Posted by Nicole Smith, Jan 15, 2012PoetryNo CommentsPrint Pages: 1 2 While her mother repeatedly engaged with the notion of white superiority and neglected herself and her daughter as well as engaged in self-hatred, her case pales in comparison to that of her daughter. Pecola represents the most complex case of the destructive idealization of white culture and subsequent denial and obliteration of black identity and is the tragic symbol in Morrison’s attempt to detail this legacy of racism. By the end of the novel, she exchanged her mind for the blue eyes she thought would make her loved and is even further ostracized by the community that failed to see its part in what happened. The inherent sense of being ugly and unworthy is a main part …show more content…
Aside from her good treatment by Claudia and Frieda, Pecola is ostracized in her community and even by her mother, who prefers cleanliness and the orderly life of the white family she works for or the simplicity of beautiful women and men on film to her real life in the storefront. By thinking that having blue eyes will make people love her, Pecola is expressing a wish that has double-significance to the main ideas Morrison is presenting for readers. On the one hand, there is the more obvious idea that blue eyes, which are associated with whiteness (which is, in itself, a non-color) means that she will be racially accepted. On another level, by wishing to change her eyes and thinking that this change will allow her to see things differently, Pecola is wishing that she could blind herself from the self-hatred in her family and community. Morrison is offering readers a complex understanding of this self-hatred that perpetuates many of the problems characters have by first offering a solution by non-color, only to show that this leads to blindness and insanity as in itself, it is nothingness. She is working through the culturally-confirmed ideas of white superiority as it exists in …show more content…
In her revelations, particularly when she reminisces, she offers a shining ray of hope in an otherwise bleak novel as far as the topic of festering black self-hatred is concerned. She is such a beacon of hope because she is able to cast aside the notion of self-hatred, although this seems to be more because it’s in her character to do so than for any other reason. For instance, the reader is offered a clear distinction between Claudia and the other women when Pecola first moves in with the family and gazes adoringly at Shirley Temple on the milk cup. Upon seeing this, Claudia launches into a stream of thoughts that probe her feelings that are so opposite Pecola’s. Not only does she despise Shirley Temple, she is unable to see the beauty in the white and blue-eyed dolls she is given at Christmas. Not only did she not see the point of being a mother to it or finding it fun to sleep with, “I could not love it. But I could examine it to see what it was that all the world said was lovable” (21). Unlike other black women in the novel, particularly Pecola and her mother, even if it is indirectly and partially because of childish disinterest, Claudia is able to see past culturally-confirmed notions of what is beautiful. She
However, Morrison doesn't place the blame on Pauline, neither does she blame it on racism, rudeness nor ignorance. In The Bluest Eye she depicts Pecola as a victim of an evil that has roots deeper than human conviction and can't be understood in such terms. This vicious cycle of rejection, this embodiment of supernatural forces of the creator, creation, and the created combined to produce the evil that left Pecola Breedlove barren and unable to know how or why.
The novel is a retrospective story told by Claudia, one of Pecola's childhood friends. Claudia's account allows the reader to sympathize with Pecola's self-hatred. As an adult, Claudia best articulates how Pecola's victimization is caused by her environment. Telling the story almost three decades later, during the sixties, Claudia reflects on the pain of wanting to be something you can never become. According to an interview entitled "Toni Morrison's Black Magic" in Newsweek, Morrison states that Pecola's character was formed based on the fact that "Black is beautiful was in the air. . . .So I wrote about a child who was ugly-Pecola is the perfect defeated victim-only she was beautiful" (Strouse 56). Morrison's depiction of a victimized Pecola addresses how the dominance of white consumer society can effect the psyche of a young African American girl.
The Infant Child plays a huge role in Blanche’s early life. As a result of her mother’s death, Blanche has a fearful temperament, and
Blond hair, blue eyes. In America these are the ideals of a woman’s beauty. This image is drilled into our minds across the lifespan in the media and it conditions people's standards of beauty. We see Black women wish that their skin was lighter. In an episode of "The Tyra Banks Show", a Black girl as young as 6 talks about how she doesn't like her hair and wishes that it was long and straight like a white woman's. Some minorities get surgery to change their facial features, or only date white men. Having been taught to think that white people are more attractive than people of their own ethnicity. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the character of Pecola exemplifies the inferiority felt throughout the black community due to the ideology that white qualities propel you in social status. Pecola’s mother, Pauline Breedlove, said it best when she was introduced to beauty it being the most destructive ideas in the history of human though. From which the envy, insecurity and disillusion have been derived by the ideas of beauty and physical appearance. Pecola’s story is about the consequences of a little black girl growing up in a society dominated by white supremacy. We must not look at beauty as a value rather an oppressive discourse that has taken over our society. Pecola truly believes that if her eyes were blue she would be pretty, virtuous, and loved by everyone around her. Friends would play with her, teachers would treat her better and even her parents might stop their constant fights because, in her heart of hearts, no one would want to “do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.”
