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Causes Of Demise In Toni Morrison's Novel 'The Bluest Eye'

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Pietro Elie F Band 3/8/17 TBE essay 1st Draft: How Pecola’s parents caused her demise In Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove lives a life of suffering and self-hatred and winds up going insane. There are many causes of her insanity, but the primary one is her parents’ poor treatment and neglect of her. Morrison uses different points of view at different points in the novel to show that Pecola’s demise is brought about by the way her parents treat her. The household where Pecola grows up is full of hatred and hostility, and these qualities are transferred to Pecola, leading her to hate herself. Early in the novel, an omniscient or all-knowing narrator tells us all sorts of things that lead us to believe that the Breedloves are …show more content…

For example, the narrator says that Mrs. Breedlove’s quarrels with Cholly “gave grandeur” (41) to the household; in them, “she could display the style and imagination of what she believed to be her own true self.” (41) The narrator also states that Mrs. Breedlove “needed Cholly’s sins desperately” (42) because these allow her to feel morally superior to him. And Cholly, by hating her, can “[pour] out on her all of his inarticulate fury and aborted desires.” (42.) The omniscient point of view allows Morrison to convey these things to the reader immediately and directly. The omniscient narrator gives us access to Pecola’s thoughts and feelings. When her parents, Cholly and Pauline Breedlove, have a violent altercation, Pecola lies and watches while praying for them to stop. Their constant fighting makes her feel suicidal: “she struggled between an overwhelming desire that one would kill the other, and a profound wish that she herself could die.” (43) Self-hatred will lead to depression and then to insanity, and here is a perfect example of her self-hatred -- she wants to die--that is caused by her

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She wrote that her inspiration for the story was a conversation she had had when she was little with another little black girl who had a fascination with blue eyes, much like her character Pecola Breedlove. Morrison is known for her stories that circle around how racism and misogyny affect black women. For The Bluest Eye, a little girl named Pecola Breedlove goes insane from the inhumane treatment she faces as an eleven-year-old african american girl in the Great Depression. There are many points in the book where she is dehumanized and treated less than dirt, even by her own parents. Her father in a bid to feel in control despite how much white men have controlled him, rapes his daughter and she becomes pregnant with his child.

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Inner conflict also causes the characters behavior and thought process to change at some point throughout the three novels. This leads the characters to their condition that is described at the end or the beginning of the novels plots. Toni Morrison shows Pecola’s inner conflict

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Later in the book, Toni Morrison uses Pecola’s own conviction of being “ugly” to show that she truly believes that if she changed her physical appearance to match those at the top of the race and beauty hierarchies, her perception of her reality would be ameliorated. Back at home after her parents’ fight, Pecola ponders the unfair way she is treated by teachers compared to her Caucasian classmates at school. When the narrator says, “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different. Maybe they’d say, ‘Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes’”

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Even though Toni Morrison does not provide the reader with an explanation to why Pecola and Cholly end up in such miserable states, the explanation can be found by using Perry’s work. Through picking out the similarities between Perry’s experiences and Pecola’s and Cholly’s stories, the answer to the why can be

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1257 Words | 6 Pages

Pecola Breedlove is conditioned to believe that she is ugly by her parents from a young age and “[hides] behind [her ugliness]” because she does not know any better (Morrison 38). She closes herself off to the world, thinking that her “ugliness” is a burden to those around her. Pecola’s brokenness forces her to idolize the images of something that she will never be; a Shirley Temple duplicate with curly blonde hair and rosy red cheeks. But, what Pecola yearns for the most is for Temple’s blue eyes—more specifically, she yearns for the bluest eye. In the words of Jacqueline de Weever, Pecola’s dream for blue eyes shows that “[she] wants, in fact to be white” (de Weever 5).

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Pecola is used as a representation of someone who does not fit the beauty standard, she had darker skin and ugly facial features. She was treated differently because she did not have the pretty privilege that white people had. When Pecola went to the storefront to purchase a Mary Jane (candy bar), Mr. Yacobowski, the white shopkeeper, immediately became weary and attentive because he didn't feel comfortable with her being in the store. When Pecola was trying to tell Mr. Yacobowski what she wanted to purchase he spoke aggressively towards her even though she was being respectful. After that, she finally ends up purchasing the Mary Jane and as "She holds the money toward him.

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Pecola does not only desire blue eyes so she would be considered beautiful but as well as see the world differently. Pecola was the one who has been teased a lot out of her other friends Claudia and Frieda. For instance, she was surrounded by a group of boys and they were calling her names and harassed her. Stated in Winter, chapter 4, “ Black e mo. Black e mo.

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Pecola here feels that on the off chance that she must be seen with blue eyes, her actual beauty would sparkle and she could be regarded all through society. Morrison exploits her style is by likewise applying intermittent and modified sentences to her novels, for example, in The Bluest Eye when Junior's mom returns home to find her valuable feline dead and spots Pecola: "Up finished the mound of the feline's back she looked" (The Bluest Eye 92). The writer's purpose behind including these sorts of sentences is to break the flood of repetitive perusing by making dynamic sentences that are to some degree surprising. Also, Morrison allures the reader by controlling sentence length and wording to express the tone or feeling she is attempting to

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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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Without consent, women are placed on this revolving platform for society to critique and perceive, without a voice. This relates to how Pecola was not given a point-of-view in this novel. The readers only knew Pecola through the eyes of the other characters. This is the epitome of what is means to be shaped solely by peoples’ perception; perceptions that are not grounded in character, but, instead, in sensory attributes.

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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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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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Symbolism and authors style and its effect on the plot In literature, authors will often utilize symbolism in order to develop characters and plot. In The Bluest Eye, the author, Toni Morrison portrays an African American girl named Pecola, who is stricken with longing for a better life. As she muddles through her difficult childhood, her once innocent interpretation of race and beauty are deformed by the beauty standards that dominated the mid-20th century society. She believes that beauty is dependent upon love, and her self-image, in particular, her eyes, plays a big role in the novel. She consistently attributes her struggles and failures to her lack of blue eyes, and believes that by having blue eyes, her struggle will go away.

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