The Bluest Eye Critical Lens

Great Essays
Show More
In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, It was said that you are not fullythrough messages everywhere that whiteness is superior. The theme of race and that white skin is greatbeauty without having white skin blue eyes and blonde hair. If your white you are superior to ant other race and your life will be portrayed within your skin tone. These stories wwere told by three young girls. The character names were Claudia, Pecola and Frieda. Even though tthey went through struggles they overcammed it. The author shows how race is compared to white beauty in ones society This novel was narrated by a nine-year-old girl, being exposed to a real racist world. Where she had to learn that her skin wasnt beautiful because she was black. Living …show more content…
Pecola suffers the most from what society see’sthat. Pecola an eleven-year-old black girl who believes that she is hideous and that will help her out with her flaw is to have beautiful blue eyes.She wishes to be beaautiful so that way she can be loved. Without your beauty she feels that you cant be loved at all what so ever. Pecola also feels that having blue eys make you more happy. You have a better outlook on life and reality. Its a brand new atmoshphere. She wanted to have this white beauty because it seemed to stand out more to her than her own race. Which she hated so much. If she possed these eyes, she assumed that her parents would love one another and would not fight because if they looked at her they would be amazed not even trying to argue. While having blue eyes would make her life much better and understaning less stressful. ;The reasons why because they dont have that fairytale life that every white man has and there lives are in shambles pretty much because of this and life isnt fair. False advertrisment was set amognst young little girls saying that they should look a certain way. From seeing it around you so much you might even tell your self that your ugly. Here what happened (Morrison 20-21) ““It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights – if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Adversity In The Bluest Eye
    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Adversity In The Bluest Eye

    The novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl in Ohio who faces great adversity as a result of her race, gender, and age. She wants nothing more than to have blue eyes, believing that they would make her beautiful and improve her quality of life. She lives in a small house with her mother Pauline, her father Cholly, and her brother Sammy. In an excerpt titled “Battle Royal” from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the narrator faces similar adversity as a result of his race. He is forced to fight in a Battle Royal against other African American men for the entertainment of a large group of white men after being invited to the event to give his graduation speech.…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Bigotry In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison
    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Bigotry In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

    There are plenty of American literature that deal with the legacy of slavery and the embedded racism that followed. Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” however takes a different approach from the traditional white versus black racism. The novel was written during the 60s and 70s; however it is set during the 1940s. In it Morrison depicts the lingering effects of constantly imposed white beauty being standardized in American society. By using characterization, she exposes a black community subscribed to the idea of a master narrative that light skin and blue eyes are beautiful.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    Analysis Of The Novel 'Battle Royal' By Toni Morrison
    • 1251 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Analysis Of The Novel 'Battle Royal' By Toni Morrison

    Their desire to fit into the master narrative that white people have created ultimately cause them both to fall below the expectations of mediocrity that society, and white people in particular, have set for them. If either of these characters had chosen to embrace their race and individuality, perhaps they would have been able to rise above the negative expectations that society had set for them. The institutionalization of racism throughout American history makes it difficult for African American people to rise above the negative stereotypes that are set for them, but ultimately, by embracing one’s self, an individual can rise above cultural norms and societal…

    • 1251 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Decent Essays

    The Bluest Eye Research Paper
    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Bluest Eye Research Paper

    Megan DeRock Plato 2A 4/25/17 Bluest Eye Essay The Bluest Eye tells the stories of rape, incest, and pain through the innocent eyes of a young black girl during the great depression. This perspective, seldom seen in literature, brings light to the hardships of being black in 1930s america. Race plays a crucial role in why the women in this novel struggle to find happiness in a world constantly telling them they are ugly. To them the pigment of their skin and eyes are more than just a trait.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis Of Mrs. Breedlove
    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Analysis Of Mrs. Breedlove

    She believes that people do not respect her or love her because she is ugly, and that it is all people see when they meet her. All the people she meets just see her close-set eyes, bushy eyebrows, and large lips. She eventually made herself believe that if she was just like the (white) little girls you see in the movies, that people would respect her and think that she is beautiful. Pecola decides that if she had the bluest eyes, she would be beautiful (hence the title). If she had pure blue eyes she wouldn’t be ignored or looked down upon, but she has evil brown eyes.…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Summary Of Cornell West's Breaking Bread
    • 1099 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Summary Of Cornell West's Breaking Bread

    Three dolls are placed on a table for a little girl to choose from, one of a white baby doll, one of a black baby doll, and one of a Hispanic baby doll. The interviewer asks the little girl a series of questions, including the question, "which doll is the ugly doll?" The child shamefully points at the black baby doll. This child is only 4 years old and black. Members of the black community have developed insecurities around their external looks as a direct result of slavery.…

    • 1099 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Imitation Of Life And The Bluest Eye Analysis
    • 1861 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The Imitation Of Life And The Bluest Eye Analysis

    From the beginning the readers understand that Pecola Breedlove’s main desire is to have blue eyes. That is what she feels would make her beautiful. This idea has come from what society and media has told her what beauty is. She sees people like Shirley Temple on a milk cup with blue eyes and realizes that she can’t relate to the people that she sees on a milk cup because they look nothing like her. This topic is discussed in “Probing Racial Dilemmas in The Bluest Eye with the Spyglass of Psychology”.…

