Response To The Bluest Eye's

Reading Response
Tony Morrison’s The Bluest Eye’s is a story residing in Lorain, Ohio during the 1940s, narrated by eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove and nine-year-old Claudia MacTeer: the story tells of the encounters of Pecola and what it is like to grow up as a black girl, in a society who views whiteness as the standard of beauty. Throughout the reading it is repeatedly hinted at that whites are superior, and furthermore the beauty of white women and children is something that blacks could never compare to.
The first hint at white superiority can be found just by looking at the books title “The Bluest Eyes,” as most African Americans, such as the one on the cover photo are not born to have blue eyes. However, these ideas of superiority are reoccurring and renforced with the standards of beauty. Claudia talks about her hate for Shirley Temple “because she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy,” she suggests that Bojangles should have been dancing with her, instead of “one of

Claudia was never gifted a black baby doll, but always a big, blue-eyed doll. “Adults, older girls, shops, magizines, newspapers, window signs--, all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (Morrison 20). This white baby doll was seen even by the black women, to be one of the best gifts to reward a little black girl… perhaps because the doll’s beauty was what every black child should dream of. When Claudia destroyed her baby doll, she was reprimanded, hinting at the respect she should have for her baby doll, or furthermore whites in general. Claudia even goes on to say that the transference of the baby dolls to white girls, was horrifying; the way she was expected to love her doll, was the reality of the way she was expected to love