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Identity In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

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Therefore, here attempted to believe that Toni Morrison's very success as a writer may be a testimony to her power to examine themes from various angles and to accept unresolved situations as they are. Patrick Bryce Bjork in his conclusion observes that: "Her[Toni Morrison] characters waver within the contradictions and ambiguities o desire and repression, control and chaos, attraction and chaos, attraction and repulsion, connection and withdrawal" (Song of Solomon, 1977). Some scholars have even come to the conclusion that what Toni Morrison talks about in her novels is almost entirely foreign, different from the notion of the "rugged individualist" that characterizes the works of the Transcendentalists, even distasteful to many Americans …show more content…

The reason for her preference lies in Shirley’s blue eyes. Pecola throughout her life knew that she was ugly, her father, mother, and brother were all ugly and so was she. As a result, pecola looked upon Shirley and her blues eyes, worthy of being placed on her cup, as an icon of beauty. Her image, placed upon a cup and all over the silver screen, was something the out-group and dominant culture in pecola’s life had idolized. True beauty, Shirley’s beauty, was something no black girl could ever aspire achieve. The second source of …show more content…

Pg 91) Earlier in the story Geraldine had explained to Junior the difference between “colored people and niggers.” The class/racial identity introduced in this part of the novel display one of the many consequences of white racism. Geraldine lived her life in an upper class world (i.e. as upper class as black could achieve at that time). However het stature as a decent or “colored” person, in the eyes of her white, middle class peers was constantly threatened by what she saw in her mind as poorly kept, and poorly mannered “niggers”. The positive identity that Geraldine had made for herself was one that placed her above less fortunate members of her race. For this reason, she lashed out at Pecola, simply because of her disheveled appearance and Junior’s accusation. Hewstone and Cairns offer a good explanation for Geraldine’s behavior in their explanation of Henri Tajfel’s writings. According to Tajfel’s reasoning group behavior typically fits into three major

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Psychoanalytical Lens In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

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As I read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, I will be looking at the book through the psychoanalytical lens. I chose to use this lens because I find it interesting in the idea of going into the mind of the characters that they are not out right expressing. Also, I chose psychoanalytical lens over the other lenses because I wanted to challenge myself. For me, reading a book through the race, gender, and social class lens is pretty easy because I do it all the time when I read a book. Furthermore, I was thinking about choosing to look at the book through the feminist lens or race and culture lens because I know that the book will have a lot of parts relating to those lenses.

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One of the defining features of the United States of American is the omnipresent topic of class. From examining skills on the athletic field to assessing levels of wealth, society categorizes people into brackets that end up defining them. In her short novel “Passing”, Nella Larsen addresses the topic of classification through the lens of black women passing as white in America during the 1920’s. Writing in the age of the Harlem Renaissance, Larsen uses the character of Irene to demonstrate social difficulties stemming from the values imposed upon people by the constructs of class. Larsen’s primary goal in her novel is to question the true motivations of those involved with the harlem renaissance by establishing how internal insecurities hinder

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Biblical Allusions In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

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Toni Morrison frequently incorporates her familial background into her literary works. She is an African-American female author who was told African myths and folktales by her family members, who she credits for “instilling in her a love of reading, music and folklore” (“Toni Morrison”). Morrison is fully in touch with and appreciative of her ancestral background, and because of this, she reiterates these tales in her writings. In Song of Solomon, Morrison employs a wide variety of African cultural traditions and folklores to create a unique narrative regarding an African-American man’s quest for self-discovery and his true cultural identity, one that is absent from his current community. One of the most prominent African myths discussed

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The Theme Of Materialism In Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon

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Morrison published her third novel, Song of Solomon (1977), she decided to write a novel informed by the male spirit. It is a novel in which Toni Morrison has tried to connect generations. The ending has a note of hope, peace and redemption. In this novel, Toni Morrison has insisted on Black ancestral heritage. The rapid movement of the Black community towards materialism and the pull towards one 's past, its history, myths, legends and songs is the main contents.

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Summary Of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky

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In the The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow, the author expresses that labels and single stories about race through Nella and Rachel, say more about the world that attempts to identify them than who they are. Rachel struggles with her identity when she moves to the United States. Race did not define Rachel or Nella in Germany where Rachel’s dad, Roger was stationed. People characterize Rachel and Nella by their race and not what type of person they were. This says more about society’s single stories than what the labels actually represent.

