Band-Aid Battle In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

Food and appetite is a relatable experience for everyone. Many believe food is strictly just for enjoying while you eat, however within Toni Morrison’s novel “The Bluest Eyes” she makes many distinct references to food. Through these means, she creates each individual personality of the characters. She goes on to use this association for most food references within her novel. The result enables the reader to have a more relatable experience with each of her characters regardless of color. Overall, these food and appetites references allow the reader to have a more hands-on approach and bring about a greater understanding of her character 's mentality while helping to disregard racial associations.

“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, is a story about the life of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who is growing up during post World War I. She prays for the bluest eyes, which will “make her beautiful” and in turn make her accepted by her family and peers. The major issue in the book, the idea of ugliness, was the belief that “blackness” was not valuable or beautiful. This view, handed down to them at birth, was a cultural hindrance to the black race.

In The Bluest Eye, characters experience a variety of oppressive , that give rise to the never ending cycle of victimization in both the families and neighborhood. Throughout the novel, the black community accepts white beauty ideals, for example, judging Maureen’s light skin to be highly attractive in comparison to Pecola’s darker features. Racism is also apparent in other indirect ways. There is a general sense of worthlessness that certain colored characters subconsciously integrate into their daily lives, even without the constant reminder of their apparent “ugliness”. For example, “the Breedloves did not live in a storefront because they were having temporary difficulty adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison starts with a pessimistic beginning. The reader is introduced to Pecola and her condition. Pecola’s family is dysfunctional, with her parents constantly verbally and physically assaulting each other. During one of those altercations, Pecola whispers into the palm of her hand, “Please, God”, “please make me disappear” (Morrison 45). Trying to disappear and failing because of her eyes, “she could never get her eyes to disappear. So, what was the point? They were everything.” (Morrison 45). For Pecola eyes were everything, because everything she saw was in them, the pictures the faces. She believed that because of her ugliness there was no point in running away because she will remain looking as herself. She has

Pecola Breedlove is one of the main characters in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes. Pecola is a young black girl growing up in the 1940s, in northern Ohio, a dominantly white world. She idolizes the young, white movie actress Shirley Temple and wants to be like her. Pecola never realizes how unattainable this dream is and the hardships she faces makes it even more impossible. Some of the hardships Pecola faces in her life include being bullied at school, an unstable home life, and the feeling of ugliness. Pecola is constantly called ugly by classmates, strangers, and even her own mother. She has been called ugly so much she believes that she is truly ugly but, Pecola thinks if she had blue eyes then all of her problems would be solved. She would be pretty if she had blue eyes. People would not make fun of her and call her ugly if she had blue eyes. Blue eyes may even be able to prevent her parents from fighting so vigorously. She believes blue eyes are the solution to all of her problems. However, blue eyes are metaphor for something much more powerful than a genetic trait, love.

When we came to this world, we all are innocent but throughout time we adopt the culture of this world and move forward to pursue the wisdom. Children’s mind is filled with lot of joy, happiness, and trustfulness. Some adults take this as an advantage to hurt the children. In the community, many children are expose to the negative consequence of child’s fall from innocence. Children’s mind is more open to observe and learn things quickly but if they live in the environment that does not nurture them, they can be expose for any danger and could lose their innocence.

The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison, depicts how African American women are affected by the American setting. The book shows how whiteness is superior in the community, which poses a divergent thinking of black women’s beauty. The setting and time in the book predispose Precola as being the bottom of the ladder, in being a minority and a women.

living condition after the Great Depression, but these movies also ingrain into her mind the concept of beauty that is measured by race and skin color, bringing her torturous feelings of shame and envy when she returns to the realm of reality into her own skin and life. After their interactions with accessible dolls and movies, Pecola and her mother are left miserable as they become more aware of their dark skin color and how far away it is from white.

