The Blues Eyes Analysis

In the course of The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove has shown signs of low self esteem. She would always be the one to compare herself to something she admires to be beautiful. Perhaps, sometimes problems surround her get a little too much, she has not yet realized the fog will clear up. For example in the autumn chapter, a quote has said “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” There is no such thing as a “Pecola’s point of view”. She lives off of people's judgements and believe physical appearance is all there is to a person. Her desire to be beautiful is not having attractive long black hair and golden skin color, but blonde hair with a white pigmentation. Which causes her to dream and want even more.

Pecola evaluated herself ugly, and wanted to have a pair of blue eyes so that every problem could be solved. Pecola was an African-American and lived in a family with problems. Her father ran away because of crime, her brother left because of their fighting parents, and was discriminated simply because she has dark-skin. Pecola is a passive person. She is almost destroyed because of her violent father, Cholly Breedlove, who raped her own daughter after drinking. Because of this, Pecola kept thinking about her goal- to reach the standard of beauty. However, she was never satisfied with it. Pecola believed once she become beautiful, fighting between her parents would no longer happen, her brother would come back, and her father would no long be a rapist. No problem would exist anymore.

In 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 content without using the structure to allow for vagueness.

Initially, as I read this quote, I began to sympathize with Pecola and the plight she faces as an African American female. This is the first time in the novel we are exposed to the desire Pecola vehemently prays for daily, this desire being blue eyes. The reason I sympathized for the girl beyond the fact that attaining blue eyes for her would be impossible, is because she blames her blue-lacking eye color, or her ugliness as she classifies it as, as a way to justify everything that has gone wrong in her life. Take, for instance, Cholly, her dad, and her mother, Mrs. Breedlove’s fights. Even though their fights arise from the problems they have between themselves, Pecola continues to believe that her ugliness has struck her with not only undesirable

Pauline eventually meets Cholly, who is Pecola’s biological father, and they fall in love. "He seemed to relish her company and even to enjoy her country ways and lack of knowledge about city things. He talked with her about her foot and asked, when they walked through the town or in the fields, if she were tired. Instead of ignoring her infirmity, pretending it was not there, he made it seem like something special and endearing. For the first time Pauline felt that her bad foot was an asset. And he did touch her, firmly but gently, just as she had dreamed. But minus the gloom of setting suns and lonely river banks. She was secure and grateful; he was kind and lively. She had not known there was so much laughter in the world." (Morrison, p. 115)

In the book The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison in 1970, consists of multiple interlocking stories, one of the most powerful being Cholly Breedlove ,Pecola’s father. Cholly Breedlove is a man who has suffered through abhorrent bearings such as degradation, condescension, abuse, and isolation. In general, most people would be unable to mentally and emotionally persist through the misfortune he was confronted against. Isolated in a society defined by racism, economic inequality, and fanaticism, Cholly due to his race and social status was not only shunned but considered barbarous.Comparatively, in the novella Chronicle Of A Death Foretold written by Gabriel García Márquez, the plot revolves around the deliberation of the death of Santiago Nasar. Santiago Nasar was an mysterious

The novel The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison is subjected on a young girl, Pecola Breedlove and her experiences growing up in a poor black family. The life depicted is one of poverty, ridicule, and dissatisfaction of self. Pecola feels ugly because of her social status as a poor young black girl and longs to have blue eyes, the pinnacle of beauty and worth. Throughout the book, Morrison touches on controversial subjects, such as the depicting of Pecola's father raping her, Mrs. Breedlove's sexual feelings toward her husband, and Pecola's menstruation. The book's content is controversial on many levels and it has bred conflict among its readers.

were dirty and loud”(Morrison 87).She is teaching her son how to acknowledge the difference between black people, the colored who would be fair skinned and the African Americans who are dark skinned. She did not want her son Junior to play with dark skinned black people because she found them to be dirty and loud. This was one problem the delusion of passing caused. Geraldine already passed and was welcomed by the white community and left behind her dark skinned people later pushing them away in order to keep her status in the white community.

