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

The Bluest Eye: Beauty People often say that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” in The Bluest Eye this takes a new meaning. The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison 's first novel published in 1970. Set in the author 's hometown in Lorrain, Ohio, it narrates the story of a black little girl named Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for blue eyes like the ones her idol Shirley Temple has, because that way she will be beautiful and loved. Throughout the novel Toni Morrison takes us on Pecola 's journey to self-destruction because she lives in world that doesn 't find her beautiful or even worth to be looked at.

Pecola believes and feels that she can overcome this battle and thoughts of self-hatred by obtaining blues eyes. The choice of blue eyes is due to the racial society she has grown up in. " Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window sign, all the world had agreed that a blue eyed yellow, haired, pink, skinned doll was what every girl child treasured"(The Bluest Eye p.20.21). Any community views that the blue eyes are synonyms of

It tells the story of a young African-American who believes her incredibly difficult life would get better if only she acquires blue eyes. This research paper will discuss anger trough characters, plot, symbols and narration to shed a spot on struggling against the black society 's idealization of white beauty standards. Firstly, the central theme of Morrison 's novel is the black American anger in an unjust society. Her characters struggle to find themselves and their cultural identity.

Alice Walker, a poet and activist once said that “a womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.” Womanism is just another shade of feminism. It helps give awareness to the experience of black women and other women of color who have always been at the forefront of the feminist movement, but made invisible in historical texts and the media. Although feminism addresses and fights for gender equality, it rarely addressed equality and justice for black women in the civil rights movement. On the other hand, womanism not only fights for the gender equality but for justice against racial oppression against African American men and women.

In her narrative, Jacobs appeals to her audience’s sense of pathos through her use of metaphors, allusions, and figurative language in order to make the hard lives of female slaves prevalent. By comparing herself to an inanimate object through the use of a metaphor, Jacobs causes the reader to understand the fact that slaves were not viewed as humans, but rather as property. Jacobs lived her early years of life completely ignorant towards the fact that she was a slave. However, it was the loss of Jacobs’ mother when the former was only six-years-old that changed that forever.

The protagonist of The Bluest Eye is a young African American girl named Pecola Breedlove. She is introduced by Claudia, a young African-American girl with who Pecola builds a friendship, as a “girl who had no place to go” (16). Pecola struggles to accept her appearance and believes that the source of all the problems she encounters is her dark skin tone. In the book, Pecola chooses to hide “behind [her ugliness]” and be “concealed, veiled, eclipsed-peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the return of her mask” (39). She hid behind a mask in order to protect herself from the insults and discrimination she received from society.

Desiree, the protagonist in a feminist short story defies the life of African American people, and women during the time period she wrote. Kate Chopin wrote “Desiree’s Baby” when roles for women were initially challenged for their freedom. In “Desiree’s Baby”

Baker’s physical description completes the physical stereotype of masculine women; Nick describes Jordan as slender, small-breasted, and that she threw her body “backwards at the shoulders like a young cadet” (14). In similar fashion, Jordan has the one female role that challenges Fitzgerald’s conventional image of women. At the outset, her name is ambiguous, as Jordan is recognized as being a typically masculine name. Most importantly, Jordan has independence through her own financial stability. Yet Jordan’s bold and modern style is neglected, and she is regarded inferiorly.

She intended for this work to be a symbol of feminist opposition, and in doing that, she brings to life the age-old proverb that what goes around comes around; those that oppress women will surely suffer for it just as Sykes did. The portrayal of Delia as a strong and courageous black woman in Sweat was a beacon of hope for African American women writers, and inspired them to depict non-stereotypical black women characters. Lorraine Bethel points out that throughout her works Hurston disrupted stereotypes of African American women portrayed by white males. Even after her death, Zora Neale Hurston continues to rock the

1. Introduction “Rubyfruit Jungle” is a coming of age novel, which was written by American author Rita Mae Brown in 1971 and published in 1973. Being one of the first “lesbian novels”, it is written in the perspective of 1944 born Molly Bolt and deals with her early life and the problems she goes through, which are caused by sexism and homophobia of other people, who have a problem with her being a lesbian and also not fitting in the mold of a typical woman of the 1950s and 1960s. Even though there are parallels to Rita Mae Brown’s life, the novel is not an autobiography. Some parts are simply fictional.