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Use Of Social Norms In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

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In the novel, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the author Toni Morrison uses the characters and their actions to portray social norms. Her writing challenges the very essence of what beauty is through the main characters Pecola, Cholly, Pauline Breedlove, Freida, Claudia, and Mrs.MacTeer. The main character Pecola is thought of by many as ugly and this idea influences her own actions, thoughts, and feelings. The author uses the standards of beauty motif to demonstrate the concept that everyone is criticized and a person’s support system determines how different people deal with it. Additionally, some readers may explore their own biases as they read the book. Beauty is presented as an abstract concept; an imaginary idea that means something different to every person. At …show more content…

“She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley’s dimpled face. Freida and she had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temples was. I couldn’t join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley (Morrison 19).” Readers quickly observe that Frieda wants to see and absorb the concept of beauty. Claudia, on the other hand, thinks that Shirley is just a social norm, not actually something that represents beauty and she does not understand why beauty has to take the form of someone like Shirley Temple. As the book goes on, Claudia and Freida explore what beauty is in their eyes. Claudia receives dolls from her relatives. She proceeds to destroy (dissects) them, in order to determine why beauty is deemed to be the pale face with blue eyes versus features that are similar to her own (Morrison 21). The social

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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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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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