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Analysis Of Pecola's Eye, By Toni Morrison

1282 Words | 6 Pages

Later in the book, Toni Morrison uses Pecola’s own conviction of being “ugly” to show that she truly believes that if she changed her physical appearance to match those at the top of the race and beauty hierarchies, her perception of her reality would be ameliorated. Back at home after her parents’ fight, Pecola ponders the unfair way she is treated by teachers compared to her Caucasian classmates at school. When the narrator says, “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different. Maybe they’d say, ‘Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes’”

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A Bronzeville Mothers Analysis

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Pecola's Ugliness

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Pecola Breedlove is conditioned to believe that she is ugly by her parents from a young age and “[hides] behind [her ugliness]” because she does not know any better (Morrison 38). She closes herself off to the world, thinking that her “ugliness” is a burden to those around her. Pecola’s brokenness forces her to idolize the images of something that she will never be; a Shirley Temple duplicate with curly blonde hair and rosy red cheeks. But, what Pecola yearns for the most is for Temple’s blue eyes—more specifically, she yearns for the bluest eye. In the words of Jacqueline de Weever, Pecola’s dream for blue eyes shows that “[she] wants, in fact to be white” (de Weever 5).

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Beauty In The Bluest Eyes

1723 Words | 7 Pages

“It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights - if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” In this quote found in Chapter 3, in the Autumn section of the novel, it showed the desire of Pecola to have the Bluest Eyes. Pecola wants to have blue eyes not because she wants to be beautiful but because she wants to change how she sees reality. Pecola experiences a lot of things and one thing led to another and she saw her parents have a violent fight, she thinks that the only solution to her pain is if she sees something different. In Pecola’s perspective, one’s physical appearance is the most important thing and that people

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Pecola's Believable In 'The Bluest Eye'

570 Words | 3 Pages

11.) Pecola 's life issue is she has an inferiority complex, which causes the majority of the conflict in the book. "It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different." Pecola starts to think she is ugly because her neighbors are tell her that they think she is ugly, the way her own family treats her, and her friends. Pecola 's mother even says in the book that she thinks Pecola is ugly, "Eyes all soft and wet.

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Pecola's Three Prostitutes In Othello

531 Words | 3 Pages

She is ugly for being black and cast aside for being poor. These traits do not make actually cause her to be ugly in and of the term itself, but the way her society views these traits does. The prostitutes draw Pecola to them as not only are they are the few people who do not view her as ugly, but they do not view themselves as ugly. Instead they accept Pecola as she is. They draw her in and speak to her as their equal, a luxury that Pecola has yet to experience.

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The Female In The African-American Community

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Delicate and sensitive, she passively suffers the abuse of her mother, father, and classmates. She is a symbol of the black community’s self-hatred and belief in its own ugliness. Others in the community, including her mother and father, act out their own self-hatred by expressing hatred towards her. Pecola’s desire for blue eyes comes from her stereotypical perception that as a black female, she needs to look beautiful to be treated beautifully. She believes that being granted the blue eyes that she wishes for would change both how others see her and what she is forced to see.

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Pecola Ugliness In Othello

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As a poor, African American girl in the 1940s, society has cast Pecola aside. Right from birth her mother thought she had a “head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly” (126). Pecola does not understand the ugliness placed upon her. For “long hours she [would sit,] looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised” (45). Pecola finds herself drawn to the prostitutes because they do not accept the ugliness forced upon them and instead find themselves worthy of love and beauty.

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Theme Of Racism In Toni Morrison's Sula

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In Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, Morrison utilizes the racist incidents within the Bottom to illustrate the submissive, degrading, and foolish influence of racist America on African Americans, while still successfully capturing the dignity and sense of community of the African Americans, ultimately demonstrating the stupidity of racism. Morrison first depicts African Americans as wanting to conform and assimilate into the white American culture through Helene’s Wright behavior towards her daughter, Nel Wright. By disliking Nel’s physical appearance, Helene represents the discrimination many African Americans have against their heritage and roots; therefore, she submits to the racism. The stupidity also becomes apparent because of Morrison’s

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Identity In The Bluest Eye

835 Words | 4 Pages

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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