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 Bluest Eye, Morrison describes the absurd and racist standard by which the characters are judged. And through the actions taken by each character, that absurd standard becomes more defined, the conflict more poignant. In this particular work, it is the American ideal of beauty that makes Pecola resign her self-image as ugly and it is Pecola's reaction to this standard, her futile wish to become beautiful, that drives her into madness and thus completely exposes the absurd and wrongful nature of this standard. And yet who created this standard? It is present in movies, on candy wrappers. It is completely visible, yet the creator of this standard is somewhere else, never appears as a character.
Throughout Toni Morrison’s controversial debut The Bluest Eye, several characters are entangled with the extremes of human cruelty and desire. A once innocent Pecola arguably receives the most appalling treatment, as not only is she exposed to unrelenting racism and severe domestic abuse, she is also raped and impregnated by her own father, Cholly. By all accounts, Cholly should be detestable and unworthy of any kind of sympathy. However, over the course of the novel, as Cholly’s character and life are slowly brought into the light and out of the self-hatred veil, the reader comes to partially understand why Cholly did what he did and what really drives him. By painting this severely flawed yet completely human picture of Cholly, Morrison draws comparison with how Pecola was treated by both of her undesirable parents. According to literary educator Allen Alexander, even though Cholly was cripplingly flawed and often despicable, he was a more “genuine” person to Pecola than Pauline was (301). Alexander went on to claim that while Cholly raped Pecola physically, Pauline and Soaphead Church both raped her mental wellbeing (301). Alexander is saying that the awful way Pecola was treated in a routine matter had an effect just as great if not greater than Cholly’s terrible assault. The abuse that Pecola lived through was the trigger that shattered her mind. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses the characters of Cholly Breedlove and Frieda McTeer to juxtapose sexual violence and mental maltreatment in order to highlight the terrible effects of mental abuse.
Pecola believes she is far from meeting the white standards of beauty, offering no opposition to the judgements implied on to her. Her unconscious assimilation to beauty standards brings her into a state of delirium and worthlessness. Her conviction of her ugliness is rooted from societal standards of beauty rather than from herself: “...long hours she sat looking in the mirror trying to discover the secret of her ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored and despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike” (Morrison 34). Pecola’s inability to reject and oppose standards of beauty is expected, as every encounter and experience further reinforces her low self-esteem. All members of Pecola’s community, participate in crushing any possibility of a healthy self image of herself. For example, when Pecola heads to the grocery store, the clerk looks at her and her money with disdain: “She looks up at him and sees the...total absence of human recognition the glazed separateness. She doesn’t know what keeps his glance suspended...The distaste must be for her, her blackness” (Morrison 48). From this quote, Morrison describes how non-black members of the community treat Pecola lower than human. She is rejected due to her blackness and therefore her ugliness. Pecola frequently encounters such discrimination not only due to her race, but her gender as well. Such distressing encounters paired with a poor sense of self, Pecola falls victim to cultural expectations and her community’s prejudice. Society has eaten away at her self-esteem and self-worth; thus, Pecola is prevented from developing a positive self image and instead, loses her innocence on account of her community’s own need for self assurance. Living in a community that internalize white beauty standards, and condemned by her peers and parents for it,
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.
Morrison provides the reader with a light-skinned black character whose racist attitudes affect the poorer, darker blacks in the community, especially the main characters, Claudia MacTeer and Pecola Breedlove. Maureen Peal comes from a rich black family and triggers admiration along with envy in every child at school, including Claudia. Although Maureen is light-skinned, she embodies everything that is considered "white," at least by Claudia's standards: "Patent leather shoes with buckles...fluffy sweaters the color of lemon drops tucked into skirts with pleats... brightly colored knee socks with white borders, a brown ...
The first reason why black people in ‘The Bluest Eye’ feel self-hatred is because they are said to be ugly, due to the white beauty ideal that society has. The main problem in the book is that Pecola wishes to have blue eyes, which is a symbol for the white beauty ideal. To Pecola, having blue eyes gives her something which is considered to be beautiful by American society. Next to being considered pretty, the blue eyes mean a different view upon the world for Pecola herself as well. She believes that she can lead a life just like a middle-class white girl (Shmoop citate).
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
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.
The tragedy of Pecola Breedlove is an examination of the ideological and character villains of thematic narratives. This is not an avant garde idea, but Toni Morrison delivers the best methodical breakdown of a villain in any tale. The history provided for each villainous character explains that their acts, while monstrous, cannot be dismissed as evil for evil’s sake. The Bluest Eye delves into the black depths of racism by utilizing a hyperbolistic, singular example of the effect that racism has on an incredibly vulnerable member of society. She follows the journey of Pecola who has internalized the white standards she is trapped with. Her internalization is parallel to the devolving, obsession with having blue eyes. Her parents are not representative