ipl-logo

The Bluest Eye Controversy

1046 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Issues in toni morrison's Beloved

Tarek Dia Professor Rose Mass Media & Society 25 September 2015 The Bluest Eye The bluest eye is the first novel written by Howard University professor Toni Morrison. It is set in the years following the great depression and depicts the life of a misunderstood and mistreated young black girl name Pecola Breedlove. Pecola is let in by the MacTeer’s as a temporary foster child after her unsound father, Cholly, burned down their family home. She grew up with parents that fought often and a protestant white community that was not accepting of her. For these reasons and others Pecola develops an inferiority complex and longs to have blue eyes and white skin to be beautiful and accepted like the other girls. For indefinite reasons Pecola’s drunk …show more content…

There has been controversy surrounding the book since the 1970’s. It wasn’t until 2013 that the book ranked “ No. 2 on the banned book list” (Fayetteville Observer). This is because the president of the Ohio board of education deemed its depiction of sexual abuse unsuitable for high school students. School systems haven’t been the only organizations to challenge Mrs. Morrison’s book. “The book was challenged in a high school in Livingston County, Mich., because of its strong sexual content. In response to a request from the president of the Livingston Organization for Values in Education (LOVE), a conservative social activist group”( Top 10 Book Controversies, The Bluest …show more content…

To me it doesn’t make sense to censor or ban a book because you don’t agree with it or its content. The main reasons organizations and risk-adverse school board members want these kinds of books out of the school system is because they are uncomfortable with the situations and content in the book themselves. Why? Most likely since they were never taught about these situations and circumstances in their highschools and are now grown-ups who aren’t comfortable with these kinds of topics. When in reality these situations actually happen and need to be talked about. The classroom is a great place to talk about these circumstances such as rape and abuse because a teacher can help guide the students through it and really bring the teaching and meaning of the books to life. I do mean real life because once they graduate from high school these former students will possibly find themselves in situations or learning about topics similar in nature. Without this new dimension of comprehension provided to the students by reading bold novels they would grow up with an acute focus/image in life and be influenced more easily by outlandish statements such as Debe

Show More
Related
1026 Words | 5 Pages

Katz and Vishny claim their statement within the second to third paragraph of Banning Books Like 'Maus' Is Part of Sanitizing History. Dangerous, difficult, and sensitive topics are a challenge for many kids, and can cause distress and despair to said students. Even though this stress is necessary to grow and mature, the school board is banning books from developing the kids' immature and young minds. Katz and Vishny are claiming that this “pajamafication” is ruining the great futures of these students. Another factor to consider is how the parents want their children to be taught from the educational system.

Read More
152 Words | 1 Pages

This book has won several awards, in 1999 the National Book Award Finalist; in 2000 it won the Michael L. Printz, and the Coretta Scott-King award. Despites its many awards it has also been challenged and banned in many different school districts because parents didn’t think it was appropriate for their children to read. According to Dean 2013, states “Seven D97 families filed a request with the district last month to have the book removed. A "request for reconsidering" can be made under board policy, which deals with educational materials deemed "offensive or controversial. " The policy also calls for an internal committee to be convened to review such materials”.

Read More
1456 Words | 6 Pages

Toni Morrison effectively analyzed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, covering different perspectives and ways to interpret the novel that displays a higher level understanding of a “challenging” text. Good writing and analysis skills are crucial for a variety of different tasks students will have to perform beyond school. Additionally, challenging literature offers a great opportunity for students to learn about censorship. As many books read in schools today are being censored, any opportunity for students to directly learn more about the issue is beneficial. In the article “Schools Can’t Ban Books Because of Complaints, Court Says,” Mark Walsh addresses a woman who wishes to discard of controversial works, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that provoke racial harassment in the school system (Source B).