In both novels, women are subjected to society’s harsh standards of love and beauty. In The Bluest Eye this is seen through the characterization of Pecola Breedlove, Pauline Breedlove, and Geraldine. Toni Morrison purposefully emphasizes the ideas of love that both Pauline Breedlove and Geraldine have, for the intention of highlighting the misconceptions of love they both have as a subject of society. When Mrs. Breedlove was two years old she stepped on a rusty nail that pierced her foot and left her with a permanent limp. She quickly learned that she was different from others and let society define her as damaged goods, unworthy and undeserving of love or attention because of her physical deformity. Society

Beloved is one of the most beautifully written books and Toni Morrison is one of the best authors in the world. After reading the Bluest Eye and seeing how captivating it is, it is not highly expectant to think that Beloved to be just as enchanting. Anyone who has read Beloved would read it again and those of us who have not should be dying to read it. Beloved is a historical fiction novel based on a true historical incident. Beloved is set during the time period of the Civil War . The American Civil War to be exact , which took place between the years of 1861 and 1865. According to Bonnie Angelo, “Beloved is dedicated to "Sixty Million and more," dedicated to the Africans and their descendants who died as a result of the Atlantic slave trade.” 1

Toni Morrison is known for her prized works exploring themes and issues that are rampant in African American communities. Viewing Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye from a psychoanalytical lens sheds light onto how, as members of a marginalized group, character’s low self-esteem reflect into their actions, desires, and defense mechanisms.

Racism was a huge controversy back in the 1900s.People who were whites were either classified as colored or black,and The Bluest Eye portrays racism.Racism was discussed worldwide but specifically in the United States since many ethnicities are widespread among this country.This injustice is a huge topic that was very big in the 1900s.Many people were treated unfairly because they looked different than others causing a mass fight between them.This novel was written by Toni Morrison,and has mostly black characters in it,however they like to believe that they themselves are white too or have a “white attitude” in their nature.Whites are considered the gods of race being clean,wealthy,and smart.While black people are considered

In Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye examines the effects of imposing white, middle class American ideals of beauty on developing female identity of a young black girls. Morrisons sensitive portrayal of black female identity and its perceptive critique of the internalized racism created by white Americans perceptions of beauty can be supported by W.E.B. Dubois in his novel, The Souls of Black Folk, introduces two concepts describing a black person's experience in America: the veil and double consciousness. Both novels, The Souls of Black Folk and The Bluest Eye, emphasize the racial self-loathing ideas that black girls have as they start to understand how different they are from white people. The African American children of The Bluest Eye, Claudia MacTeer and Pecola Breedlove, discover that the color of their skin excludes them from the soft eyes of favor that fall upon little girls who belong to the white world. The penalty for this discovery is the resulting division of their minds, through the realization that they are both little girls, and black little girls. The girls prove themselves incapable of responding with a reactive action that captures the poison darts of racism and projects them back outward, instead they demonstrate a passive response that instead absorbs the poison inward, which creates instability within her psyche and undermines her sense of identity. It is through this action that Morrison reveals the dark side of the effects of double consciousness

     In the novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison incorporates various techniques, such as her use of metaphors, the ironic use of names, and the visual images that she uses. The theme of The Bluest Eye, revolves around African Americans’ conformity to white standards. A woman may whiten her skin, straighten her hair and change its color, but she can not change the color of her eyes. The desire to transform one’s identity, itself becomes an inverted desire, becomes the desire for blues eye, which is the symptom of Pecola’s instability.

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison shows that one’s family determines a character’s feeling of self-worth. According to Morrison, the world is teaching little black girls that they are not beautiful and unworthy of love. The world teaches this by depicting white people and objects that resemble them, as symbols of beauty. In this world, to be worthy of love you must be beautiful. Morrison shows that if a little black girl believes what the world is telling her, her self-esteem can develop low self-esteem and they may yearn to be white. Even in the absence of economic and racial privilege, Morrison suggests that a little black girl can look to her family to build up her self-esteem. For Morrison, having a family is