A Literary Analysis Of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye; A Literary Analysis In a society dominated by white supremacy, racial oppression, and segregation between divergent races, a myriad of people tend to solely centralize the issues of white privilege rather than addressing the alternative problems associated with this type of society. Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eye”, published in 1970, provides an alternate perception of the problem that broaches the issues, and consequences of internalized racism. This is what will primarily be discussed in the analysis. The storyline follows the life of Pecola Breedlove, a young, black girl who resides in Ohio in the 1940s, and her plethoric obsession with white beauty standards, predominantly, blue eyes. The way Morrison constructs the book is utterly intriguing, but due to the peculiar disposition, the novel can also be regarded as obscure, and enigmatic. The story transitions through a stream of different point of views, the prevailing one being Claudia MacTeer’s, a young, inquisitive, …show more content…
The more “ugly” incidents she is subjected to, the more extreme and abundant do her desires evolve to be. The climax is when Pecola is raped by the antagonist of the novel, her own father, Cholly Breedlove. Eventually, she loses her sanity and reaches out to Soaphead to ask for blue eyes. Disgusted with the molestation, people find another reason to despise Pecola and to ignore her. Thereupon, Pecola becomes delusional and surmises that people ignore her because they are jealous of her new blue eyes; “Everybody’s jealous. Every time I look at somebody, they look off” (p. 193). She consequently creates an imaginary friend (p. 191) to talk to as a defence mechanism to deal with the pain of being raped, and neglected by her own
Societal Isolation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein '
1483 Words | 6 PagesShe 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.
Summary Of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five
1817 Words | 8 PagesShe is taken in by a local family, but eventually goes back to live with her abusive parents. Pecola’s parents hate themselves and each other which is expressed in equal measures of violence and neglect. Pecola is raped by her father and impregnated, but the child does not survive premature birth. Eventually, Pecola pleads with a town mystic to grant her wish of having blue eyes, believing this “mark of beauty” will finally earn her the love she so desperately craves. Pecola finally loses her sanity, believing her wish granted, and spends the rest of her life in a world of fantasy on the edge of
Response To The Bluest Eye's
501 Words | 3 PagesReading Response Tony Morrison’s The Bluest Eye’s is a story residing in Lorain, Ohio during the 1940s, narrated by eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove and nine-year-old Claudia MacTeer: the story tells of the encounters of Pecola and what it is like to grow up as a black girl, in a society who views whiteness as the standard of beauty. Throughout the reading it is repeatedly hinted at that whites are superior, and furthermore the beauty of white women and children is something that blacks could never compare to. The first hint at white superiority can be found just by looking at the books title “The Bluest Eyes,” as most African Americans, such as the one on the cover photo are not born to have blue eyes.
The Bluest Eye Beauty Standards Essay
975 Words | 4 PagesThey 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
Rhetorical Devices In The Bluest Eye
1648 Words | 7 PagesRhetorical Analysis Essay The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison takes place in Ohio in the 1940s. The novel is written from the perspective of African Americans and how they view themselves. Focusing on identity, Morrison uses rhetorical devices such as imagery, dictation, and symbolism to help stress her point of view on identity. In the novel the author argues that society influences an individual 's perception on beauty, which she supports through characters like Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove.
Symbolism In The Bluest Eye
1647 Words | 7 PagesIn 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
Two Narrative Perspectives In Toni Morrison's Beloved
843 Words | 4 PagesToni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved is a multiply narrated story of having to come to terms with the past to be able to move forward. Set after the Civil War in 1870s, the novel centers on the experiences of the family of Baby Suggs, Sethe, Denver, and Paul D and on how they try to confront their past with the arrival of Beloved. Two narrative perspectives are main, that of the third-person omniscient and of the third person limited, and there is also a perspective of the first-person. The novel’s narrators shift constantly and most of the times without notifying at all, and these narratives of limited perspectives of different characters help us understand the interiority, the sufferings and memories, of several different characters better and in their diversity.
Role Of Neglect In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1588 Words | 7 PagesNEGLECT AND MULTI VOICES IN TONI MORRISON’S “GOD HELP THE CHILD” Child neglect is when a parent or care giver does not give the affection, control, care and sustain needed for a child health, security and well-being. Child neglect includes: Physical neglect and inadequate supervision Emotional neglect Medical neglect Educational neglect Several of Morrison‘s mothers voluntarily neglect their own children. Approximately twenty mothers in her eleven novels do not worry their own children.
Social And Social Class In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1356 Words | 6 PagesBut it is not only the race and the colour of their skin what makes them unable to change their situation, but also poverty. Race and wealth are intertwined, and Pecola is the fundamental victim of this relationship, for she is a young black girl suffering from this ideology that determines her life. The dominant class imposes its values upon the other, for they think they are the best ones, reducing thus the personality of the people belonging to other classes, and at the same time, making them unable to change their oppressed situation, for they do not have the chance. They just accept their current position, and thus they will always be
The American Dream In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1002 Words | 5 PagesThe social standards of beauty and the idea of the American Dream in The Bluest Eye leads Mrs. Breedlove to feelings of shame that she later passes on to Pecola. The Breedloves are surrounded by the idea of perfection, and their absence of it makes them misfits. Mrs. Breedlove works for a white family, the Fishers. She enjoys the luxury of her work life and inevitably favors her work over her family. This leads Pecola to struggle to find her identity, in a time where perception is everything.
Identity In The Bluest Eye
835 Words | 4 PagesMorrison '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
The Effects Of Motherhood In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
3280 Words | 14 PagesIt 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
The Bluest Eye Research Paper
1260 Words | 6 PagesIn 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
Theme Of Double Consciousness In The Bluest Eye
1542 Words | 7 PagesToni 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.
Self-Worth In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1172 Words | 5 PagesToni 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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