    • 1861 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    How To Write A Speech About Being African American
    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How To Write A Speech About Being African American

    Being African American has been an eye-opener for me. My skin has opened my eyes to see that no matter how chocolate my skin is or how long my hair is, I will never be treated equally. If you don’t know by now what I am talking about, well here it is… Racism. Racism has been around for a long time and I have never thought a 10-year-old African American girl would have to experience it. Coming from a state that beautiful brown skin is everything, to a town that has no pigment was very new.…

    • 559 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Importance Of Whiteness In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison
    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Importance Of Whiteness In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

    Characters in “The Bluest Eyes” by Toni Morrison establish their sense of self-worth based on these ideas of beauty. The protagonist of the novel, Pecola Breedlove, an eleven year old black girl who believes that she is ugly and that having not…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Great Essays

    The Importance Of Cleanliness In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison
    • 1697 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Importance Of Cleanliness In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

    Through the experiences of the black characters in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the damages of white femininity are exposed. Throughout the book, white girls and white movie stars often embody standards of cleanliness and beauty by containing funkiness (blackness) and creating order. Morrison often substitutes whiteness for cleanliness and demonstrates the dangers of this mixture in how the black female characters witness the supposed beauty and vulnerability of white girls and movie stars. Whether or not white girls in the book believe in their beauty, they do believe in the power their whiteness grants them over both black girls and black women and act out in fear that this power may be taken from them.…

    • 1697 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Standards Of Beauty In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
    • 1086 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Standards Of Beauty In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    Throughout The Bluest Eye, “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (page 20). The characters live in an the mid-1900s where only girls with blonde-hair, blue-eyes, and white skin are considered beautiful. Throughout The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison explains that beauty is on the inside. In the novel, the influence of popular media is unveiled through the effect of advertisements on the standards of beauty that appear in the text, which are based on one’s skin color, eye color and hair color. The effect of advertisement on girls in the story is negative, because of their reactions to what society deems beautiful.…

    • 1086 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    Motherhood In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
    • 2350 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Motherhood In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    Toni Morrison portrays unimaginable dark-skinned young girl, Pecola, who finding herself by her family and the society embarks on a search for what she believes to be an acceptable self, by achieving in her imagination the blue eyes of a young girl. Light thinks Pecola is ugly but her ugliness doesn’t stem from a grotesque physical deformity, but is rather a quality arbitrarily assigned to her by a dominant culture that equate worthiness with skin color (33). Sugiharti also believes the novel dwells on the beauty which is the central focus of many women, it is something has been derived from the myth. The ideal beauty is depicted as a woman with a light skin and blue eyes, a physical feature, that white people more likely to have(2). She grows up in a family bare of any affection, zenith and self-esteem.…

    • 2350 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Great Essays

    The Bluest Eye Rhetorical Analysis
    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Bluest Eye Rhetorical Analysis

    Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, is about the Problem of middle-class people ideas of beauty on a female of an African American girls. Her novel came about after Morrison talked with someone who wanted to have blue eyes, the novel shows a girl, Pecola Breedlove, who wanted love and to be taken into a world that doesn’t care about people of her race. Author Shelley Wong’s in her Article Transgression as Poesis in The Bluest Eye talks about the different ways in which Morrison wrote her novels such as main ideas, main arguments, rhetorical strategy and the style in which Morrison use to keep her audience engaged. In her Article Transgression as Poesis in The Bluest Eye Shelley Wong’s starts by saying how Morrison passage “rendered in the style of the Dick and Jane series of primers, and how the novel lays bare the syntax of static isolation at the center of our cultural texts.…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    A Literary Analysis Of The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison
    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages

    A Literary Analysis Of The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

    The Bluest Eye Literary Analysis For some being a child is not as simple as just growing up, and for young black people in the 1940’s this cannot be any closer to the truth. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a novel following the life of Pecola, a young black girl growing up during The Great Depression in Lorain, Ohio. In this coming of age story, Pecola experiences the harmful effects of beauty standards, racism, trauma, and rape. Pecola, along with other characters in the novel such as Claudia, Frieda, and Cholly Breedlove, experience a world in which innocence is difficult to maintain and outside forces attempt to cause pain at any given chance.…

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Great Essays

    The Theme Of Beauty In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Theme Of Beauty In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    In the novel The Bluest Eye Morrison 's message of beauty is related to society 's perception and acceptance of white culture and its impact on African Americans that causes them to question their self worth in a racist society; the author demonstrates these concepts through, direct characterization, symbols, and various point of views that highlight the serious problem of psychological oppression on young African American children in which racism impacts their self perception of their beauty by society 's limited standard of white beauty. The first example of direct characterization in the novel is when the omniscient narrator describes the Breedlove family, the narrator describes how they viewed themselves as ugly: “They lived there because…

    • 1246 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More

Related Topics

Ready To Get Started?
Discover
Company
Follow
©2024 Cram.com
Privacy Policy |  About Ads |  Site Map |  Advertise  | 
  • Cookie Settings