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Gender Inequality In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

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Women have been suffering from inequality since forever. They are always treated as inferior in regards to men. Women are perceived as weak, useless unless they are at home cooking or cleaning or doing things that usually women are “expected” to do. In the past women could not work, vote or go out everyday. It was like they were pets and they had to wait for their owner to take them out for a walk or something. Personally, I as a woman have the same problem however not to that extent, the way people perceive women as inferior now a days has been altered a little, “you can’t sit like that”, “you cant eat like that”, you can’t joke like that” and the list goes on and on… So the issue that woman are inferior has existed for far too long now. Many people have tried to make a change and alter the way men treat and perceive woman, but it is still the same and it wont change until women really do …show more content…

It presents a realistic view of the options for these women: they could get married and have children, work for white families, or become prostitutes. The novel also thematizes the culture of women and young girls, emphasizing beauty magazines and playing with dolls. Appearance is another theme that is identified in African American women had to be white in order to be perceived as beautiful, other than that they were perceived as ugly inferiors that can be abused, insulted, and beaten. Throughout the whole book we could interpret that woman in ”The Bluest Eye” are portrayed in relation to the influence they suffer from the white ones and from society in their search for their own selves. These black women are excluded from a universe of love and tenderness where the figure of man is a key element for their imprisonment in madness, silence, sexual oppression and lack of hope. Silent, desperate, and isolated, these women cannot escape a life of unfulfilled

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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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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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This all started off with hunters and gatherers influencing gender inequality, as the men did “man” labor such as hunting and gathering wood and doing all of the hard stuff away from home. The women had to be near the home at all times to do all of the easy things such as get water and cook dinner and clean. As it says on “men and women hunters and gatherers”, “Everywhere men hunt large land and water fauna, trap small animals and birds, hunt birds, build boats, and work with wood, stone, bone, horn and shell. Everywhere women gather fuel and food, fetch water, prepare drinks and vegetable foods, and cook. Most of women 's activities are performed close to the home and involve monotonous tasks that require no concentration and can easily be interrupted and resumed.

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