Imagery In The Bluest Eye

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). The purpose of this unrelenting desire stems from her internalized racism and shame over her dark skin, curly hair and brown eyes. By aspiring to

The monotone color scheme is representative of the binary point of view in this society: the haves versus the have-notes; for those with lavish homes like the Fishers or that of Geraldine and her husband Louis, “power, praise, and luxury are [theirs]” (128). The home I drew aims to emulate that of wealthy characters in the book. The novel continuously referencing the status associated with material possessions such as a house. Furthermore, homes are an extension of the characters themselves; consistently, the upper class caucasians and self-loathing African Americans seek to remove all of the “funkiness” and disarray from their lives and homes in favor of “beauty, order, and cleanliness” (83, 127). I visually interpreted this removal of disorder as a removal of color and passion that results from

When “Polly” is taking care of the Fishers’ daughter, Pecola accidentally tips over a berry cobbler, “splattering blueberries everywhere” (108). The “splattering” of these berries symbolizes the staining of Pauline’s life with disgrace, blackness, and “funkiness” that she can never truly remove like that of the berry stains. Later in the novel, Darlene and Cholly journey together to an open field; after spending time with him and her other friends, Darlene’s “white cotton dress [became] stained” (145). Typically, the color white is associated with purity and cleanliness; by staining her “white” dress with juice, she is in essence staining her purity and representing the disorder that is innately apart of her life. As much as both Pauline and Darlene attempt to scrub themselves of these berries, the author implies that they as individuals are forever stained. In my visual, I try to illuminate this idea through the streaks of paint originating from the grapes to signify its staining