ipl-logo

Blue Eyes In Toni Morrison's Pecola Breedlove

987 Words4 Pages

It is a novel of initiation concerning a victimized adolescent Black girl Pecola Breedlove, who is obsessed by the White standard of beauty and longing fora pair of blue eyes. Why does she long for blue eyes? Because she thinks that getting blue eyes means to become beautiful, to get rid of all miseries of life, which she has suffered. Though she is raped by her father and becomes pregnant, but still she is fond of blue eyes. She longs for blue eyes not only to achieve White Aesthetics of beauty but also wants to achieve equal right in society that is nothing but normal life of “human beings” (Reetika, Abhishek 388). Researcher found that Pecola and Claudia's parents are different in their personalities and their treatment towards them, and that greatly impacts their upbringing. First, their parents, Mrs. Breedlove Pecola's mother, also known as Pauline and Polly (as the younger daughter of the whit …show more content…

Breedlove reprimands Pecola, ignoring the burns on her legs from the hot berries, and immediately assures the little white girl that she will quickly bake her a new pie. This demonstrates to the reader that Mrs. Breedlove is not an incapable mother, but she actively chooses to ignore her own children, who are outside the narrative of the white beauty aesthetic, in favour of white children, who better match her ideals. (Sande) Her longing for being close to white society affects her so greatly that she rejects her only daughter. This incident is an example of Mrs. Breedlove’s internalization of white societal standards of beauty and the bad treatment and neglect that Pecola is receiving from her mother. When Pecola goes to her mother to tell her what her father did to her she says, “She didn’t even believe me when I told her.” (Toni 200). “…she refuses to acknowledge the situation when Pecola reports the rape to her.” (Sande). Mrs. Breedlove’s lack of consideration and sorrow are unquestionable factors that allow Pecola to be raped by her father a second

Open Document