In the novel The Bluest Eye, one girl desires to have blue eyes. Pecola Breedlove sees importance in having blue eyes. She grows up in a town where in most cases she is not accepted for what she looks like. Her town is full of race and people judging others by the way they look. We see this even through her family atmosphere, her mother is convinced that everyone in the Breedlove family is not attractive in anyway. This has a negative effect on Pecola mainly because she wants to be like everyone else instead of always feeling different from those around her. In Pecola’s life she is surrounded by fighting and hate. Her parents are always fighting and she sees in her community problems with race. One of the reasons she wants blue eyes is so maybe she can see things with a new view. She hopes that there can be love and acceptance in her life. In Toni Morrisons’ novel The Bluest Eye, Pecola desires to have blue eyes because she reads the Dick and Jane pre primers with girls who have blue eyes, she desires love and acceptance in …show more content…
Pecola does not have many friends, most people at her school are always telling her what should be different about her. Some of these things have to do with the color of her skin and how that affects her everyday life in society. Maureen places the idea in Pecola’s head that she can not be pretty, “I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e pos. I am cute!” (Morrison 73). Pecola hears these words, even though she is not involved in the conversation. This still has a huge affect on her because this words are applying to her as well as Frieda. Just because she is black and does not have blue eyes she can be considered ugly and not like everyone else. This infuriates her but also she does not take action because she knows that this could be true. She sees the blue eyes as an idol, but she wants this for
Throughout the novel, Pecola is easily manipulated into believing what society tells her, and soon becomes fixated in achieving “beauty”. Due to certain events, Pecola comes to believe that beauty is the panacea to her life’s problems and the key to happiness, demonstrating how manipulating the Master Narrative can be. One of the more subtle events that affect Pecola’s mindset is when she goes to purchase a Mary Jane candy bar. When Pecola goes up to Mr. Yacobowski with her money, he barely acknowledges her: “At some fixed point in time and space he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see” (48). To Mr. Yacobowski, Pecola is so far from the socially acceptable standards: she is a black, poor, and ugly child. Mr. Yacobowski’s blunt ignorance is similar to many other people’s reactions when Pecola is around. Pecola doesn’t know how to think for herself yet, and from this encounter she is forced to see herself, in the eyes of Mr....
Pecola has been taught that white is the standard by which all beauty is judged. She prays for blue eyes...
As Harper Lee phrased the famous quote, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Lee’s quote appears in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which explores racial and cultural stereotypes, exemplifies the differences between good and evil, and challenges the reader to find empathy for societal outcasts. Growing up in Lorain, Ohio during the Great Depression era, Morrison, raised by parents who moved to the North to escape southern racism, learned to value African American heritage and recognize situations, regarding alienated people, as unfair. Morrison’s unique upbringing has developed a conscientious perspective within her that gives her the advantage to speak not only with truth, but experience as well. While possessing a thoroughly defined perspective herself, Morrison is capable of weaving topics and messages meaningful to her into the divergent viewpoints of her many characters. Toni Morrison uses different points of view throughout the novel, The Bluest Eye, to give the reader a more detailed and realistic understanding of the characters’ situations and backgrounds and the novel as a whole. Morrison
“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
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.
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'"
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison employs structure as an aid for telling her story. She uses at least three unique structural devices for this purpose. First, Morrison begins the novel with three passages that prepare the reader for the shocking tale about to be told. Second, the novel is divided into four major parts with each quarter given the name of a season. Third, the novel is further divided into seven sections that are headed by a portion of the passage that began the novel.