The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

1122 Words3 Pages

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 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. In the 1940's as well as present day, the media pushed on society an image of perfection and beauty. This image is many times fake, but the naive cannot deceive, and it can become an icon of beauty. If you do not fall within the image then you are ugly. In the book "The Bluest Eye," we witness the power that the media has on specific characters: Pecola Breedlove, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer. The icon of beauty at that point in time is Shirley Temple, a white girl with blond hair and blue eyes. She is also the first reference to beauty in the book. Claudia explains her feelings towards Shirley Temple by saying, "...I had felt a stranger, more frightening thing than hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world" (19). Claudia is relating the hatred that she felt towards Shirley Temple to the envy she has towards girls who are beautiful like Shirley. Claudia herself knows that the media is trying to imply this image she says, "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signsall the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured" (20). This idea is repeated repetitively throughout the story, the idea that blue-eyed is beautiful. Frieda and Pecola love Shirley Temple while Claudia despises her with envy. Pecola once goes to purchase some candies called Mary Janes, she is very intrigued by the blue-eyed, blond girl in the wrapper. The narrator tells us that Pecola feels Mary Jane's eyes are pretty and that by eating the candy she feels the love that she has for the girl on the wrapper and she finds herself closer to her (50). The idea pushed by the media that blue eyes are beautiful builds up a strong destructive desire in Pecola.

