The Bluest Eye Research Paper

Morrison exposes society’s standards by exploiting how white viewpoints of beauty and race affect girlhood. The Bluest Eye is the epitome of how societal mores can affect the way someone views the world or themselves. The novel set in the period of the 1940s and too no surprise these idealized visuals of beauty were very narrow minded, Morrison wrote “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs-all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pale skinned was what every girl child treasured” (20). It is interesting that she disconnected “older girls” from “adults” because those terms were used to help illustrate a gap in how different ages viewed an issue in addition to their gender. Not only do the adults not realize

This goes back to the idea of how Shirley Temple and other idolized characters within television, like the mulatto girl from Imitation of life, are pretty whereas black is ugly. Bishop uses to this to justify Morrison’s view that this vigorous power that white beauty has is, “the most destructive idea in the history of human thought” (252). The word “destructive” is used to illustrate the strenuous effects that this small idea can have on such a tremendously huge population of black girls, this is what they are exposed to and this is what they learn to hate from. It is a very strong statement that does have a large amount of sensible truth to it and is proven with the struggles that Pecola goes through, not only is she a girl that is called ugly but she is called that because the color of her

A major aspect of this novel surrounds the idea the black skin and brown eyes are what makes one ugly. Around this time period there were initiatives, where many people had the perception that blonde hair and blue eyes is what makes a perfect picture. Morrison wrote, “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” (46). Something as small as the color of her eyes is what controlled her whole life and allowed her to feel as if she wasn’t enough. It is scary to see how society’s dominance can take a toll on someone, if everyone around them is saying one thing they will eventually listen to it. It is important to consider that the quote said “she herself would be different” instead of saying that she would be beautiful. She continuously believes that blue eyes will make her beautiful and worthy but no one knows if that genuinely would resolve how people see her, because ultimately they seem to just dislike her