Theme Of Beauty In The Bluest Eyes

1100 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Aspect of Racism in The Bluest Eye

In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes the pursuit of affection, perfection, and “beauty” of being white is what drives our characters to divulge into internalized racism and eventually see the destruction of themselves and race. In the beginning of the novel, we are given an example of what people in society see as perfection. The Dick and Jane novels, which show the lives of a happy white American couple, provide the overall standard of perfection and beauty in society. During these times in the 1940’s just by being white gave people more privileges and power over the foreigners or African American population.
Pecola, who is an African American child, is often influenced by how people depict the beauty of her race. She has this wild fascination
Beauty and blue eyes is what Pecola thought would get her the love and affection that so many white people experienced. We as a humans have this deficiency that where we base love and popularity on our appearances. Pecola feels the same way. She feels as if she is inferior to others solely based on her skin color and features “if she was cute—and if anything could be believed, she was—then we were not. And what did that mean? We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser.” Pecola consumption of whiteness is what drives her to believe that one day she will be loved. Whether it is the white milk or the Mary Jane’s, she develops a Eurocentric belief that it’s those qualities of being white will be the only way she is loved. Pecola took all this to heart and it really affected her since she was ugly and black. Eventually, Pecola began getting teased at school and this is significant. The kids pick on her by saying black e mo, black e mo, which is an insult because Pecola is of darker complexion. Maureen, with her sheer beauty and light skin color, was able to stop the attack on Pecola. Since Maureen is light skinned and closer to the “norm” of being white she has power within the school even while being so young. Pecola experiences
Breedlove, also known as Polly, tries to get forget her blackness and becomes fascinated with white culture as well. As a white society they try to get rid of the “blackness” as seen on page 83 “Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies.” Polly has no love affection for poor Pecola and is not close to being an ideal mother either. But this little beautiful white girl with corn blonde hair in a pin dress has caught the attention of Polly. Polly begins to love this white girl more than Pecola, which she does not understand what she has done wrong for so long that this new white girl has taken her mother away from her. Since Polly is consumed with “whiteness” she neglects her own children and family. The best example of this is when Pecola spills the blueberry pie and it stains the white girls dress. The white girl is tainted with the “blackness”, and this angers Polly to the point she beats Pecola. Polly is able to take control of the situation, have order, love and family within the Fishers because it was society calls a perfect home. So consumed with the Fishers and their lifestyle as being white, Polly has a sense of entitlement from working for them. Even when buying meet for the Fishers, Polly only accepts the finest meat but for her family she accepts nothing but the lesser quality meat. Eventually, Polly realizes the comforts that come from the

Show More
Related

  • Janie's Self-Discovery

    1473 Words  | 3 Pages

    Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.

    Read More

  • Anotated Bibliographies for The Bluest Eye

    1994 Words  | 4 Pages

    Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye", is a very important novel in literature, because of the many boundaries that were crosses and the painful, serious topics that were brought into light, including racism, gender issues, Black female Subjectivity, and child abuse of many forms. This set of annotated bibliographies are scholarly works of literature that centre around the hot topic of racism in the novel, "The Bluest Eye", and the low self-esteem faced by young African American women, due to white culture. My research was guided by these ideas of racism and loss of self, suffered in the novel, by the main character Pecola Breedlove. This text generates many racial and social-cultural problems, dealing with the lost identity of a young African American women, due to her obsession with the white way of life, and her wish to have blue eyes, leading to her complete transgression into insanity.

    Read More

  • Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    2708 Words  | 6 Pages

    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 book seeks to define beauty and love in this twisted perverse society, dragging the reader through Morrison’s emotional manipulations. Her father Cholly Breedlove steals the reader’s emotional attention from Pecola as he enters the story. In fact, Toni Morrison’s depiction of Cholly wrongfully evokes sympathy from the reader.

    Read More

  • Self-Hate in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    2420 Words  | 5 Pages

    petitioning for white beauty, Pecola Breedlove is desperately attempting to pull herself out of the

    Read More

  • Toxic, Institutionalized Beauty Standards In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

    1634 Words  | 4 Pages

    Maureen Peal, by insulting the other black girls for being ugly rejects the black side of her identity, conforming to the oppressive qualities of the whitewashed beauty standards demonstrated in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest

    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 by Toni Morrison

    1122 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 signs—all 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.

    Read More

  • Beauty and The Bluest Eye

    416 Words  | 1 Pages

    Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye contributes to the study of the American novel by bringing to light an unflattering side of American history. The story of a young black girl named Pecola, growing up in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 clearly illustrates the fact that the "American Dream" was not available to everyone. The world that Pecola inhabits adores blonde haired blue eyed girls and boys. Black children are invisible in this world, not special, less than nothing. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you lesser was cultivated by both whites and blacks. White skin meant beauty and privilege and that idea was not questioned at this time in history. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person contaminated black people's lives in many different ways. The taunts of schoolboys directed at Pecola clearly illustrate this fact; "It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth" (65). This self hatred also possessed an undercurrent of anger and injustice that eventually led to the civil rights movement.

    Read More

  • Morrison's Bluest Eye Essay: Self-Definition

    2534 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Essay On Gender Roles

    469 Words  | 1 Pages

    Today’s society is reflected on gender roles that affect everyone on a day to day basis, but, in decades to come, our society will evolve and become powerful in our own beliefs of how our gender will be perceived. In the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, gender roles play a major role with African American women and how they perceive themselves as a lower class than the non colored. The masculine persona is that of a dominance over women, as characterized over the years from shows, movies, books, and celebrities. “Women are supposed to cook and do housework.” “Women are supposed to make less money than men.” Over the years, we as a society have changed many stereotypes of women and men and their gender roles. As the years go by, our society is considering and understanding that our role has nothing to do with our gender.

    Read More

  • Social Issues in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    The most damaging interracial confrontation related to color involves Pecola and an adult, Geraldine (Samuels 12). When Pecola enters Geraldine's home at the invitation of her son, Geraldine forces her to leave with words that hurt deeply, saying "Get out... You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house" (92).

    Read More

  • Race And Beauty in Toni Morrison's Novel The Bluest Eye

    1401 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Racial Beauty Standards In The Bluest Eye

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    Claudia tries to resist loving white girls that her sister, Frieda, and friend, Pecola, admires for their beautiful features— blonde hair and blue eyes. Claudia does not believe that Frieda and Pecola should admire girls who do not look like them physically. Unable to convince Frieda and Pecola that white girls are not the only standard of beauty, Claudia begins to have intense feelings of resentment and anger toward the white beauty standard:

    Read More

  • Racism and Sexism in the Bluest Eye

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and the brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with, and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when it concerns gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society.

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Marxism Analysis

    1649 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”: A Marxist reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

    Read More

More about Theme Of Beauty In The Bluest Eyes

Open Document