The Bluest Eye - Pecola as a Victim of Evil By constructing the chain of events that answer the question of how Pecola Breedlove is caste as a pariah in her community, Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eye attempts to satisfy the more difficult question of why. Although, unspoken, this question obsessively hovers over Pecola throughout the novel and in her circular narrative style Morrison weaves a story that seeks to answer this question by gathering all of the forces that were instrumental in the creation
same hardships, driving them to suffering, which other characters in literature encounter. In the book Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, the main character was told from the age of seven the hardships she would encounter in her lifetime (Mukherjee 3). Pecola, from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, experiences rape by her father and the miscarriage of their child. The main character in “Barn Burning,” by William Faulkner, deals with a father that ruins his life and the struggle to stop his father from burning
Claudia and Pecola, about the same age and on about the same social strata, see the world through very different eyes. Claudia is able to intellectualize her experiences and to feel sorrowful guilt for Pecola's plight. She is free to deconstruct dolls and outdated, non-inclusive models of beauty. Pecola, on the other hand, is able to cope only through the delusions that she sees through the bluest eye. Each girl rises to the level that society allows her, and this means that Pecola will always
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
Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, tells the sordid story of Pecola, a young colored girl, as she struggles to attain beauty, desperately praying for blue eyes. Depicting the fallacies in the storybook family, Morrison weaves the histories of the many colored town folk into the true definition of a family. Through intense metaphor and emotion, the ugliness of racial tension overcomes the search for beauty and in turn the search for love. Pecola, a twelve year old from a broken home, is first introduced
character, who leaves us with a feeling of revulsion. Instead, step-by-step, she leads us through Cholly's life and experiences; so in the end, instead of hating him, we feel his pain. Cholly is introduced in the first chapter. He is the father of Pecola. Because of his actions, the whole family has been put out of their home. It was a miserable apartment, as ugly in appearance as the family. Except for Cholly. In his youth he had been big strong long limbed and full of his own fire. Now his
that if they are not slim and have blonde hair and blue eyes, they are not beautiful. This causes women not only to hate the ideal females, but also hate themselves. In Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye two of her main characters, Claudia and Pecola show hatred toward others, and themselves because they are not as beautiful as the supreme females. Claudia's hatred starts at the beginning of the novel when she and her sister are staring at Rosemary Villanucci. Rosemary has what Claudia and
The Impact of Whiteness on Blacks in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye does not focus on direct white oppression of a black community, but rather how whiteness is ingrained in the minds of the black community and serves as a destructive force. There are few white characters introduced in the book, but whiteness and the culturally accepted ideal of whiteness as an indication or measure of beauty is ever present. Morrison's first page, The Dick and Jane story
girl, Pecola, who is abused by almost everyone in her life. Every day she encounters racism, not just from the white people, but also from the African American people. In her eyes, her skin is too dark, and the color of her skin makes her inferior to everyone else. The color of her skin makes her think that she is ugly. She feels that she can overcome this if she can get blue eyes. Pecola thinks that if she can be like the blue eyed Shirley Temple, everyone will love her. Pecola wishes
Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison "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
Claudia narrated most of the book, though the story is mainly about Pecola. Claudia and her sister, Fridea, are, in all visible ways, exactly like Pecola. They are poor, black girls in a world where only white is beautiful and good. The difference is that Claudia and Fridea could ignore society and still love themselves, but Pecola felt that she was worthless because of her black features. The world around Claudia, Fridea, and Pecola is filled with symbols of whiteness. The first thing that is brought
45-50, a continuous dilemma that is depicted is a conflict amongst Pecola and her identity. As stated on page 45 " She had long ago given up the idea of running away to see new pictures, new faces...As long as she looked the way she did, as long as she was ugly, she would have to stay with these people.Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness." Evidently, it can be noted that Pecola had loathed her appearance and yearned for liberation from her family
beauty is contrasted through the characters of Claudia and Pecola. Claudia rejects the childhood icons of white culture: Shirley Temple and the blond, blue-eyed dolls she received as presents. Pecola embraces them to the point of madness. Unloved and unwanted, she believes that her ugliness can only be erased by the virtual embodiment of white beauty, beauty symbolized for her by blue eyes. The widely different views held by Claudia and Pecola are important in understanding the survival of one and the
story of Pecola, a little ugly black girl trying to grow up in rural Ohio during the 1940's. She is despised by white society because she is ugly, black and female, and because she is the antithesis of all that white western culture idolizes: white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. On a disastrous parallel, Pecola is also despised by black society: the society whose support she needs desperately to counter white negativity towards her. Instead of receiving that life-giving support, Pecola is regarded
would have been able to explain to Pecola that although she didn't know exactly how you made someone love you that somehow she knew that she was loved. That love was expressed on those cold autumn nights when Claudia was sick and loving hands would gently touch her forehead and readjust her quilt. Those were the same loving hands that told Claudia that they did not want her to die, and those were the loving hands of her mother, Mrs. MacTeer. Unfortunately, Pecola had no loving hands to comfort her
Toni Morisson's novel The Bluest Eye is about the life of the Breedlove family who resides in Lorain, Ohio, in the late 1930s. This family consists of the mother Pauline, the father Cholly, the son Sammy, and the daughter Pecola. The novel's focal point is the daughter, an eleven-year-old Black girl who is trying to conquer a bout with self-hatred. Everyday she encounters racism, not just from white people, but mostly from her own race. In their eyes she is much too dark, and the darkness of her
Use of Comparative Description in The Bluest Eye Upon reading The Bluest Eye a second time, I noticed something about the nature of Morrison's prose. The term that I have heard to describe the book most frequently is beautiful. The first chapters strike me as both incredibly realistic, and unbelievably beautiful. The fact that Morrison can give a scene where Claudia is actually throwing up on herself a rosy colored, nostalgic tint, and still manage to convey a sense of realism is a testament to
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
Personal Response to The Bluest Eye Dear God: Do you know what she came for? Blue eyes. New, blue eyes, She said. Like she was buying shoes. "I'd like a pair of new blue eyes." Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye Pecola thought that if she had blue eyes she would become beautiful and her parents would stop fighting. She was just one of the many who believed that having blue eyes would make her and everything around her beautiful, only to end up with self-hatred and self-mutilation. Today
In The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, Pecola, a young girl, is driven into madness because of “the effects of the beauty standards of the dominate culture on the self-image of the African female adolescent” (Mbalia 153). Pecola goes unseen in her community not only by her peers but by her mother and father of. Not just one race or one social class that isolates and neglects Pecola either. Pecola’s descent into madness results from isolation and lack of love due to the people’s acceptance of the