Internalization Of Color Effects In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

In her interview to the newspaper The Gurdian Morrison says, “In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate” (Jan 29 1992). Racial bigotry in The Bluest eye is an obvious indication of Toni Morrison’s concern, to describe creatively the insensitivity of the white folks towards black. Pecola, the Chief character in The Bluest Eye is the most woeful creation who consistently suffers the racial discrimination. Her own mother Pauline Breedlove abuses Pecola by treating the white girl of her employers as superior to her just because of the colour.

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 Morrison argues that society influences an individual 's perceptions on beauty, which she supports through characters like Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove. Furthermore, Morrison illustrates how society shapes an individual 's character by instilling beauty expectations. Morrison is effective in relaying her message about the various impacts that society has on an individual 's identity through imagery, diction, and symbolism by showing

Toni 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.

John F. Kennedy preaches that “conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” Conformity and fitting society’s so-called “correct” mold does exactly that. It limits individuality, and in the case that someone is unable to fit such a narrow mold, causes agony and self-loathing, It’s easy to believe in the ideal of individuality, but the truth of the matter lies in the fact that knowing is not the same as truly carrying out the ideal. Being rejected due to appearance can often cause agony, especially in a school setting. But, in a society where beauty is restricted to fair skin, blond hair, and blue eyes and anyone else is subjected to the harassment of society, the effects can be tremendously even more detrimental. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the standards of

Toni Morrison’s novel, Bluest Eyes, focuses on the fundamentals of being an African-American during this specific time period. It can be said noted that the linguistic confusion experienced by black communities has definitely interfered with the integrity of one’s psychological "self". As a black subject one’s identity is tainted and African - Americans are constantly searching for a new suitable tool for the expression of ones "self" which correlates with the themes and narratives of their culture. (Gates, 1983: 239). An identity crisis can be seen here and a dilemma arises of cultural and character clash within one’s self.

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.

Mindy Kaling knew that to be happy she could not compare herself to the icons of beauty, and thus lived a more carefree and upbeat. Unfortunately for the girls in The Bluest Eye they would only scrutinize these icons and identify what make people beautiful. Both authors wrote about image, just in very different ways, Kaling saw it as some societal expectations meant to be broken, where Morrison portrayed the

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.

Rhetorical 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.

Root, Identity and Community have always been the underlying theme of Toni Morrison. Through the accounts of her novels, Toni Morrison shows several ways in which slavery, which was the most oppressive period in the black history, has affected the identity of African American. In Bluest Eye, Morrison shows that a black woman who searches for her true identity feels frustrated by her blackness and yearns to be white because of the constant fear of being rejected in her surroundings. Thus Morrison tries to locate post colonial black identity in the socio-political ground where cultures are hybridized, powers are negotiated and individuals are reproduced as resistant agents. She not only writes about claiming the superiority by the white but also

The purpose of this investigation is to outline how the dominance of the white culture has created racial partiality for people of color blackpeople of color face living within a society where white aesthetics are the only factors equated to beauty, power and worth. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye demonstrates the importance of safeguarding one’s cultural identity. The question examined is “in what ways and with what results does Morrison use the motif of the eye to highlight the theme of beauty within the novel The Bluest Eye”? The cause for the self hate black characters are seen developing is due to the eye, which represents the ignorant look the white society gives to the black community.

The Bluest Eye is a novel about a black girl named Pecola Breedlove who wishes for beauty in order to attain a better life. She faces emotional and physical conflicts throughout her childhood. At eleven years old, Pecola is raped by her alcoholic father and becomes pregnant. Unlike anyone else, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, tries to help her through the pregnancy. However, Pecola’s baby ends up dying because it is premature. In 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

The song represents a journey to self-acceptance of not only one’s hair, but as well as self-acceptance of yourself as an African American Woman. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Pecola, a young African-American in the 1960’s experiences the same shame that comes with being black in a White America. The song, uncovers this for

They 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

Morrison is among the pioneer of those contemporary black writers who have redefined African- American writings in more ways than one. This assignment will focus on the aspects of gender bias and double consciousness in The Bluest Eye. The Bluest Eye works at different layers of the lives of black people. At one level it accounts for the racial discrimination faced by Afro-Americans throughout their life time.