Summary Of The Novel 'The Bluest Eye'
Corruption of Men
There is a large sense of wickedness around the world, and although it might not seem true, but most of it comes from corrupt man. The novel, The Bluest eye, was written by Toni Morrison following the years after the Great Depression. It centers around the story of a young girl named Pecola who experiences domestic violence and racism within her surrounding. Pecola often feels “ugly” due to her black skin color; she tries to deal with it by wishing for blue eyes in order to assimilate with the white culture. The novel is mostly written from Claudia MacTeer’s perspective, who is portrayed as the opposite of Pecola. Instead of falling into society’s norms, Claudia accepts her beauty and wants to seek out her own truth. Although both girls don’t grow up in loving families, Pecola has much difficult times as her father, Cholly, has shown her nothing but hatred. Morrison is writing this novel to express how hurtful men are and what it leads to. She explores the cruelty of men and it cannot be better portrayed
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Elihue does not enjoy physical or sexual contact with most people, thus he “[limits] his interests to little girls” and believes that they are “manageable and frequently seductive” (Morrison 166). Soaphead Church’s urges of sexual attention from young girls portray him as a monster that lacks sanity and rational; a sane person would direct his cravings to a more acceptable direction, such as seeking sexual encounters among people his own age. Also, he prefers objects over people as “all his life he had a fondness for things” (Morrison 165). The fact that he finds more meaning in objects rather than in people shows how thoughtless and insensitive he is. His behavior reflects on all men, illustrating a negative image of the male gender. Nothing can be said about Elihue, except that he is an uncaring, heartless
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.
The Bluest Eyes By Toni Morrison
1516 Words | 7 PagesPecola is also a symbol of the black community’s self-loathing and belief in its own ugliness. She is absented even more from existence by her mother when she tells her of the ordeal and she doesn’t believe her but beat her instead. This cause Pecola to self-loathe and absent herself from existence because she is made to believe that the bad experience she had was her fault. Pecola is pushed furthermore into her imaginary world, which is her only shield against the pain of her existence. This becomes evident of the power that men have over women in this society.
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 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
Summary Of The Bluest Eye By J. Brooks Bouson
329 Words | 2 PagesIn J. Brooks Bouson ‘The Devastation That Even Casual Racial Contempt Can Cause’: Chronic Shame, Traumatic Abuse, and Racial Self-Loathing in The Bluest Eye, the Major Topic is internalization of racial stigmatizing. Racial stigmatizing is when an individual or race describes another with criticism and identifies them with disapproval which causes them to embody and identify themselves with these stigmas. Bouson asserts, “Because individuals incorporate into their self-representation aspects of their understanding of their group identity, those who are labeled as other or different internalize the stigmatizing stereotypes projected by the dominant culture.” This quotation is saying that people represent themselves with aspects of their race
Interpretive Response To Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1153 Words | 5 PagesInterpretive Response to The Bluest Eye - Not only does Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye reveal the undeniable theme that white is beauty. She also affiliates sex and sexuality with humiliation instead of something pleasant. The idea of whiteness as the beauty ideal mainly revolves around Pecola, but is first introduced in the story through a toy doll.
Social And Social Class In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1356 Words | 6 PagesToni Morrison´s The Bluest Eye (1970) conveys the Marxist idealism that social and economic realities are the factors that determine the culture and consciousness of a particular group. The struggle within the context of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the rejection of African American people is displayed in Morrison´s work, showing the author´s consciousness. Thus, in this paper I will try to show the author´s belief that human self-realisation is determined and delimited by the dominant class at every level. For this purpose I will focus on the relation between wealth and social class, on how the dominant class, in this case the white one, imposes its values over the black community, reducing its personality and leading its members to lose their identity. I will also try to show how the victims of the capitalist system see themselves trapped in an order from which it is very difficult to escape, and find themselves forced to give up and accept their current condition.
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
Whiteness In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
1533 Words | 7 PagesBlue eyes, blonde hair, and pale white skin was the meaning of magnificence. Pecola was a dark young lady with the fantasy to be lovely. Toni Morrison brings the peruser into the life of a young lady through Morrison's uncommon novel, The Bluest Eye. The novel shows the fights that Pecola battles with every single day. Morrison takes the peruser through the subjects of
The Bluest Eye-Racial Identity
622 Words | 3 PagesThe Bluest Eye – Racial Identity Morrison 's first novel, The Bluest Eye, looks at the appalling impacts of forcing white, working class American beliefs of excellence on the creating female character of a youthful African American young lady prior to the mid 1940s. Roused by a discussion Morrison once had with a grade school colleague who longed for blue eyes, the novel piercingly demonstrates the mental pulverization of a youthful dark young lady, Pecola Breedlove, who hunts down adoration and acknowledgment in a world that prevents and degrades individuals from claiming her own particular race. As her mental state gradually disentangles, Pecola miserably yearns to have the customary American models of female excellence—to be specific, white
The Bluest Eye Research Paper
1260 Words | 6 Pages1) 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.
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 PagesMorrison explains that the master narrative is whatever ideological script is being imposed by the people in authority on everyone else. And in the novel it is evident how Pecola is not the only one who has internalized her ugliness; for instance, we are told that the group of boys who circled and hurled insults at her do so because of “their contempt for their own blackness” and an “exquisitely learned self-hatred”. Moreover, they were ironically bullying her for something they themselves should fully empathize with; something she “had no control [over]: the color of her skin” (63). Even within the black community Pecola finds no solace or support. They all hold whiteness to be the default beauty standard.
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