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A Researched Analytical Essay: The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

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A Researched Analytical Essay: The Bluest Eye In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, we are provided an extended interpretation of how whiteness is the standard of beauty, which distorts the lives of black women and children, through messages everywhere that whiteness is superior. The theme of race and that white skin is greater is portrayed through the lives and stories told by the characters, especially the three girls Claudia, Pecola and Frieda. Through the struggles those people have endured, Morrison shows us the destructive effect of this internalized idea of white beauty on the individual and on society. “The Bluest Eye” has a number of elements that relate closely to Toni Morrison’s own personal life. The story is set in Lorain, Ohio, the town in which Morrison grew up. Lorain’s population in considered ethnically unequal. Segregation was still legal, but the community was mostly integrated – both black and white children would attend the same schools, and neighborhoods were commonly interracial. The novel is also narrated by a …show more content…

As stated by Lynn Scott in her literary article “Beauty, Virtue, and Disciplinary Power: A Foucauldian Reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, the intended purpose of the historical reflection in the novel is “to not romanticize the past, or to justify the present, but to unmask structures of power.” Claudia MacTeer, the narrator in the novel, makes this clear to the reader by stating that she wishes to discover the how of the story rather than the why and all of the intentions. Claudia finishes her introduction by stating, “There is really nothing more to say – except why. But since why is so difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.” (9) Claudia would rather just come up with a more functional description rather than delving deep into the reasoning of society and life’s

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Developing who she was around the time of the Great Depression, Toni Morrison had inspiring stories that reflected her childhood. During her life there has been some hardships and times where she has had to be strong. Toni Morrison was a highly educated women whose stories Beloved and The Bluest Eye are two of her most controversial stories. She made adjustments but stood up for what she believed in. Growing up as an African-American female during the US civil rights movement, Toni Morrison became a controversial author because she shares her life experiences that generates intense critical reaction.

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Rhetorical Analysis Essay The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison takes place in Ohio in the 1940s. The novel is written from the perspective of African Americans and how they view themselves. Focusing on identity, Morrison uses rhetorical devices such as imagery, dictation, and symbolism to help stress her point of view on identity. In the novel the author argues that society influences an individual 's perception on beauty, which she supports through characters like Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove.

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Interpretive Response to The Bluest Eye - Not only does Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye reveal the undeniable theme that white is beauty. She also affiliates sex and sexuality with humiliation instead of something pleasant. The idea of whiteness as the beauty ideal mainly revolves around Pecola, but is first introduced in the story through a toy doll.

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20th century literature is reinforced by anger. Toni Morrison is one of the most magnificent novelists who has written some of demanding fiction and imperfection of the modernism. Morrison 's writings concentrate on rural African communities, especially their cultural identity and inheritance. Through out Morrison 's novel, she has never depended on whites for main characters. This novel contains a number of autobiographical elements.

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In The Bluest Eye, Morrison offers multiple perspectives to help explain the intensity of racism and what it means to be oppressed and degraded in society. Through the eyes of various characters, readers are taken on a journey during the 1940s to demonstrate how each black character copes with the unfair standards and beliefs that society has. While some of the characters internalize self-hatred and have the desire to be someone else, others do not wish to change themselves to fit into the societal standards. Throughout the novel, there are clear and distinct remarks that are made to help distinguish the difference between white characters and black characters which is quite crucial. Morrison uses dirt and cleanliness to symbolize how society

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She is proud to be an African American and tries to incorporate it as much as possible. Another major influence for her book was a real life interaction with a young girl who dreamed for blue eyes. Morrison’s reaction to the girl was anger and confusion on what leads a young girl to desire a transformation in her looks. These thoughts stayed with her and eventually led to the writing of The Bluest Eye during the Black is Beautiful movement working to reclaim African-American beauty. Pieces of Morrison’s life can be seen throughout the story.

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The beginning of Toni Morrison career was not everything she had hope for. Her writing was not the best in the industry which is proven in her first book “The Bluest Eye”. The Bluest Eye was published in 1970, when the color of your skin still had a great effect on your life. “The Bluest Eye” is the story of an eleven year old colored girl, Pecola Breedlove, who had trouble seeing herself as beautiful because of her physical features and society’s thoughts of beauty. This novel did not sell well when first published but later made Morrison a Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1993.

