She 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.
Toni Morrison expresses ideas of intersectionality, discrimination, and self-hatred/acceptance through multiple perspectives in her book, “The Bluest Eye”. The book follows a young girl, Pecola Breedlove throughout her journey of self-hatred and longing for the cultural beauty of having blue eyes. Pecola believes that having blue eyes would allow her to lead a better life, as blue eyes match society’s definition of beautiful because of its connection with “whiteness”. This yearning for acceptance and physical beauty isolates Pecola, as she begins to believe that the inferiority and hate that is being reflected back at her, is who she is. Coupled with the background of her parents, this leaves Pecola with a great deal of shame and self-loathing,
In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, one of the biggest themes displayed throughout the book is how African-Americans are marginalized. For example, throughout the whole book, black characters are marginalized from the both the white and black communities. Throughout the whole book, the most marginalised character is Pecola. Pecola, an eleven year old girl who is ridiculed and insulted by all of her peers and even traumatized by her parents.
A Researched Analytical Essay: The Bluest Eye In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, we are provided an extended interpretation of how whiteness is the standard of beauty, which distorts the lives of black women and children, through messages everywhere that whiteness is superior. The theme of race and that white skin is greater is portrayed through the lives and stories told by the characters, especially the three girls Claudia, Pecola and Frieda. Through the struggles those people have endured, Morrison shows us the destructive effect of this internalized idea of white beauty on the individual and on society. “The Bluest Eye” has a number of elements that relate closely to Toni Morrison’s own personal life.
Rape is inaccurately associated with sex when it essentially is about power. Feminist theorists assert that rape is only one symptom of the larger problem of a male dominated society (Cahill, 2001). Rape is an obnoxious fact of life due to its common occurrence and is commonly misinterpreted as a sexual act rather than a violent one. The act of rape does not occur because the rapist can’t “get sex elsewhere, but because they feel entitled to rape women in order to satisfy their needs. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, sex is about power, violence and oppression.
In the novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison demonstrates how a person’s identity affects a person 's actions. The two character who demonstrates this would be Cholly and Pecola. Cholly is an African American man who was abandoned by his mom when he was little later on, he married Polly and had a daughter Pecola. Pecola is a eleven who is African American and dreams of having blue eye because she believes she will finally be pretty. In this novel Morrison argues a person does not have control over their own identity.
The Bluest Eye is a story about a girl named Pecola and her life story in a society where she is at the bottom of a scale. The story explains how she got impregnated by her father called the seed. Also how her baby never grew and ended up dying and also what she went through as a child never being able to reach the beauty standards of society. The story exceeds certain points of views from Pecola 's friends, family, and her own. Pecola reaches a certain point in society where she wants to be seen as beautiful and have a better life than she has, so she wishes she could have blue eyes so she can be beautiful.
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is a tragic story about a young black girl growing up in Lorain, Ohio after the Great Depression. Morrison wrote this novel to portray that the racy themes in the book such as incest, prostitution, child molestation, domestic violence, substance abuse, and racism can not only be experienced by adults but by children as well. So to create a piece of literature that shows what that is like, helps society to better understand what exactly it is that, not just a child, but an African American child, would have gone through during that time. So, in The Bluest Eye Claudia MacTeer, nine years old and her sister Frieda who is 10 years old, live with both their parents in an old house.
The book “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison takes place in a poor area of Lorain, Ohio in the year 1941. I think this is a great setting for the book. It teaches people now about the hardships that people of color (specifically African-Americans) had to face every day in the early 20th century. Although I like the setting now, I think it would be very interesting to read a book about the same topic in the present time. Hardships for any person of color still exist, even though it may not be as bad or easy to see.
Make-up Assignment for Seminar 3 The novel, The Bluest Eyes discusses many interesting themes during the course of the story, for example incest, prostitution, domestic violence, child molestation as well as racism. However, I think that the overall theme of the novel is highlighting how internalized white beauty standards form and cripple the lives of black girls and women. The reason as to why I believe that this is the main theme that Morrison wanted to convey in her novel is because there are implicit messages that whiteness is superior are everywhere throughout the book. Toni Morrison explains that the story of the novel came out of a childhood conversation she could never get out of her mind.
Brown’s Sneaker She always was alone. No one ever went near her. It is not that she was dirty; it was just that she always had a transparent barrier. Her name was Chloe Brown. Everybody called her “Brown” among themselves, and she was twelve.
It 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
Societal influence and internalized discrimination is the main message in Toni Morrison’s, The Bluest Eye. Using her main character Pecola as the focal point of the novel, Morrison establishes how the influence of race and beauty standards corrupted a young girls mind. Within each chapter, Morrison was able to depict cultural icons such as Shirley Temple, idolized classmates like Maureen and a mother figure all attack a vulnerable character. Because Pecola Breedlove does not meet the white western culture standards, Pecola is in a “world in which only little white girls with blue eyes are loveable” (Bennett). Morrison has illustrated countless times to overlook the white gaze and step out of the spotlight.
Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eyes, portrays an authentic story of growing up as black in a postwar and great depression America. This novel focuses on one year of a group of children’s lives – Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola. Morrison uses their eyes penetrate the self-hatred that has been afflicted and inflicted upon the black community in this country, starting from their childhood. The two sisters, Claudia and Frieda, are the voice of the author. They bitterly recite the story of Pecola Breedlove, who has a bitter mother whose identity solely lies within the white family she serves and a drunkard father who rapes and impregnates his own daughter.
In The Bluest Eye , Toni Morrison begins the novel with Pecola’s coming to age , her menarche and transition from prepubescence to womanhood . Pecola’s friends , Claudia and Frieda will loose their innocence as they choose to help Pecola . Pecola’s life and the event of the death of her baby ; causing the marigolds unable to bloom and drove her towards insanity. Pecola’s pregnancy exposes the inhumanity and hatred in the hands of the African American community.
