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The Bluest Eye Beauty

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The Bluest Eye centres the story of a twelve-year-old African American girl named Pecola Breedlove. Growing up in a community that places considerable amounts of emphasis on beauty, she is constantly bombarded with images whereby she learns that as long as she is black, she is not entitled to be beautiful, to be loved, or to rise up out of poverty. This reminds her of her “ugliness” and inadequacy. Pecola longs to be loved and accepted by her community as well as in a world which rejects and diminishes the value of the members of her own race and defines beauty according to Anglo-Saxon cultural standards (Ranström,:6). This standard of beauty, which even her peers subscribe to, is represented by a white child actress, Shirley Temple. It’s defined
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In both The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me a main theme is image. Morrison uses Claudia, an African American child, to show a distinct hatred for the beauty standard. She had such a strong disdain for Shirley Temple and the white doll she was given as a gift. Her detest for these things was because she could never have those things, the beauty was unattainable.

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Believing blue eyes could save her from her world of ugliness and tragedy, Pecola wished for them for so long. She thought that if she had something that was considered beautiful, people would stop treating her poorly. “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” (Morrison 46). Through this book Morrison wanted to show that anyone could be beautiful, because beauty is something that goes beyond one’s appearance. “Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do” (Morrison

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There are many things that may affect us physically, emotionally and mentally. In the book the Bluest eye by Toni Morrison, Society 's perception of beauty affects the emotional and mentally aspect of a person . In the book the Bluest Eye beauty affects all aspects of the characters in the the book that love is undeserved for those who are seen as “ugly” or are called “ugly. It has been evident all throughout the book that beauty has affected Pecola ,Pauline and Cholly and society has rejected them and has despised them they see themselves as “Ugly”.

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This family consists of the mother Pauline, the father Cholly, the son Sammy, and the daughter Pecola. The novel’s focal point is the daughter, an eleven-year-old Black girl who is trying to conquer a bout with self-hatred. Everyday she encounters racism, not just from white people, but mostly from her own race. In their eyes she is much too dark, and the darkness of her skin somehow implies that she is inferior, and according to everyone else, her skin makes her even “uglier.” She feels she can overcome this battle of self-hatred by obtaining blue eyes, but not just any blue.

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The purpose of this investigation is to outline how the dominance of the white culture has created racial partiality for people of color blackpeople of color face living within a society where white aesthetics are the only factors equated to beauty, power and worth. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye demonstrates the importance of safeguarding one’s cultural identity. The question examined is “in what ways and with what results does Morrison use the motif of the eye to highlight the theme of beauty within the novel The Bluest Eye”? The cause for the self hate black characters are seen developing is due to the eye, which represents the ignorant look the white society gives to the black community.

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They constantly encounter the problem of not living up to society’s beauty standards, which results in feelings of self-hatred based on race. These feelings perpetuate racism, as society, and even black people, tend to favor white beauty since it is held up as superior. The problems that Pecola, Pauline, and Claudia face in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye are not just figments of the past. Today, millions of women across the country feel some sort of self-loathing stemming from dissatisfaction over how they look. It is important that society tries to free itself from these nonsensical standards and celebrate the unique beauty of each individual

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1401 Words | 6 Pages

The purpose of the book is to show how a young girl felt in the society that was around her and how she wanted to change due to the what the culture of the world at that time was saying. The Bluest Eye is a book about a nine year old girl, Claudia Macteer and her sister Frieda who take in Mr. Henry who is a tenant at the house and Pecola Breedove, a foster child. Pecola is a young girl who is described as a dark skin, curly hair and, brown eyed girl. Pecola hates her appearance and thinks she is ugly she desires to have blonde hair and blue

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The Bluest Eye tells the story of an eleven year old black girl, Pecola Breedlove, desires blue eyes because she sees herself as ugly and believes that by having blue eyes she will represent the white standards of beauty and it will also ensure that she receives love, care and support from others. The Bluest Eye is thus a very powerful study of how African-American families and particularly women are affected by racism and consequent sexual and mental abuse and how these women dwindle into madness. Morrison’s work is powerfully engaged with questions of history, memory and

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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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Destructive Nature of Racialised Beauty Toni Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, in 1970. In this novel, Toni Morrison shows how societies racist and false beliefs on beauty can be seriously destructive if believed and taken to heart. Toni Morrison displays the destructive nature of racialised beauty through the character in the novel named Pecola Breedlove. Pecola lacks self esteem and believes that she is the blackest and ugliest girl, and she believes that white is the only beautiful race.

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The Bluest Eye illustrates the damage done to a black child when the way she is defined by white society obliterates all positive definitions of her self-worth. Gurleen Grewal reflects that “individuals collude in their own oppression by internalizing the dominant culture’s values in the face of great material contradictions” (21). Indeed, it is evident in the novel how the community at large has accepted light skin as beautiful, and thus has negated beauty in darker skin. Within this dominant culture, white colonialists are the “all-knowing master” that the narrator refers to – the people responsible for giving Pecola “a cloak of ugliness to wear”, which she had “accepted without question” (37). It is this cloak that hides the knowledge of her own true identity and self-worth which, though she “put it on”, “did not belong to [her]” (36).

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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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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.

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1260 Words | 6 Pages

The Bluest Eye is a novel about a black girl named Pecola Breedlove who wishes for beauty in order to attain a better life. She faces emotional and physical conflicts throughout her childhood. At eleven years old, Pecola is raped by her alcoholic father and becomes pregnant. Unlike anyone else, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, tries to help her through the pregnancy. However, Pecola’s baby ends up dying because it is premature.

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