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The Bluest Eye Research Paper

572 Words3 Pages

Toni Morrison mentions actresses in the novel, and even in today’s culture, Americans tend to see them as beautiful or otherwise. As shown in The Bluest Eye, however, they were depicted differently compared to how the modern-day American depicts actors and actresses: African-Americans admired White actors and actresses. While these appearances are short, they do make a large impact on the characters. Bump makes the claim that “virtually all readers… know that they do not have movie star beauty and thus fear judging by appearance,” meaning that even today’s population yearn for this beauty created by the media i.e. actors and actresses (Bump 157). The first person to arrive on the scene is the famous Shirley Temple, who appears on a cup Frieda …show more content…

In Claudia’s perspective, she doesn’t like Shirley Temple because she danced with African-Americans who were depicted in a stereotypical way i.e. a servant. However, for Claudia, it is a deeper reason behind her not liking Shirley Temple. The reason for this is because of her being “younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her” (Morrison 19). Morrison foreshadows the psyche of a person who isn’t able to comprehend compared to the older girls, whose psyche tells them to “adore” this little girl rather than Claudia’s “hate” the little girl. The final actress was mentioned in Pauline’s backstory, and her name is Jean Harlow. This woman, who was depicted in the movie, is Pauline’s final straw due to what she had did. When she was pregnant with Sammy, Pauline “fixed [her] hair up like [she had] seen hers on a magazine: a part on the side, with one little curl on [her] forehead, [and] it looked… almost just like [Harlow’s hair]” (Morrison

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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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Clowes crafts a script which tackles the dichotomy of love and loneliness managing to show that there isn't much separating the two. When Wilson is in his apartment, with his things and pepper, he appears to love his life. The death of his dad changes all of this. He quickly realizes that even though he has his apartment and his dog, life is much more than possessions. Without ruining the film, I'll just say that Cheryl Hines plays Pippi's sister Polly and is fantastic.

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Tori Morrison succeeds at getting the awareness out about the impact of internalized racism, and how far people go when it comes to wanting to change their appearance. During the times in the Bluest Eye, according to society, to look beautiful, you had to be white or light skin with blue eyes. The darker shade of brown you were the uglier and poorer you seemed to people. For example, when Pecola was asked by a boy, Junior, to go into his house to see his cat. After the boy tortures the cat and eventually killing it, his mother comes into the door.

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In the novel The Bluest Eye the author Toni Morrison employs a plethora of literary devices in order to convey not only the adversities of our heroin Pecola, but also to bring attention to some of the deeper more pressing issues in, then, contemporary society. Through her novel Morrison demonstrates how internal racism, and societal perceptions of beauty are damaging to not only the individual being marginalized but also society as a whole. One of the reasons, I will argue, that Morrison uses imagery, diction, and tone to illustrate the repercussions of internalized racism, societal norms beauty standards. In the Bluest Eye Toni Morrison's tone when describing what is, in essence, the ideal black women is entirely bland to the point of

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Claudia was never gifted a black baby doll, but always a big, blue-eyed doll. “Adults, older girls, shops, magizines, newspapers, window signs--, all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (Morrison 20). This white baby doll was seen even by the black women, to be one of the best gifts to reward a little black girl… perhaps because the doll’s beauty was what every black child should dream of. When Claudia destroyed her baby doll, she was reprimanded, hinting at the respect she should have for her baby doll, or furthermore whites in general. Claudia even goes on to say that the transference of the baby dolls to white girls, was horrifying; the way she was expected to love her doll, was the reality of the way she was expected to love

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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).

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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

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In history, if you were different, for example by race, you would be treated differently and probably not expected. This has happened mostly in US history, from when African American got there freedom to now, but with different types of people, like Latinos, gays, trans and much more. For Pecola, a little black girl in Toni Morrison’s book, The Bluest Eye, she isn’t treated the same by almost everyone she meets because of her race and ugliness. Her dream is to have blue eyes so she can be loved and accepted by all because her actual color contributes to how she is taken advantage of and manipulated. All people around Pecola, except Claudia and Freedia, treats her disrespectfully because of her “ugliness”.

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The fact that the Breedloves were heavily discriminated against by others because of their appearance is truly something to be infuriated by. However, it should also be noted that the family itself helped contribute to this by playing into the stereotypes they were being grouped in. The matriarch of the family, Pauline, was a very interesting character to follow. Her personality greatly contrasted between her family and the family she worked for. For example, when Pecola, Frieda and Claudia address her, they always address her as Mrs. Breedlove.

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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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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.

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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.

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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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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

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