Read More
700 Words | 3 Pages

Ken Kasey’s One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a literary classic known not only for its superb style and captivating story, but also for a number of well-publicized attempts to ban the book from school and public libraries dating back to the 1970’s just after the initial publication of the story. In 1974, the board of education in Strongsville, OH was pressured with a lawsuit to ban One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The plaintiff in the case (five residents of Strongsville) presented a long and complicated argument for why the book should be banned from the school system in Stronsville, which was mostly based on violence. In the opinion of the plaintiff, the book, “glorifies criminal activity, has a tendency to corrupt juveniles, and contains

Read More
684 Words | 3 Pages

Shatoni Madison February 3.2016 Writing Wednesday Recently, several English teachers have decided to teach a certain book to their classes that contains questionable material normally not allowed in schools, including poor language, sexuality, and violence. They claim that the book has many redeeming qualities about it, and also is a great tool for teaching students reading and analytical skills. In my opinion, teachers should be permitted to teach these questionable book to their students. If an author's work was to be tampered with I feel as if many books will lose their value and or the meaning the author was trying to convey.

Read More
1268 Words | 6 Pages

but the book has also sparked wild discussions about its content and if it should be taught in schools across the country. Although The Catcher In The Rye presents strong sexual themes and vulgar language, these aspects showcase the characters ' deepest emotions while staying true to the human experience and the power of language. The very same issues that cause the catcher in the rye to climb the banned book list, sexual themes and vulgar language, are exactly the things that make this piece worth teaching in high school curriculums, as they show readers the truest

Read More
1283 Words | 6 Pages

The ending is jarring, yet truly focuses in on the themes of hopes, mistakes, and isolation. This book particularly was first banned in 1983 by parents for the use of profanity, and continued to have troubles staying in classrooms and libraries over the

Read More
1272 Words | 6 Pages

One of the key principles that make the country great is our freedom to say, write, and read whatever we want. Despite this, countless public figures and schools have chosen to restrict access to certain books, whether it’s in order to protect political correctness or explicit sexual content and violence. Rarely do these people stop and consider the dire effects book banning might have on both students and society as a whole. An author does not write because they are looking to offend someone, they right because they have a story to share. The First Amendment of the Constitution not only works to protect this right to the fullest extent possible, but also serves to protect the rights of the people that choose to be offended by these stories.

Read More
1071 Words | 5 Pages

“Using profanity was against school policy and having the book in the library made newly elected school board member, Larry McDonald, feel uncomfortable.”

Read More
1648 Words | 7 Pages

Likewise, Morrison also uses symbolism for the duration of the novel to establish how people can judge a person based on their economic standing. For instance, symbolism is represented through the blue eyes that is repeatedly mentioned in the novel. The blue eyes represent the idealistic white middle class life that Pecola dreams of having since white people commonly have blue eyes. The reader can infer this suggestion because whenever Pecola is experiencing bad things she wishes to have blue eyes. Morrison writes, "If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different and Mrs. Breedlove too…Each night, without fail, she prayed for the blue eyes…

Read More
807 Words | 4 Pages

The first piece in my portfolio is a piece of Pecola with blue eyes. One of the overarching ideas presented throughout The Bluest Eye is that white features, specifically blue eyes, is the epitome of physical beauty. Throughout the book, there is vivid visual imagery of blue eyes such as those of “lovely Mary Jane” (Morrison 50). The use of the word lovely further correlates her physical appearance and blue eyes with beauty. This causes Pecola to crave blue eyes so desperately that “every night, without fail, she prayed” in order to gain what she and everyone else unanimously view as beauty (46).

Read More
1647 Words | 7 Pages

In The Bluest Eye, Morrison offers multiple perspectives to help explain the intensity of racism and what it means to be oppressed and degraded in society. Through the eyes of various characters, readers are taken on a journey during the 1940s to demonstrate how each black character copes with the unfair standards and beliefs that society has. While some of the characters internalize self-hatred and have the desire to be someone else, others do not wish to change themselves to fit into the societal standards. Throughout the novel, there are clear and distinct remarks that are made to help distinguish the difference between white characters and black characters which is quite crucial. Morrison uses dirt and cleanliness to symbolize how society

Read More
1542 Words | 7 Pages

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.

Read More
1022 Words | 5 Pages

Therefore, it is understandable when Pecola is so desperate for blue eyes that she prays for them for an entire year and even visits a spiritualist in order to attain something she feels will make her beautiful (Morrison 46, 173-174). Racism and white standards were commonplace in society while Toni Morrison was growing up, and by including her perspective and situation within the novel, she was able to fulfill many of the values her family instilled in her as a

Read More
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

Read More

More about The Bluest Eye Controversy

Related Topics

Open Document