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Blue Eye In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

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Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, tells a story of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who desires blue eyes because she is deemed ugly by all of her peers. All of her life, Pecola is mocked for the way she looks and presents herself. She dreams of having blue eyes because she thinks that if she did have them, she would be beautiful and she would be loved. Pecola Breedlove, a character in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, desires to have blue eyes because she is not happy with her appearance, her difficult life at home, and the affects society has on her. Since Pecola Breedlove is has been taught all her life that she is ugly, she thinks that she can only achieve true beauty by having blue eyes. The narrator says, “Only a miracle could relieve …show more content…

Pecola is bullied because she is dark skinned, which makes her ugly. The narrator describes what Pecola does when she gets bullied: “Pecola edged around the circle crying. She had dropped her notebook, and covered her eyes with her hands” while Maureen Paul screamed, “I am cute! And you ugly black e mos” (66,73). Pecola is constantly bullied at school because she is ugly. Children are not the only people in the community that bullies Pecola, adults talk about her and call her names. A mixed woman once said to Pecola, “You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house” (92). This woman judged Pecola based on the way she looked- black and poor. As well as being bullied, Pecola is sometimes ignored. The grocery man refused to look at Pecola, “He does not see her, because for him, there is nothing to see” (48). The constant bullying and loneliness affects Pecola in a negative way, “Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes”, hoping that she will be accepted and loved by her community (46). The way Pecola’s community treats and views Pecola, makes Pecola realize that the only way she will be accepted will be if she has blue eyes because with blue eyes, she will be

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Connie from “Where are you going, Where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates represents a situation opposite of that which Pecola is subject to. Connie “knew she was pretty and that was everything” (Seagull Reader 337). She had “long dark blonde hair that drew anyone’s eye to it” (337). She lived with her parents and sister in a comfortable home.

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“When teachers called on her, they smiled encouragingly. Black boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be their partners--” (Morrison 62). This quote shows how Maureen got treated better than Claudia and Pecola, just because her skin was lighter. Pecola’s teachers never smiled at her and she never failed to be the object of the boys’ stones. Morrison wanted to show that being black is beautiful no matter what skin tone one

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Pecola wanted to have blue eyes because things may have been easy for her and her life may be better. Pauline messed up foot and fallen teeth made her feel so ugly and she did not wanted to fit in with society was of beauty she didn’t love herself. Cholly had always been neglected by her parents society and he had never learned how to love it affected him in the long run and a traumatic event in his life had scared him as a result. It is why beauty is undeserved for those who are called ugly according to

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Pecola’s mother however, looks at her daughter and thinks she will never grow out of her ugliness hurting Pecola deeply, “  she looked different from what I thought. Reckon I talked too much before I conjured up a mind’s eye view of it” (125)  From birth, Pecola was ugly to her own mother and could never see past the concept of Pecola’s ugliness causing hate and neglection in Pecola’s life. Cholly, Pecola’s father, has an abusive relationship with Pecola in the novel but doesn’t see her as ugly such as everyone else. Cholly was one of the only characters to show love to Pecola by raping her, no other character could even touch Pecola. The relaionhip with his wife Pauline started to impact Pecola before she

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The first piece in my portfolio is a piece of Pecola with blue eyes. One of the overarching ideas presented throughout The Bluest Eye is that white features, specifically blue eyes, is the epitome of physical beauty. Throughout the book, there is vivid visual imagery of blue eyes such as those of “lovely Mary Jane” (Morrison 50). The use of the word lovely further correlates her physical appearance and blue eyes with beauty. This causes Pecola to crave blue eyes so desperately that “every night, without fail, she prayed” in order to gain what she and everyone else unanimously view as beauty (46).

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Pecola and her mother, Pauline, see themselves as ugly because they hold themselves to beauty standards in which light-skinned people are the ideal. Pecola and her mother have a brutal home life due to the drunken violence of Cholly Breedlove, and the constant pressure of beauty standards only adds to their misfortune. Morrison explains this pressure by asserting that “[i]t was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they

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The social standards of beauty and the idea of the American Dream in The Bluest Eye leads Mrs. Breedlove to feelings of shame that she later passes on to Pecola. The Breedloves are surrounded by the idea of perfection, and their absence of it makes them misfits. Mrs. Breedlove works for a white family, the Fishers. She enjoys the luxury of her work life and inevitably favors her work over her family. This leads Pecola to struggle to find her identity, in a time where perception is everything.

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But it is not only the race and the colour of their skin what makes them unable to change their situation, but also poverty. Race and wealth are intertwined, and Pecola is the fundamental victim of this relationship, for she is a young black girl suffering from this ideology that determines her life. The dominant class imposes its values upon the other, for they think they are the best ones, reducing thus the personality of the people belonging to other classes, and at the same time, making them unable to change their oppressed situation, for they do not have the chance. They just accept their current position, and thus they will always be

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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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As Paul C. Taylor declares, “the most prominent type of racialized ranking represents blackness as a condition to be despised, and most tokens of this type extend this attitude to cover the physical features that are central to the description of black identity” (16). Such attitudes are found in the words of black women themselves, when they talk about Pecola’s baby, saying that it “ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly. Be better off in the ground” (188). Without any support from her community or even family, Pecola is a character who is

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"(Morrison 41-2). According to people like Mr. Yakobowski Pecola does not fit the social standards of beauty, so they absent her from

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In The Bluest Eye, written by Toni Morrison is about a young African American girl named Pecola, and a time were many people grew up with racism and many difficulties during the 1940’s because they were African American. Throughout the novel, it demonstrates that white societies have a better living, and higher beauty standard in which the media illustrates through television and books. This causes many conflicts towards African Americans because they are unable to find the true meaning of beauty. The author Toni Morrison, stresses plot, setting, characterization, or theme when writing a work of fiction like The Bluest Eye.

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Nonetheless, Pecola feel uncertain about herself as people bully her for being who she

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