The intended audience in The Bluest Eyes by Tori Morrison was to anyone who can hear her characters’ voice; that, whereas they are fictional, they reflect the society Morrison lived in. The novel has made an impact on racial beauty and what females go through due to her effort to demonstrate the implications of racial self-loathing, and this thesis has essentially originated from her friend wanting blue eyes. Morrison repulsed at the thought, and thus the racial infused attitude for the next twenty years has conformed into this novel. From a broad sense, The Bluest Eyes certainly has numerous main ideas. However, if you take the time to be more keen and deceptive by inspecting it, you can see that the main ideas are limned by the structure of the novel. From the beginning, the story begins with Pecola Breedlove being called “ugly”; henceforth the sneers, the disgusted looks, the bullying, and her perception of “I must have blue eyes to be beautiful.” …show more content…
Yet, not many seemed to notice or be concern over Frieda. Morison gave the impression of noticing this withal, as expressed on “[such a] delicate and vulnerable a character… lead readers into the comfort of pitying [Pecola].” Just because one had more trauma over the other does mean to deviate your attention from the one in less angst over another; both should receive the attention needed to soothe and garner as much healing as they can for their mental and psychological minds. Morison tried to break down the narrative for readers to piece and make connections from there as a prevention to the situation. Conversely, it seems forlorn with “many readers remained touched but not
Segregation, separation and discrimination are three different words that share one definition. The documentary Brown eyes-Blue eyes allows its viewers to see segregation, separation and discrimination. Although many have seen segregation displayed in older people, the prominent fact was viewers see kids discriminating one another because he/she has blue eyes or brown eyes. Jane Elliot a third grade teacher created the blue eye brown eye experiment, in hope of creating a perspective for children to view people for what lies on the inside not the pigment of their skin. The experiment cultivated many children, as shown in the film the kids actually took something away from the experience.
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.
“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.” In this quote found in Chapter 3, in the Autumn section of the novel, it showed the desire of Pecola to have the Bluest Eyes. Pecola wants to have blue eyes not because she wants to be beautiful but because she wants to change how she sees reality. Pecola experiences a lot of things and one thing led to another and she saw her parents have a violent fight, she thinks that the only solution to her pain is if she sees something different. In Pecola’s perspective, one’s physical appearance is the most important thing and that people
As a poor, African American girl in the 1940s, society has cast Pecola aside. Right from birth her mother thought she had a “head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly” (126). Pecola does not understand the ugliness placed upon her. For “long hours she [would sit,] looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised” (45). Pecola finds herself drawn to the prostitutes because they do not accept the ugliness forced upon them and instead find themselves worthy of love and beauty.
To conclude, Toni Morrison’s purpose in writing the Bluest Eye is to show the readers of how young black girls in a way have to fight against society as they go from girls to young women. I specifically used the chapter of autumn where we saw Pecola as a symbolization of fog - confused, lost. The author uses three literary terms to present this theme such as imagery, epiphany and colloquial
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
11.) Pecola 's life issue is she has an inferiority complex, which causes the majority of the conflict in the book. "It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different." Pecola starts to think she is ugly because her neighbors are tell her that they think she is ugly, the way her own family treats her, and her friends. Pecola 's mother even says in the book that she thinks Pecola is ugly, "Eyes all soft and wet.
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
The 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.
African- American writings have dealt with manifold themes throughout history. The American Civil War can be considered a break-through in the political as well as literary history. Many texts were born with subtle experiences of racist attitudes in America. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye can be pinned to the African- American writings after the American Civil War movement of the 1960’s, representing a “distinctively black literature” what Morrison calls “race-specific yet race-free prose”.
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
Destructive Nature of Racialised Beauty Toni Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, in 1970. In this novel, Toni Morrison shows how societies racist and false beliefs on beauty can be seriously destructive if believed and taken to heart. Toni Morrison displays the destructive nature of racialised beauty through the character in the novel named Pecola Breedlove. Pecola lacks self esteem and believes that she is the blackest and ugliest girl, and she believes that white is the only beautiful race.
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
1) Society has change the way Pecola perceives herself and she has the idea in her mind that her life would be less miserable if she has blue eyes. She is always thinking that “if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (Morrison 46). Pecola has gotten the impression of her life being complete if only she has blue eyes. She would see the eyes of others and become envious of their blue eyes. The boys at school would always pick on her and call her an ugly black girl.
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.