is a symbol of the black community’s self-hatred and belief in its own ugliness. Others in the community, like her mother, father, and Geraldine, act out their own self-hatred by expressing hatred toward
Trends that can be noticed in these entries are the main focal point, which the authors all seem to cover, that is racism and the social-cultural problems created for young African American women. Many of the authors seemed to blame white culture, or the colourist culture for the problem of lost identity in black girls. They seemed to take the same direction in their articles, but many took different routes in explaining and proving their point. These ideas seemed to be arranged by the stating that Pecola Breedlove is a lost little black girl, who because of her idea that being white would solve all her family and life problems, loses her true self. The authors would then blame the white culture for this deficiency in the young mind of an African American girl.
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.
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, 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.
The narrative structure of The Bluest Eye is important in revealing just how pervasive and destructive the “racialization” (Morrison’s term for the racism that is a part of every person’s socialization) is (Leflore). Morrison is particularly concerned about the narration in her novels. She says, “People crave narration . . . That’s the way they learn things” (Bakerman 58). Narration in The Bluest Eye comes from several sources. Much of the narration comes from Claudia MacTeer as a nine year old child, but Morrison also gives the reader the benefit of Claudia reflecting on the story as an adult, some first person narration from Pecola’s mother, and narration by Morrison herself as an omniscient narrator. Morrison says, “First I wrote it [the section in The Bluest Eye about Pecola’s mother] out as an ‘I’ story, but it didn’t work . . . Then I wrote it out as a ‘she’ story, and that didn’t work . . . It was me, the author, sort of omnipotent, talking” (Bakerman 59). Morrison intentionally kept Pecola from any first person narration of the story. Morrison wanted to “try to show a little girl as a total and complete victim of whatever was around her,” and she needed the distance and innocence of Claudia’s narration to do that (Stepto 479).
She faces constant criticism, has an aggressive home life, and lives in a society that considers beauty as being white, which negatively affects Pecola and leads her to fantasize about becoming more beautiful. She feels the only way to Morrison uses Shirley Temple to show Pecola’s fondness for beauty. Shirley Temple was a popular young actress during the 1930’s, and was known for her curly blonde hair and blue eyes. Pecola developed a fascination for Shirley Temple cups, “she was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirley’s face”(pg.23). This image shows that Pecola believes that having blue eyes will maker her life like Shirley making her more like a white child. Another instance showing this is when Pecola goes to the store she buys the candy Mary Jane, which has a girl with blue eyes on the wrapper. We see her fascination with Mary Jane’s blue eyes, and she felt if she ate the candy she would become Mary Jane. This is shown when Morrison writes, “To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane”(pg.50) When it comes to Pecola mother, there is similar racial self-loathing manifested in her as
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.
... when they read about racism. The characters deal with an internal polarization that forms with racism and the idea of beauty that has been deeply rooted into the character’s psyche. The seed of the distorted view of beauty and race grows throughout the novel and challenges the characters values in terms of how they view society and how they view themselves. Even the simple comparison of Maureen’s light skin, which is considered to be attractive, and Pecola’s dark skin, which is ‘ugly’ is the perfect example of how race affect people on a deeper and personal level. “The Bluest Eye” isn’t meant to be a novel that is supposed to overlook the physical effects of racism, it’s meant to offer a deeper look into the issues of the pressure African American people had to deal with during the Great Depression and how it devastates even the most basic human principles.
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.
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.
In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, we are supplied an expanded interpretation of how “whiteness” is the standard of beauty, which twists the lives of African American women and children. The theme of race and that white skin is considered superior is portrayed through stories told by the characters, especially Pecola and her family. There’s a wide spread of sexual violence within the novel suggesting that racism, poverty and white supremacy aren’t the only things that distort African American women’s perception of themselves. Through the struggles they have encountered, Morrison shows us the catastrophic effect of this idea of white beauty on black individuals and on society. Poverty is an issue faced all over our country.
Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a 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 concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about the racism of lighter colored blacks against darker colored blacks and rich blacks against poor blacks. Along with racism within the black community, sexism is exemplified both against women and against men. As Morrison investigates the racism and sexism of the community of Lorain, Ohio, she gives the reader more perspective as to why certain characters do or say certain things.
“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, is a story about the life of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who is growing up during post World War I. She prays for the bluest eyes, which will “make her beautiful” and in turn make her accepted by her family and peers. The major issue in the book, the idea of ugliness, was the belief that “blackness” was not valuable or beautiful. This view, handed down to them at birth, was a cultural hindrance to the black race.
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