The Bluest Eye Racism

1886 Words4 Pages

The Bluest Eye is an exceptionally written novel which reveals the fictional traumatic life of an eleven year old African American girl named Pecola Breedlove. This novel takes place in the town of Lorain, Ohio during the 1940’s and focuses on the racism that the characters endured throughout the story. This story is told from the perspective of a young African American girl named Claudia MacTeer. She and her sister, Frieda MacTeer become witnesses to the terrible circumstances Pecola is terribly and unintentionally put through. Pecola chooses to hide from her life due to her constant fear and her everlasting dream of being thought of as beautiful, and possessing blue eyes. The Breedlove’s constant conflict filled lives and ever growing poverty …show more content…

Pecola’s innocence is ripped from her grasp when her father rapes her physically and mentally. The community deals with its own insecurities but are taken out on this poor, “ugly”, black young girl. She protects herself from this sorrow behind her obsessive longing for beautiful blue eyes. To her surprise, her eyes do not replace the pain of the racial struggles she faces or the carrying her father’s baby. In The Bluest Eye, racism and beauty are approached in a very unconventional way. The characters in the novel are led to a set of values that are broken. The black community has accepted white beauty standards which causes judgement towards those with lighter or darker skin. This judgement causes a rise in Pecola’s obsessive desire to have blue eyes. This novel discusses intense negative and disturbing situations which …show more content…

Geraldine works her entire life to reach and maintain a standard of beauty. Her obsession with her appearance and beauty is so significant that she is only concerned with their hairpins while having intercourse with men. This obsession of retaining the standard of beauty also separates the women from their family. In Geraldine's case, the husband married her because of her pervasive cleanliness, and does not expect anything more. The relationship between the couple is similar to a well oiled machine. The effects that this has on the children are profound. From an early age, Junior is taught that he is better than the other children that live around him, and that playing with them is beneath him and causes him to look bad. This creates extreme superiority within Junior, and it isolates him to being alone and away from the other children. Although he wants to have fun with them, he is not allowed because he would no longer be

Show More
Related

  • Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    480 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the novel, The Bluest Eye, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove. Pecola longs for acceptance from the world. She is an innocent little girl, however, she is rejected practically by the whole world, and her own parents. Pecola endures physical and verbal abuse at home, and also at school. She is always the main character in the jokes that usually refer to her very dark skin. Her mother cherishes the white daughter of the family she works for and calls her own daughter a "rotten piece of apple. Her father Cholly is constantly drunk, and sexually molests her daughter more than once, eventually rapes and impregnates her.

    Read More

  • Maslow And Pecola's Hierarchy

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    Unable in her home environment to have properly achieved stable levels of “Physiological Health”, “Safety” or “Belonging” on ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Basic Needs’, Pecola couldn’t achieve a sense of self-esteem and therefore self-actualization. Hence, “she, stepped over into madness” (T. Morrison 1970) and spent her days talking to her imaginary friend about her imaginary blue eyes. As Vickroy says, “Pecola’s belief that she has blue eyes more importantly symbolize the trauma of not being loved.” (L.Vickroy, 2002). We see in the novel that Pecola innocently seeks a physical reason for her lack of being loved by her parents and classmates “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her

    Read More

  • Metamorphosis in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

    2188 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Bluest Eye focuses on the difficulties of transitioning from child to woman. Morrison says that the ideal child is worry-free, vulnerable, and curious by introducing characters like Pecola, Claudia, and Jane. She contrasts the girls by giving adult qualities of maturity, the ability to nurture, independence, and community bonding. In the form of rape or a lack of interest from mother figures, the feeling of being unloved is detrimental to girls in their transition. In order to make the transition a woman needs to find herself through community and family. Morrison reminds us that in reality the vital transition from childhood to adulthood is filled with barriers that many fail to overcome.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    1866 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The novel addresses the psychological and political implications of black people’s commitment to a standard of beauty (the blonde-haired, blue-eyed ideal)…” (Smith 364). Her desire to have blue eyes was so strong that once she was told her prayers had been granted, she never saw herself the same way again. From that moment on Pecola Breedlove believed that her eyes were blue. The last chapter of The Bluest Eye shows the dialogue between Pecola, and an imaginary figure whom Pecola had created, discussing the blueness of her

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Character Analysis Essay

    1088 Words  | 3 Pages

    Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, focuses on the life of Pecola Breedlove and her unstable family. Pecola is a little girl with very low self-esteem, she is always trying her hardest to fit in with others. She becomes an outcast due to her lack of finer things and having only little things in life. At the age of eleven years old, she is experiencing things that she should not have to deal with at all as a child.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    2708 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Bluest Eye Allusions

    850 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Search for Perfection in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    1182 Words  | 3 Pages

    The concept of physical beauty and desire to conform to a prescribed definition of what is considered beautiful can destroy a person's life. In Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye, many characters are obsessed with attaining the idealist definition of what is considered beautiful. The characters of Geraldine, Pauline, and Pecola all believe that physical perfection leads to acceptance; however, it is the same belief that causes their personal downfalls and prevents them from recognizing their own inner beauty.

    Read More

  • Quest for Personal Identity in The Bluest Eye

    2750 Words  | 6 Pages

    Brought up as a poor unwanted girl, Pecola Breedlove desires the acceptance and love of society. The image of "Shirley Temple beauty" surrounds her. In her mind, if she was to be beautiful, people would finally love and accept her. 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 pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty [blue] eyes'" (Morrison 46).  Many people have helped imprint this ideal of beauty on her. Mr. Yacowbski as a symbol for the rest of society's norm, treats her as if she were invisible. "He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper... see a little black girl?" (Morrison 48). Her classmates also have an effect on her.  They seem to think that because she is not beautiful, she is not worth anything except as the focal point of their mockery. "Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepsnekked. Black e mo black e mo ya dadd sleeps nekked.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    "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.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Theme Essay

    1858 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... 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.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Social Issues in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Family Relationships in Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    1780 Words  | 4 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Marxism Analysis

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about The Bluest Eye Racism

Open Document