Self Discrimination In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about

Throughout Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, she captures, with vivid insight, the plight of a young African American girl and what she would be subjected to in a media contrived society that places its ideal of beauty on the e quintessential blue-eyed, blonde woman. The idea of what is beautiful has been stereotyped in the mass media since the beginning and creates a mental and emotional damage to self and soul. This oppression to the soul creates a socio-economic displacement causing a cycle of dysfunction and abuses. Morrison takes us through the agonizing story of just such a young girl, Pecola Breedlove, and her aching desire to have what is considered beautiful - blue eyes. Racial stereotypes of beauty contrived and nourished by

Self-hatred is something that can thoroughly destroy an individual. As it was fictitiously evidenced in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, it can lead an individual to insanity. Toni Morrison raises the idea that racism and class can detrimentally influence people’s outlook on themselves.

In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses the oppression of blacks and the praising of whites to demonstrate the unjustified power and influence of the dominant individuals. Within American society, the dominant races rise to power and exert their influence by building an environment that worships whiteness and devalues blackness, creating powerless and powerful communities.

“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.

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

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.

Toni Morrison highlights this best in her novel “The Bluest Eye”. “Except for an occasional and unaccountable insurgent who chose a black, they married “up” lightening the family complexion and and thinning out the family features”(Morrison 168). Throughout the book Morrison depicts the differences in treatment of the lighter end and the darker end of the African American race. In Morrison’s book there was a character by the name of Maureen Peal and because Peal was a biracial child both black people and white people adored her, they didn’t abuse her with their words or actions. Peal was safe from the violence against her race and believe she was not black because of it, as though being black was a curse that should feared. Similar to Maureen Peal we are introduced to another character in her same position, her name was Geraldine. With Geraldine readers are able to see the economic differences between black people. Morrison describes the light skinned woman's house as being beautiful and large in contrast the the main character Pecola’s clothes described as “dirty and torn”(Morrison 89-91). This division has carried through the 21st century; today people are still characterising others by the complexion of their skin. Things have improved

Parents are the first role models that children are exposed to, making them immensely influential in the development of a child’s personality. The diverse group of parents in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, demonstrate the consequences of bad parenting on a child. Being set in 1940’s America, the black community in the book is still not fully accepted by society, and racism plays a significant role in the character’s lives. Here, readers are introduced to the Breedloves, a dysfunctional black family that is outcast from their community. Throughout the book, the parenting experienced by the Breedloves alters their perception of love, setting them up for failure as a

In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye the main conflict of the story is about an African American girl that believes her life would be better if she had blue eyes, or in other words being white. The setting takes place in Ohio during the 1940’s, also their is a lot of racism in The Bluest Eye although it is not directly brought out. Instead Toni Morrison addresses racism in this story by having people look at themselves with a form of self hatred rather than a race with privilege judging them.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison narrates the lives of two families, the MacTeer family and the Breedlove family. The novel digs into the themes of love, envy, and weakness, while maintaining a thick and interesting plotline. These themes are conveyed thoroughly through Morrison’s literary style. Toni Morrison’s powerful writing and structural techniques add depth to the novel, enhancing certain emotions while developing a riveting plot.

The Bluest Eye concentrates on the key contemporary American issues: racial and sexual politics. More distinctly, the novel centres on the impact that socially constructed views of race have on gender relations within the black community. As Butler-Evans highlights, “race rather than gender had become the overriding sign for the oppression of black people” and Morrison’s novel responds to this political issue by focusing on this in correlation with the Eurocentric society setting of the novel. The racial oppression suffered by the black community shape ideas of black masculinity based on male feelings of inferiority and consequent sexual oppression of black females. Morrison systematically explores the relationship between the racial oppression of black males and sexual oppression of black females. The main focus of this essay will be an exploration of how racial oppression experienced by black males, specifically Cholly and Junior, relate to the sexual oppression they enforce on black females.

For decades there has been an ongoing discussion on society’s standards of beauty and what makes someone beautiful. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye she challenges white standards of beauty. Just like today, the society in Loraine, Ohio establishes a standard of beauty, and this beauty is defined as being as close to white as possible, having blonde hair, blue eyes, and a “Jack and Jill” family. Most of the characters in The Bluest Eye attempt to conform to society’s standards (complicating this idea) and believe if they can achieve at least one of the aspects of beauty their life will be better and they will be treated in higher regards. Through the female characters of Pecola, Claudia, Maureen, Geraldine, and Rosemary it is prevalent that there is a spectrum of beauty and the person who is closest to this standard, white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, is considered pretty and is respected by society, while a person who is not close to this standard is considered ugly and is treated poorly by society. By ascribing to society’s expectations of beauty, Geraldine extends the role of white supremacy and undermines her own self-worth.

The middle class black society and the lower class black society, for example, are quite different from each other and are constantly conflicting. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison distinguishes these divisions and their tensions through characters like Geraldine, Junior, and Maureen Peal, who represent the privileged division of black culture. On the contrary, the less privileged division is represented by the MacTeer family and the “relentlessly and aggressively ugly” Breedlove family (The Bluest Eye 38). Tension between the divided African American society is clearly represented by such characterizations throughout Morrison’s novel.

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