Book Defense: The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison
Book Defense: The Bluest Eye “Quiet as it is kept there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow” (Morrison 3). This is the story of Pecola Breedlove, who each night prayed for blue eyes. This miracle would make her family different and people would look at her differently after all; they were ugly people (Morrison 39) and only a prayer would help them. Throughout the novel The Bluest Eye author Toni Morrison tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who struggles with abuse from her family and the community in which she lives in. She is blamed for her own rape and pregnancy and want her kicked out of the school that she attends because they do not want the other students to learn about her pregnancy, or for them to know about rape or incest as that is how Pecola became pregnant by her father, Cholly Breedlove. …show more content…
Pecola is now seen searching the garbage and walking up and down, up and down her head jerking to the beat of a drum so distant that she could only hear (Morrison 204). Her baby came too soon and died and now Pecola had grown to convince herself that she had blue eyes and that is the reason no one talks to her, because they are jealous of her blue eyes. Even then after she convinces herself that she has blue eyes, she is heartbroken to even think that someone out there has bluer eyes than she
Societal Isolation In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein '
1483 Words | 6 PagesShe miscarries and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pecola retreats into a fantasy world where she is a bird and can fly away from all the pain she has endured, and she is unable to escape the delusion. Another little girl named Claudia blames herself and her sister’s fear of interacting with Pecola as the reason for Pecola’s mental break, but it wasn’t them; it was the adults that surrounded
The Female In The African-American Community
1149 Words | 5 PagesDelicate and sensitive, she passively suffers the abuse of her mother, father, and classmates. She is a symbol of the black community’s self-hatred and belief in its own ugliness. Others in the community, including her mother and father, act out their own self-hatred by expressing hatred towards her. Pecola’s desire for blue eyes comes from her stereotypical perception that as a black female, she needs to look beautiful to be treated beautifully. She believes that being granted the blue eyes that she wishes for would change both how others see her and what she is forced to see.
Survival In The Bluest Eye
1179 Words | 5 PagesHer physical deformity is her “ugliness”, a perception that is shared by the community and that forms the girl’s own identity. Pecola Breedlove is a young African American girl coming of age during the 1940s. She yearns to be respected and recognised by her own people as well as in a world that discards and diminishes the importance of the members of her own race and outlines magnificence according to an Anglo Saxon traditional touchstone. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola is wanting for beauty and her identity for her survival is through illusionary assimilation into the beauty ideals of the white world. She wants not only to be beautiful but also some kind of an ideal of beauty for other girls.
The Bluest Eye Beauty Standards Essay
975 Words | 4 PagesPecola 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
Rhetorical Devices In The Bluest Eye
1648 Words | 7 PagesLikewise, Morrison also uses symbolism for the duration of the novel to establish how people can judge a person based on their economic standing. For instance, symbolism is represented through the blue eyes that is repeatedly mentioned in the novel. The blue eyes represent the idealistic white middle class life that Pecola dreams of having since white people commonly have blue eyes. The reader can infer this suggestion because whenever Pecola is experiencing bad things she wishes to have blue eyes. Morrison writes, "If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different and Mrs. Breedlove too…Each night, without fail, she prayed for the blue eyes…
Self-Loathing In The Bluest Eye
1589 Words | 7 PagesA hidden view of Mrs. Breedlove calling her baby ugly reflects right back to her. Pecola is an image of her mother and when she sees the ugly baby it further confirms all of Mrs. Breedlove’s hatred. She turns to other people’s lives to try and get over herself. She begins to care more about other families instead of her own. She treats her own
The Bluest Eye Controversy
1046 Words | 5 PagesShe grew up with parents that fought often and a protestant white community that was not accepting of her. For these reasons and others Pecola develops an inferiority complex and longs to have blue eyes and white skin to be beautiful and accepted like the other girls. For indefinite reasons Pecola’s drunk
The American Dream In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1002 Words | 5 PagesPecola is challenged by the idea that her mother prefers her work life, that they have an outdated house, and that she does not look like the Shirley Temple doll with blue eyes. Morrison went into great detail when describing the elegance and beauty that was present in the Fisher home, to demonstrate that those who do not fit into the ideal American life often feel shame. The Breedlove family lived a very simple life, and in no way did they fit into what society believed to be correct. Mrs. Breedlove was the only member of the family that truly understood what the American Dream looked like. The work that she did for the Fishers lead her to envy the American Dream.
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
Racism In Pecola's The Bluest Eye
1348 Words | 6 PagesPecola the protagonist of the novel longs for the bluest eyes ultimately ends up her life with mental issues. Born as a black girl she admires white beauty and blue eyes which is rejected plainly for the blacks. It is very hard for the blacks to lead their life as a children as well as an adult. As a child blacks face many humiliations and hatred. It is even difficult and different in the case of black girls where the girls are raped and treated very badly.
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 PagesNonetheless, Pecola feel uncertain about herself as people bully her for being who she
Self-Worth In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1172 Words | 5 PagesAs Paul C. Taylor declares, “the most prominent type of racialized ranking represents blackness as a condition to be despised, and most tokens of this type extend this attitude to cover the physical features that are central to the description of black identity” (16). Such attitudes are found in the words of black women themselves, when they talk about Pecola’s baby, saying that it “ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly. Be better off in the ground” (188). Without any support from her community or even family, Pecola is a character who is
The Theme Of Abuse In Pecola
877 Words | 4 PagesAll these ill treatment towards Pecola shows the abuse people receive in society. The theme of abuse is crucial because it can portray levels
Racism In The Bluest Eye And Home
845 Words | 4 PagesThroughout her life she encountered difficult obstacles due to her race and she made parallels to it in her novels. Morrison had many themes and strands based on racism, that contributed to her success and elevated her status to an influential African American writer. One major theme Morrison uses consistently across her books is how the past events of characters affect their daily life and consciousness. In The Bluest Eye, the main protagonist, Pecola Breedlove, has parents whose present life was the way it was
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