Personal Response to The Bluest Eye
Dear God:
Do you know what she came for? Blue eyes. New, blue eyes, She said. Like she was buying shoes. "I'd like a pair of new blue eyes." Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Pecola thought that if she had blue eyes she would become beautiful and her parents would stop fighting. She was just one of the many who believed that having blue eyes would make her and everything around her beautiful, only to end up with self-hatred and self-mutilation. Today the more sophisticated and affluent among us use plastic surgery to fix thick lips and wide noses. No longer do we have to suffer with Negroid crinkles, contours and curves. But oh, those tell-tale eyes.
It would have been easy for me to share the same sentiments as Pecola. The ideal girl had always been shown in my nursery books as having blond hair and blue eyes. Furthermore, the advertisements shown on television, in magazines and at the movies had all displayed the same ideal beauty as my nursery books did. However, the difference between Pecola and me was we had different mothers.
Most important, children learn behaviors from their parents, and most children identify with the parent of the same sex and internalize his or her behavioral pattern. Pecola's mother, Pauline, was consumed with the unhealthy ideals of the society and so she was unable to be a proper role model to her daughter. Instead, she forced her fears on her daughter. My mother, on the other hand, gave to me a strong foundation on which to build from. She respected and valued herself, and as a result, I was able to develop a strong sense of self. However, like Pauline my mother was also taken in by society's views. Soc...
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...he situation. Within her home she wanted power and she would take it no matter whom she had to take it from. I can remember being mad with mama for starting an argument over simple things such as papa forgetting to take the garbage out. Over the years, my father learned to "put up"with my mother's outbursts, for unlike Cholly, my father loved his wife. In fact, I honestly think my father knew all along what his wife craved. It was only after reading certain sections of The Bluest Eye that I was able to comprehend and see that my mother's frustration with me was not because I spoke too much but because she had no say in the society in which she lived. In addition, I think she was preparing me for a society in which women were to be seen and not heard.
Works Consulted:
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Afterward by Toni Morrison. New York: Penguin, 1994.
Pecola has been taught that white is the standard by which all beauty is judged. She prays for blue eyes...
Memoirs of A Geisha is an exotic fable is about a young, innocent girl named Chiyo (9 years old in 1929) who lives in a poor fishing village in Yoroido with her older sister Satsu, her father and sick mother. Since Chiyo’s mother was going to die soon and her father couldn’t do much to support their family, he sold his two daughters into slavery to a renowned geisha house. The bluest eyes in comparison has an extremely different story line due to the fact that the books are based around two completely different cultures. However the themes and messages portrayed in these books are that of a similar nature told through different perspectives. The Bluest Eye is about a young girl named Pecola. Her innermost desire is to have the "bluest" eyes so that others will view her as pretty, in the end that desire is what finishes her, she believes that God gives her blue eyes causing her insanity. Both of these books use extensive description which is brought out through the characters and narrators.
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.
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.
Technology and tradition affects everyone who plays golf, especially those who have a passion for the game. It’s no secret that the technologies of golf have altered the game, but are these alterations harming the game? The game is surely changing, introducing new technologies that have greater forgiveness, making it such that a weekend golfer can still obtain better scores. The most interesting aspect of the game is the evolution of the equipment itself, and how the United States Golf Association (USGA) has regulated to protect the integrity of the game.
Isaac Newton’s story of how an apple falling from a tree that hit his head inspired him to formulate a theory of gravitation is one that all school children grow up hearing about. Newton is arguably one of the most influential scientific minds in human history. He has published books such as Arithmetica Universalis, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Methods of Fluxions, Opticks, the Queries, and most famously, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia MathematicaHe formulated the three laws of gravitation, discovered the generalized binomial theorem, developed infinitesimal calculus (sharing credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz, who developed the theory independently), and worked extensively on optics and refraction of light. Newton changed the way that people look at the world they live in and how the universe works.
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.”
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'"
The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison tells the story of several African Americans living in the rural south from 1910 to 1941. One of the main characters in the book happens to be Pecola Breedlove. Throughout the book Pecola encounters many hardships. Her problems range from home, school, extracurricular activities; even if she is walking down the street she has a problem with someone. It is very obvious that during this time period, white people are not that fond of African Americans and you would think that Pecola has the most trouble with. When in all actuality, many of the problems she encountered where her own people so to speak. The people who bullied her felt that because she was a darker skin tone that she was a target.
"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 with 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 should be 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. According to literary educator Allen Alexander, even though Cholly was cripplingly flawed and often despicable, he was a more “genuine” person to Pecola than Pauline was (301). Alexander went on to claim that while Cholly raped Pecola physically, Pauline and Soaphead Church both raped her mental wellbeing (301). Alexander is saying that the awful way Pecola was treated in a routine matter had an effect just as great if not greater than Cholly’s terrible assault. The abuse that Pecola lived through was the trigger that shattered her mind. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses the characters of Cholly Breedlove and Frieda McTeer to juxtapose sexual violence and mental maltreatment in order to highlight the terrible effects of mental abuse.
A roller coaster is a thrill ride found in amusement and theme parks. Their history dates back to the 16th century. It all started in Russia, with long, steep wooden slides covered in ice. The idea then traveled to France. Since the warmer climate melted the ice, waxed slides were created instead, eventually adding wheels to the system. The first roller coaster in which the train was attached to the track was in France in 1817, the Russess a Belleville. The first attempt at a loop-the loop was also made in France in the 1850s. It was called the Centrifuge Railway. However, government officials quickly diminished the idea when the first accident occurred. Inventors since then have continued to capitalize on people’s love of a great thrill, always trying to make them bigger, faster and scarier!
... 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.
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.