The Bluest Eye Analysis - 1148 Words

Discussion In the novel The Bluest Eye Pecola is involved in a quest – for love and identity and Morrison depicts the world in the novel from a child’s point of view. The story of the eleven-year-old Pecola, the tragic female protagonist of The Bluest Eye, stemmed out of Morrison’s memory of a girlhood friend who as well craved for ‘blue eyes’. Morrison had written of the little Black girl whom she knew : â€Å"Beauty was not simply something to behold, it was something one could do. The Bluest Eye was my effort to say something about that; to say something about why she had not, or possibly ever would have, the experience of what she possessed and also why she prayed for so radical an†¦show more content†¦Perhaps the feeling is merely indifference, mild annoyance, but it may also be hurt. It may even be that some of us know what it is like to be actually hated — hated for things we have no control over and cannot change† (Morrison, ix). It is evident in the novel that Pecola is treated by others as an ‘inconvenience’. She possesses no voice or physical integrity. Other than accepting her ethnic identity as a black girl, she assumes a false identity. She is not happy with her appearance and yearns for blue eyes only – a symbolic of American White beauty. Morrison, here, uses a contrast between Sharley Temple and Pecola. Pecola goes literally crazy by the disparity between her existence and the epitome of beauty set by the dominant White culture. Pecola’s psyche has been deformed by the oppressing White culture. Hence, she rejects her original identity and craves for a false notion of beauty. This novel was also a product of its own time. In the later 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement in America had produced historical advances in protecting the freedom and dignity of the African Americans. But the African Americans still found themselves discriminated in all spheres of life – economic, religious, educational, political and legal. They were segregated – which implied ‘separate but equal’. Though ‘equality’ was provided to them, they were always treated as the ‘Other’ by the White American society. The African Americans also started to experience that the culture industryShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Bluest Eye1555 Words   |  7 Pages The Bluest Eeye Bbackground A woman’s race and the time period she lives in influences not only whether she will be a victim of sexual assault but also, the punishment of the offender. Toni Morrison, The author of The Bluest Eye, a victim of segregation, deals with sexual assault and segregation in her book. Chole Anthony Wofford, who goes by the name of Toni Morrison when writing her books, was born in Lorain, Ohio on February 18, 1931. Her father had several jobs to supportRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis921 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"The Bluest Eye† â€Å"The Bluest Eye† by Toni Morrison is a very complex story. While not being a novel of great length is very long on complexity. It tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl immersed in poverty and made â€Å"ugly† by the Society of the early 1940’s that defines beauty in terms of blonde haired white skinned , and in this case specifically Shirley Temple. The novel opens in the fall of 1941, just after the Great Depression, in Lorain, Ohio. Nine-year-old ClaudiaRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis778 Words   |  4 PagesThe opinions of others, wether one notices or not, greatly affect his or her life. In Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl with dark brown eyes, is deemed ugly. Although she does not possess ugliness; she â€Å"put it on, so to speak, although it did not belong to [her]† (Morrison 38). Pecola believes she is ugly because she does not meet the societal beauty standard. Pecola convinces herself that all her struggles are rooted in the fact that she not beautiful. IfRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis812 Words   |  4 Pages Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye follows Pecola Breedlove’s â€Å"journey† to obtain beauty in the form of the titular blue eyes. Not only is it told in Claudia’s perspective, but the readers witnesses several backstories, na mely Geraldine, Pauline, Cholly, and Soaphead Church’s, which is in a third-person perspective. This might be seen as odd at first, but after taking a deeper look into their pasts, there is something that stands out: something â€Å"beautiful† in the eyes of these people. These â€Å"beautiful†Read MoreAnalysis Of The Bluest Eye 818 Words   |  4 PagesIn The Bluest Eye, Pecola the protagonist is taken under the Macteer family’s wing much like â€Å"The African family is community-based and the nurturing quality is not contained within the nuclear family, but is rather the responsibility of the entire community† (Ranstrà ¶m). In traditional Africa each child has a place and is welcome in the community. The act of parenting another child was not odd because every adult that lived in each community believed that any child is welcome in anyone’s home. ThisRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis985 Words   |  4 Pages Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old black girl in Tony Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, combats with self love and self image throughout the entire novel. Her only wish is to be loved and adored, and she believes the only route to that destination is to simply be more â€Å"white†. Throughout her journey in Morrison’s masterpiece, she attempts to transform herself into an idealistic version of herself, but she ultimately discovers that she is physically unable to attain what she had hoped for and is drivenRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book The Bluest Eye 1917 Words   |  8 Pages1. Through the Big Screen and Flashing Lights In the book The Bluest Eye Mrs. Breedlove talks about who was her motivation, who gave her drive to start dressing up nice and refashioning herself. She started using celebrities as role models or a mirror to help her find ways for her to get the same physical attractiveness they have. In the book Mrs. Breedlove mentions that,†I went to see Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. I fixed my hair up like I’d seen hers on a magazine. A part on the side, with oneRead MoreAnalysis of the Bluest Eye Prologue727 Words   |  3 PagesEach section of this prologue gives, in a different way, an overview of the novel as a whole. At a glance, the Dick-and-Jane motif alerts us to the fact that for the most part the story will be told from a child’s perspective. Just as the Dick-and-Jane primer teaches children how to read, this novel will be about the larger story of how children learn to interpret their world. But there is something wrong with the Dick-and-Jane narrative as it is pres ented here. Because the sentences are not spreadRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book The Bluest Eye 1115 Words   |  5 Pagesbeliefs. However, in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the topic of racism is approached in a very unique way. The characters within the novel are subjected to internalizing a set of beliefs that are extremely fragmented. In accepting white standards of beauty, the community compromises their children’s upbringing, their economic means, and social standings. Proving furthermore that the novel has more to do with these factors than actual ethnicity at all. In The Bluest Eye, characters experience aRead MoreThe Bluest Eye Analysis Essay1420 Words   |  6 PagesIn The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison strongly ties the contents of her novel to its structure and style through the presentation of chapter titles, dialogue, and the use of changing narrators. These structural assets highlight details and themes of the novel while eliciting strong responses and interpretations from readers. The structure of the novel also allows for creative and powerful presentations of information. Morrison is clever in her style, forcing readers to think deeply about the novel’s heavy