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They constantly encounter the problem of not living up to society’s beauty standards, which results in feelings of self-hatred based on race. These feelings perpetuate racism, as society, and even black people, tend to favor white beauty since it is held up as superior. The problems that Pecola, Pauline, and Claudia face in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye are not just figments of the past. Today, millions of women across the country feel some sort of self-loathing stemming from dissatisfaction over how they look. It is important that society tries to free itself from these nonsensical standards and celebrate the unique beauty of each individual

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The Bluest Eye centres the story of a twelve-year-old African American girl named Pecola Breedlove. Growing up in a community that places considerable amounts of emphasis on beauty, she is constantly bombarded with images whereby she learns that as long as she is black, she is not entitled to be beautiful, to be loved, or to rise up out of poverty. This reminds her of her “ugliness” and inadequacy. Pecola longs to be loved and accepted by her community as well as in a world which rejects and diminishes the value of the members of her own race and defines beauty according to Anglo-Saxon cultural standards (Ranström,:6). This standard of beauty, which even her peers subscribe to, is represented by a white child actress, Shirley Temple.

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In order to do so, I will use quotations extracted from Morrison´s work and other secondary resources, and I will focus on the main characters of the novel that stand as representations of their social dimension. Toni Morrison uses the personal lives of the

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It is the mother’s vulnerability to the racial standards of beauty that is transmitted to the daughter and ultimately leads to her victimization. In fact, the reason of Pauline’s vulnerability to the racially prejudiced notions of beauty lies in her relationship with her own mother. The relationship between Pecola Breedlove, the protagonist, and her mother, Pauline Breedlove, is ironically characterized by lack of love, and emotional attachment, indifference, frustration and cruelty. Set in a small town in Ohio, during the Depression, The Bluest Eye is the story of eleven year old Pecola Breedlove, who, victimized by the racist society, yearns for blue eyes, which, she believes, will make her worthy of love, happiness and acceptance in the

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Toni Morrison, the first black women Nobel Prize winner, in her first novel, The Bluest Eye depicts the tragic condition of the blacks in racist America. It examines how the ideologies perpetuated by the dominant groups and adopted by the marginal groups influence the identity of the black women. Through the depictions of white beauty icons, Morrison’s black characters lose themselves to self-hatred. They try to obliterate their heritage, and eventually like Pecola Breedlove, the child protagonist, who yearns for blue eyes, has no recourse except madness. This assignment focusses on double consciousness and its devastating effects on Pecola.

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Destructive Nature of Racialised Beauty Toni Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, in 1970. In this novel, Toni Morrison shows how societies racist and false beliefs on beauty can be seriously destructive if believed and taken to heart. Toni Morrison displays the destructive nature of racialised beauty through the character in the novel named Pecola Breedlove. Pecola lacks self esteem and believes that she is the blackest and ugliest girl, and she believes that white is the only beautiful race.

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Morrison 's first novel, The Bluest Eye, examines the tragic effects of imposing white, middle-class American ideals of beauty on the developing female identity of a young African American girl during the early 1940s. Inspired by a conversation Morrison once had with an elementary school classmate who wished for blue eyes, the novel poignantly shows the psychological devastation of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who searches for love and acceptance in a world that denies and devalues people of her own race. As her mental state slowly unravels, Pecola hopelessly longs to possess the conventional American standards of feminine beauty—namely, white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes—as presented to her by the popular icons and traditions of white culture. Written as a fragmented narrative from multiple perspectives and with significant typographical deviations, The Bluest Eye juxtaposes passages from the Dick-and-Jane grammar school primer with memories and stories of Pecola 's life alternately told in retrospect by one of Pecola 's now-grown childhood friends and by an omniscient narrator. Published in the midst of the Black Arts movement that flourished during the late 1960s and early 1970s, The Bluest Eye has attracted

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Tyler Johnston Mrs.Norment Senior English October 26th, 2015 In the novel, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, the significance of the book’s title is based off Pecola’s desire for blue eyes, and acts as a metaphor for society’s standards on beauty and on the impact it made on her, as well as acting as a symbol for false hopes and the struggles of accepting and being happy with your self-identity. To begin, Pecola throughout the book has desired for something that will help alleviate all the pain in her life, and the thing she chose to hope for was to see through blue eyes. They were to her, a symbol of perfection; all her problems would go away and her life would significantly improve if she somehow obtained them.

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