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Summary Of The Novel 'The Bluest Eye'

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Corruption of Men There is a large sense of wickedness around the world, and although it might not seem true, but most of it comes from corrupt man. The novel, The Bluest eye, was written by Toni Morrison following the years after the Great Depression. It centers around the story of a young girl named Pecola who experiences domestic violence and racism within her surrounding. Pecola often feels “ugly” due to her black skin color; she tries to deal with it by wishing for blue eyes in order to assimilate with the white culture. The novel is mostly written from Claudia MacTeer’s perspective, who is portrayed as the opposite of Pecola. Instead of falling into society’s norms, Claudia accepts her beauty and wants to seek out her own truth. Although both girls don’t grow up in loving families, Pecola has much difficult times as her father, Cholly, has shown her nothing but hatred. Morrison is writing this novel to express how hurtful men are and what it leads to. She explores the cruelty of men and it cannot be better portrayed …show more content…

Elihue does not enjoy physical or sexual contact with most people, thus he “[limits] his interests to little girls” and believes that they are “manageable and frequently seductive” (Morrison 166). Soaphead Church’s urges of sexual attention from young girls portray him as a monster that lacks sanity and rational; a sane person would direct his cravings to a more acceptable direction, such as seeking sexual encounters among people his own age. Also, he prefers objects over people as “all his life he had a fondness for things” (Morrison 165). The fact that he finds more meaning in objects rather than in people shows how thoughtless and insensitive he is. His behavior reflects on all men, illustrating a negative image of the male gender. Nothing can be said about Elihue, except that he is an uncaring, heartless

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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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In the book when we first meet Pecola she is homeless and teased by kids at school. Claudia is Pecolas sister who wonders why people admire white girls.

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In J. Brooks Bouson ‘The Devastation That Even Casual Racial Contempt Can Cause’: Chronic Shame, Traumatic Abuse, and Racial Self-Loathing in The Bluest Eye, the Major Topic is internalization of racial stigmatizing. Racial stigmatizing is when an individual or race describes another with criticism and identifies them with disapproval which causes them to embody and identify themselves with these stigmas. Bouson asserts, “Because individuals incorporate into their self-representation aspects of their understanding of their group identity, those who are labeled as other or different internalize the stigmatizing stereotypes projected by the dominant culture.” This quotation is saying that people represent themselves with aspects of their race

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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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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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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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Blue eyes, blonde hair, and pale white skin was the meaning of magnificence. Pecola was a dark young lady with the fantasy to be lovely. Toni Morrison brings the peruser into the life of a young lady through Morrison's uncommon novel, The Bluest Eye. The novel shows the fights that Pecola battles with every single day. Morrison takes the peruser through the subjects of

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Tarek Dia Professor Rose Mass Media & Society 25 September 2015 The Bluest Eye The bluest eye is the first novel written by Howard University professor Toni Morrison. It is set in the years following the great depression and depicts the life of a misunderstood and mistreated young black girl name Pecola Breedlove. Pecola is let in by the MacTeer’s as a temporary foster child after her unsound father, Cholly, burned down their family home.

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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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Toni Morrison´s The Bluest Eye (1970) conveys the Marxist idealism that social and economic realities are the factors that determine the culture and consciousness of a particular group. The struggle within the context of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the rejection of African American people is displayed in Morrison´s work, showing the author´s consciousness. Thus, in this paper I will try to show the author´s belief that human self-realisation is determined and delimited by the dominant class at every level. For this purpose I will focus on the relation between wealth and social class, on how the dominant class, in this case the white one, imposes its values over the black community, reducing its personality and leading its members to lose their identity. I will also try to show how the victims of the capitalist system see themselves trapped in an order from which it is very difficult to escape, and find themselves forced to give up and accept their current condition.

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4 Surprise Swate Student no: 2015153295 The Bluest Eyes. Beauty is equated with whiteness by the Western culture and this is portrayed in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eyes. Pecola and Pauline Breedlove are absented from existence by society’s notion that Caucasian features are the standard of beauty and the Breedlove women do not reach those standards.

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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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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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The Bluest Eye – Racial Identity Morrison 's first novel, The Bluest Eye, looks at the appalling impacts of forcing white, working class American beliefs of excellence on the creating female character of a youthful African American young lady prior to the mid 1940s. Roused by a discussion Morrison once had with a grade school colleague who longed for blue eyes, the novel piercingly demonstrates the mental pulverization of a youthful dark young lady, Pecola Breedlove, who hunts down adoration and acknowledgment in a world that prevents and degrades individuals from claiming her own particular race. As her mental state gradually disentangles, Pecola miserably yearns to have the customary American models of female excellence—to be specific, white

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