Characters do not read books, did not finish school, they do not care about their own children, they toil all their life for the sake of cents, which can barely feed themselves and their kids. Pecola's mom did not have a time to pay attention to her kids, especially Pecola. She did not ever ask her daughter what was bothering her. Even when Pecola got ripped her mom did not believe her. Absence of the mother in Pecola's life leave a big imprint on the her. Pecola very insecure, she cannot stand up for herself, she squeezed; therefore, becomes a victim of abuse by everybody including her own father. In my opinion, if the mother would pay closer attention to her kids Piccola probably would have different future.

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye follows the stories of numerous interconnecting characters, particularly two young girls Claudia and Pecola, as they try to understand the world around them. Their struggles specifically deal with the ideals of beauty and the pressures those ideals place on them through either the rejection of them or the attempt to take them on. While this passage seems to discuss the rejection of the societal praise of whiteness as beauty, through Claudia’s reaction to and understanding of the doll, Morrison actually communicates a desire to obtain and be worthy of that beauty in some manner.

But soon this pursuit of what is deemed happiness and success becomes her downfall. The pursuit of blue eyes isn't just unhealthy because she can't change her eye color, but because the master narrative of white equating to beauty is all around her and demining her self worth, "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. 'Here,' they said, 'this is beautiful, and if you are on this day "worthy" you may have it.'” (20-21). These standards set are unattainable and unreachable for Pecola, but still she is forced to want to meet them. Even more obviously, fantasy is shown to be so significant to the story Morrison is telling, that the fantasy story of Dick and Jane is reminded to the reader by being blatantly mentioned in the start of every chapter. Two other examples of false narratives being told to Pecola are Shirley temple and Mary Jane. These standards set are unattainable and her being forced to try and fit social norms quickly becomes detrimental. This pursuit for beauty becomes her downfall. When the novel concludes Pecola falls victim to this fantasy world. Ugliness, poverty and violence are the reasons behind her humiliation:

The Bluest Eye, written by Toni Morrison is about a young black girl named Pecola, struggle with the ideal of white beauty. She deal with everyone calling her ugly starting from school to her family. She began to be convinced she was ugly and accepted it. Though Pecola believed she was ugly she dreamed about having the prettiest blue eyes. Her struggle were tough but she stayed tough through bullying from her family and racist people in the American society.

Firstly, even though the girls in this novel are scarcely in the double digits, they still have a defined idea of beauty. Pecola Breedlove is a eleven-year-old black girl who is, from day one, deemed to a fate of ugliness. Every night she sits in front of her mirror, wishing away her dark skin and brown eyes, willing herself to either change or disappear. “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that...if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (46). Pecola is routinely mocked and neglected by the people in her life. Her self image is tarnished with every step she takes, whether she is going to school, innocently stopping at a store, or heading home. On these walks, Pecola discovers something that she comes to relate with. “Dandelions. A dart of affection leaps out from her to them. But they do not look at her and they do not send love back. She thinks ‘They are ugly. They are weeds.’” Dandelions symbolize Pecola’s ugliness and the affection she does not receive because of it. Most people pick out dandelions and cast them aside. Pecola’s case is not different. She is disregarded by almost all of her peers unless they are bullying her and unwanted by her alcoholic father and Jesus-crazed mother. At this point in her life, all she wants is to be

The title “the Bluest Eye” refers to the desire of the girl to have blue eye to feel comfortable, happy and looks beautiful. And, the desire to observe the world differently is also reflected. It is not only concerns the issue of beauty but the way that Juda Bennett defines that the title stresses the level of the “pernicious effect of the white beauty standards” (142). Pecola wants to have such beautiful eyes as the doll Shirley Temple. The

Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye follows the racial tensions in the primarily black town of Loraine, Ohio at the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of the Second World War. Morrison utilizes a combination of first and third person narration in order to convey significant themes in the novel and shape the novel’s tone. The Bluest Eye begins with homages to both styles of narration: first with a short excerpt from Dick and Jane that later introduces each chapter narrated in the third person, and then with “Quiet as it’s kept…” and a briefly italicized prologue narrated by Claudia that foreshadows the events that take place later in the novel. This clear division in the prologue of the novel sets the tone for the shifting narrative perspectives that remain present for the duration of the novel. These shifting perspectives provide the reader with a more intimate view into Pecola’s story (as displayed in Claudia’s storytelling) as well as a contrasting depiction of how Pecola’s situation originated and its impact on the community of Loraine (through the omniscient third-person narration).