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Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me Analysis

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In both The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me a main theme is image. Morrison uses Claudia, an African American child, to show a distinct hatred for the beauty standard. She had such a strong disdain for Shirley Temple and the white doll she was given as a gift. Her detest for these things was because she could never have those things, the beauty was unattainable. Claudia could never be cute she could never be pretty, but Maureen Paul a little white girl could be cute, she could be pretty. Pecola another young girl in the book, was not jealous and hateful like Claudia, but instead longed for those traits. All she ever wanted was to be beautiful, and she was only seen as ugly. She thought that …show more content…

She is proud to be herself and looks down on society’s standards rather than looking down upon herself. Kaling may not have had the best fashion sense as a kid, with the long turtleneck sweaters and the short haircut. But as she grew up her sense of style grew, but she also realized society was limiting her choices. The standards of beauty expect that women are either supposed to be model level skinny or have many curves. Mindy was around average size and she was limited in her style options but she didn’t let this stop her. She did not let any stylist tell her how she should dress and attempt to hold her back from looking the way she wanted. The standards of beauty did not oppress her or make her want to change herself, but instead she made her own standards to live by. She not only inspires people to follow her fashion but to also to makes the rules of beauty. Claudia and Pecola both cared a lot about being perceived as beautiful, where Mindy only sought to make herself feel beautiful. 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

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