The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison
1334 Words | 3 Pages
Inspiration The Bluest Eye is a novel written by a creative writer Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison uses this book as inspiration to recognize the true meaning of valuing yourself. This book was written for the public so that it could shadow how young girls should admire self love.
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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.
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1161 Words | 3 Pages
Because young girls and women around the world are beginning to alter themselves to fit a certain mold, people are starting to realize that a pretty face and one’s youth is a factor that has been hurting the world for many years. So much so that a person is willing to kill to obtain beauty. This is truly and amazing yet sickening fact and the more we emphasize on one’s appearance the more catastrophes like this will happen.
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1113 Words | 3 Pages
Home is about a Korean War veteran named Frank Money who needs to save his sister from dying. The story starts with Frank describing a scene from his childhood with his sister. They were in a field with horses he describes the horses being beautiful and brutal, but on the other side some men were burying a dead African American in a hole. When Frank becomes an adult he is soon committed to a mental hospital after his time in the war. Frank soon gets a letter stating that his sister was in danger and could die if he did not hurry to save her. Then he remembers his family being evicted and not being able to take any possessions. Frank then escapes the bastion of the hospital on his way to save his sister from the mysterious person. On his way Frank Money meets many different people who offer their assistance to him because he is not wealthy. Frank makes his way to Atlanta to continue the search for is sister but is attacked by gang of thugs, who steal his wallet and hit him with a pipe. After trying to find his sister he finds his sister being an experimental patient to Dr. Beau, a doctor who conducted experiments on colored civilians. After Frank saves his sister he takes her to some friends to help her get better from the experiments. While there his sister starts to make a quilt while she got better, which they eventually laid over the man’s bones, who was lynched, when they were kids. They nailed a sign to the tree as a sign of respect showing that someone was buried there beneath the tree. Finally, after nailing the sign, Frank looks at the tree for a while thinking of everything that has happened, then his sister Cee walks over and tells him it’...
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A Hunger for Love and Respect in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
2467 Words | 5 Pages
The Bluest Eye (1970), Toni Morrison’s first novel, is written during her teaching at Howard University, focuses on the oppression of the Black female characters Pauline, Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda. The American concept of beauty becomes necessary for black African- American in order to mingle into the mainstream. Pecola suffers an inferiority complex since from her childhood because she is ugly and black and nobody loves her as Pecola comes from a poor family, cut off from the normal life of a community and faces final humiliation and betrayal from her own father. Cholly rapes Pecola. Pecola’s move to the company of the whores shows the signals of her utter sense of loneliness. Pecola Breedlove in the novel is oppressed not only due to racism but also due to classism and sexism. Ugliness, poverty and violence are the reasons of her humiliation. Sufferings are the friend of Pecola and her hunger for love and respect leads her to the world of fantasy.
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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.
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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.
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English Comparative Essay
1446 Words | 3 Pages
In the 1940’s where “The Bluest Eye” is set, racism is evident and beauty is largely associated with whiteness. The idealization of light skin can be seen all throughout the book, with constant referrals to white icons of the time. The level of persecution Pecola endures as a result of her dark skin tone leads to her obsession for blue eyes, a symbol of beauty in the predominantly African- American society she grows up. She believes that “if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” This quote explores the complexities of Pecola’s situation through the use of emotive language, as she only desires blue eyes not to conform to the western standards of beauty but as a method to relieve the passive suffering she endures as a result of difficult familial
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Beauty Standards In The Bluest Eye
257 Words | 1 Pages
In The Bluest eye, there are many social elements promoting white people’s beauty standards. Shirley Temple, who is the girl that is featured in the cup that Pecola likes, is white person. The movies Pauline went to see shows white men taking good care of their women while living in big clean houses. The girl featured on the candy that Pecola likes is a white girl, Mary Janes. Simply put, Pecola and Claudia, Frieda are all surrounded by the social environment promoting white women as a beauty standard. Because of that, they just accept that they are not pretty. Though harsh social environment did not bring Claudia and Frieda to ruin, it did affect Pecola gravely. She believes that she is not receiving any love from her mother because of her
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Sula by Toni Morrison
1225 Words | 3 Pages
“Sula" by Tony Morrison is the story of a friendship between Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who are opposites in the way of relating to other people, to the world around them, and to themselves. Nel is rational and balanced; she gets married and gives in to conformity and the town's expectations. Sula is an irrational and transient character. She follows her immediate passions, completely unaware of the feelings other people might have. However, Nel and Sula are able to function well only when they are together because they complete each other as opposites. However, as separate entities, Sula and Nel are vulnerable and isolated from the rest of world; Sula because she is impulsive and disregards the feelings of other people, and Nel because she overlooks her own.
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The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
1109 Words | 3 Pages
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.
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Racial Beauty Standards In The Bluest Eye
1353 Words | 3 Pages
In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the character Claudia struggles with a beauty standard that harms her sense of self-esteem. Claudia tries to make sense of why the beauty standard does not include black girls. The beauty standard determines that blonde-haired blue-eyed white girls are the image of beauty and therefore they are worthy of not only attention, but are considered valuable to American culture of the 1940s. Thus, learning she has no value or beauty as a black girl, Claudia destroys her white doll in an attempt to understand why white girls are beautiful and subsequently worthy, socially superior members of society. In destroying the doll, Claudia attempts to destroy the beauty standard that works to make her feel socially inferior and ugly because of her skin color. Consequently, Claudia's destruction of the doll works to show how the beauty standard was created to keep black females from feeling valuable by producing a sense of self-hate in black females. The racial loathing created within black women keeps them as passive objects and, ultimately, leads black women, specifically Pecola, to destroy themselves because they cannot attain the blue eyes of the white beauty standard.
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Are Women Slaves to Fashion and Beauty?
1707 Words | 4 Pages
I would like to begin with the fact that women have always been known to dedicate their time to beauty. Those who are devoted to their appearance most often believe that beauty brings power, popularity, and success. Women believe this, because they grow up reading magazines that picture beautiful women in successful environments; not to mention they are popular models and world famous individuals. Beautiful women are no longer just a priority for most advertising, but we have become a walking target for the working class employers. It is documented that better-looking attorneys earn more than others after five years of practice, which was an effect that grew with experience (Biddle, 172). We cannot overlook the fact that it is always the most popular and most beautiful girl who becomes homecoming-queen or prom-queen. While these are possible positive effects of the "beauty myth," the negative results of female devotion to beauty undercut this value. These effects are that it costs a lot of money, it costs a lot of time, and in the long run, it costs a lot of pain.
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Pecola In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison
446 Words | 1 Pages
In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison sates the difficult time some of the characters in the story ply. This novel took place in Lorain Ohio, where a group of young girl were trying to find there identify. Pecola Breedlove one of the girls
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The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison