ipl-logo

The Bluest Eye

799 Words4 Pages

The Bluest Eye is about the life of a young, black girl name Pecola and her desires to have blue eyes. Pecola begins to believe that if she could change her physical beauty, her life would become better. Almost all of the characters are busy with the idea of; and in some way attempt to conform to a standard of beauty. This standard of beauty is accepted by the society in which they live. Messages that white beauty is superior are everywhere, including the white baby doll given to Claudia, the idealization of Shirley Temple, the consensus that light-skinned Maureen is cuter than the other black girls, and even the idealization of white beauty in the movies. The fact that a certain type of standard is established, and all of the members of the …show more content…

Beauty is having blond hair, blue eyes, being rich, and having a perfect family. Not only the parents as well, but the children are invisible in that society and are seen as nothing. The idea that the color of your skin make you less of a person was well read by both whites and blacks and also The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person poisoned black people's lives in many different ways. The Bluest Eye provides a depiction of the ways in which white beauty standards are the only beauty standard and that being black is unattractive. Black characters were being taught or shown images that white is the only definition of beauty. Characters also see white beauty through magazines, movies, and advertisements. Pecola and Frieda talked about how much they loved Shirley Temple's beauty, and Pecola would drink milk out of their Shirley Temple cup just to see her face. Mrs. Breedlove would also go to the movies just to see the white actress and wishing she could be in their …show more content…

For months Pecola prayed that her eyes could turn blue. She thinks that getting blue eyes will make all her problems go away. Because she is black and doesn't have blue eyes, she starts to hate herself and would even look in the mirror to see where the ugliness came from. The idea pushed by the media that blue eyes are beautiful builds up a strong destructive desire in Pecola. Pecola longs for blue eyes, she thinks, ".if those eyes of her were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” Pecola has fallen into a misconception that blue eyes can make someone beautiful and be liked more. After she finds out that was pregnant with her father's baby she went to Soaphead Church for help. Her desire for blue eyes eventually leads her to go crazy. She starts to have a double personality and actually thinks that she does have blue

Show More
Related
1483 Words | 6 Pages

She wrote that her inspiration for the story was a conversation she had had when she was little with another little black girl who had a fascination with blue eyes, much like her character Pecola Breedlove. Morrison is known for her stories that circle around how racism and misogyny affect black women. For The Bluest Eye, a little girl named Pecola Breedlove goes insane from the inhumane treatment she faces as an eleven-year-old african american girl in the Great Depression. There are many points in the book where she is dehumanized and treated less than dirt, even by her own parents. Her father in a bid to feel in control despite how much white men have controlled him, rapes his daughter and she becomes pregnant with his child.

Read More
490 Words | 2 Pages

After World War 1, the 1920s was often referred to as the Roaring ‘20s. It was known as this because of the sustained economic prosperity during this time period. Consequently, with the economic prosperity came with major political, social, economic, technological, and cultural developments of the 1920s. The “Roaring Twenties” can be considered as a time of many advancements that helped shape the lives of Americans on a large scale. For instance, one of the social developments in the 1920s was that people longed for a simpler life.

Read More
1630 Words | 7 Pages

Maybe they’d say “Why, look at pretty-eyed pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.” ( 48) If pecola has blue eye she would feel

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
873 Words | 4 Pages

What Is The Concept With The Word Beauty In “The Bluest Eyes” ? Nowadays everything has its own definition. People see and thinks differently in a lot of things. They can change a meaning to a word and make it their own meaning. Which makes their own meaning to a word effect somebody in a negative or positive way.

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
975 Words | 4 Pages

Pecola and her mother, Pauline, see themselves as ugly because they hold themselves to beauty standards in which light-skinned people are the ideal. Pecola and her mother have a brutal home life due to the drunken violence of Cholly Breedlove, and the constant pressure of beauty standards only adds to their misfortune. Morrison explains this pressure by asserting that “[i]t was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they

Read More
1002 Words | 5 Pages

Pecola is challenged by the idea that her mother prefers her work life, that they have an outdated house, and that she does not look like the Shirley Temple doll with blue eyes. Morrison went into great detail when describing the elegance and beauty that was present in the Fisher home, to demonstrate that those who do not fit into the ideal American life often feel shame. The Breedlove family lived a very simple life, and in no way did they fit into what society believed to be correct. Mrs. Breedlove was the only member of the family that truly understood what the American Dream looked like. The work that she did for the Fishers lead her to envy the American Dream.

Read More
877 Words | 4 Pages

To begin with, there is a lot of racism in society today whereby the skin color of a person dictates how a person is to be treated. In the novel, Pecola is seen as ugly, and this lowers her esteem as she feels ugly. Pecola thinks that by having blue eyes that all will be well and that the community will treat her with dignity (Morrison, 84). In society today, black girls try to use bleach to whiten their skin tones so that they blend in well in the society. Others go to the extreme by getting surgeries to change their color that ends up causing diseases such as skin cancer and death.

Read More
3280 Words | 14 Pages

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

Read More
1542 Words | 7 Pages

The Bluest Eyes open with an anecdote of Dick and Jane to show how racism destroys the mental stability of black people. It equates whites with success and happiness while blacks with poverty and unhappiness. This traumatises the minds of Blacks and they begin to dislike their own heritage and skin colour in the white world of Dick and Jane.

Read More
1172 Words | 5 Pages

Toni Morrison, in numerous interviews, has said that her reason for writing The Bluest Eye was that she realized there was a book she wanted very much to read that had not been written yet. She set out to construct that book – one that she says was about her, or somebody like her. For until then, nobody had taken a little black girl—the most vulnerable kind of person in the world—seriously in literature; black female children have never held centre stage in anything. Thus with the arrival of the character Pecola Breedlove, a little hurt black girl is put to the centre of the story. Pecola’s quest is to acquire “Shirley Temple beauty” and blue eyes – ideals of beauty sponsored by the white world.

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
1260 Words | 6 Pages

In Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, she validates her theme of how society can corrupt people through the portrayal of a conflicted society of racism to show segregation between the white and nonwhite, symbolic blue eyes to portray what the characters desperately desire in order to have a better life, and an abused

Read More

More about The Bluest Eye

Related Topics

Open Document