In From Margin to Center, bell hooks states that “We must learn the true value of sisterhood” (hooks, pg. 43). Sisterhood, female bonding, friendship plays a key role in any female’s life. We can see a positive example of this in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda, and how not having a strong female bond can affect you with the relationship of Pecola and her mother. Today, we will discuss the importance of sisterhood, female bonding, and friendship, as well as analyze the importance of sisterhood and female bonds within the two examples from The Bluest Eye. Sisterhood, female bonding, and friendship all play an important role in the feminist movement. In Margin to Center, bell hooks states that “women are the group …show more content…
Claudia and Frieda are the only people in Pecola’s life that will play and socialize with her. Claudia, for example tends to be rebellious throughout the novel, but in kind when it comes to Pecola. Not only does Claudia seem to genuinely care and love Pecola, she feels guilty about Pecola’s faith. The same goes for Frieda. Frieda defends her sister Claudia, as well as Pecola. At the end novel, when Claudia and Frieda learn about Pecola’s pregnancy, they sacrificed the money that they had been saving up from selling marigold seeds all summer as a payment to God, in hopes that it would help Pecola’s baby survive (Morrison, pg. 191-192). This is a true example of what affects a positive sisterhood and friendship can have on a girl. Not only were Claudia and Frieda good friends to Pecola by playing and socializing with her looking past what everyone else saw as “ugly” and getting to know her better, but they also sacrificed something that they had worked so hard to get in hopes to help Pecola. This is the true meaning of friendship. Claudia and Frieda’s kindness and love that they show have a positive impact on Pecola’s life despite all the negativity she faces on a daily basis, and helps push her to keep going in …show more content…
African American females face so much oppression from race, gender, and sex that they need all the support that they can possibly have. This is why strong female relationships are important, so that females can have someone to turn to, someone who has their back, and someone who will build them up. Throughout The Bluest Eye you see how the positive relationship between Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola helps Pecola cope with what is going on in her life, but you also see how quickly her negative relationship with her mother can tear her down. This is why it is important for females to always strive to make a positive impact in the lives of other females, because one negative relationship can undo all the work that a positive relationship has on someone and cause them to fall apart. So we must focus on building each other up as women rather than tearing each other
Much of life results from choices we make. How we meet every circumstance, and also how we allow those circumstances to affect us dictates our life. In Marian Minus’s short story, “Girl, Colored," we are given a chance to take a look inside two characters not unlike ourselves. As we are given insight into these two people, their character and environment unfolds, presenting us with people we can relate to and sympathize with. Even if we fail to grasp the fullness of a feeling or circumstance, we are still touched on our own level, evidencing the brilliance of Minus’s writing.
In examining the two distinct characters of Nel (Wright) Greene and Sula Peace from Toni Morrison's Sula, a unique individual soul emerges from the two women. This soul takes into account good, bad, and gray area qualities. They gray area qualities are needed because, while Nel exhibits more of the stereotypical "good" qualities than Sula, the stereotypes of good and bad don't fit the definition completely. Nel and Sula combined create a type of ying and yang soul, each half including some of the other half. While at times the two women are polar opposites of one another in point of view, they arrive at their opinions with the help of the other. The two characters need each other in order to exist to the extent that they become "two throats and one eye" (Morrison 2167). A physical example of how connected the two girls are is seen when they line up head to head forming a straight, continuous, and complete line (2124).
During the second week of class, we were instructed to read a reading written by Bell Hooks titled “Come closer to Feminism.” This reading is what I consider to be a very important addition to this unit. Unit one is all about Making waves, Confronting Oppression. According to Frye, it is a fundamental claim of feminism that women are oppressed (Frye, 1983). Before taking upon this reading, my understanding of the feminist movement was not nearly as clear as it is now. After reading this short handbook, I too agree that feminism is for everybody.
...dia's position on the outside of everything forces her into a position of greater strength. Although hurt, the observations she makes mold her into being able to handle difficulties more easily. The loss of innocence which Claudia faces unintentionally is vital to the role she plays in society and in her life. Her thoughts hold a more realistic view of life and human behavior. She sees the pains and sorrows that life truly is constructed of. Claudia feels that she has missed out on so many opportunities and is not included the way others are. Her strong character generates a feeling of both isolation and separation, but, in reality, she tastes life more closely than most people are able to in a lifetime. Although Claudia's passion to be included is unrequited, she is filled with the strength, character, and pain that make her a more knowledgeable and resilient person.
As a child, Claudia seems to resent black exploitation from the past as she does not embody the longing for ‘white perfection’ as other characters do. After receiving a white doll with blue eyes as a present, Claudia resents it and states ‘I could not love it’ (p. 19). It could be argued that the doll symbolizes prejudice against black people and how the appearance of white skin and blue eyes is preferred. As Claudia does not favour the white stereotype, it seems as though she is not living in a state of self -hatred that seems to stem from the past and live on in the present for others. Claudia and Pecola Breedlove are in the same age group, yet it could be argued that she does not affiliate herself with the same longing that Pecola feels to be ‘saved’ from black injustice by the appearance of blue eyes. Furthermore, it is argued by a critic that ‘Claudia MacTeer is Morrison’s persona in the novel, her fictional “second self” . The Bluest Eye seems to reflect this, as Morrison wants to highlight black prejudice by opposing it in her novel. It could be suggested that Morrison uses Claudia in the novel to represent her own resentment and need to break away from the past, stopping it living on in her own present, as well as the present of society. Claudia seems to provide a sense of hopefulness for the future rather than a cycle of personal antagonism, represented in
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”
Towards the middle of the memoir, the theme is shown through the irony of Jeannette’s mother’s situation as well as Jeannette’s feelings towards
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.
Beauty is dangerous, especially when you lack it. In the book "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, we witness the effects that beauty brings. Specifically the collapse of Pecola Breedlove, due to her belief that she did not hold beauty. The media in the 1940's as well as today imposes standards in which beauty is measured up to; but in reality beauty dwells within us all whether it's visible or not there's beauty in all; that beauty is unworthy if society brands you with the label of being ugly.
Social class is a major theme in the book The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison is saying that there are dysfunctional families in every social class, though people only think of it in the lower class. Toni Morrison was also stating that people also use social class to separate themselves from others and apart from race; social class is one thing Pauline and Geraldine admire.Claudia, Pecola, and Frieda are affected by not only their own social status, but others social status too - for example Geraldine and Maureen Peal. Characters in the book use their social class as another reason for being ugly. Readers are reminded of the theme every time a new character enters into the book.
In the novel, women were affected by racism and gender role equality more than men. Pecola is one if the main characters, and she deals with the figure of a man who violates her. The female characters in the novel were apprehended by females roles that made them feel like they were non existent. Each character had their own personality. Claudia, another character in the novel escapes her suffering by pulling apart from Shirley Temple dolls. The expectations of theses women in the novel have been created through our society, and how we view our gender
“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.
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
In the book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center written by bell hooks, an African-American author, social activist and feminist first published in 1984 the author explains what she believes are the core principles of feminism. Throughout the book the author examines the early feminist theory and goes on to criticize it saying that it did not aim for a systematic change also that the movement has the potential to improve the lives of both men and women immensely. In the book the author investigates the performance of African-American women in the movement and what is needed to drive the movement towards ending oppression of all kinds.