The Bluest Eye Literary Devices

Claudia, another character who goes through a similar situation compared to Pecola. She is a young girl who came out from a loving family and is intrusive, yet sensitive.

Besides the inherent self-confident issue, the outside voice from community is also affecting Pecola’s view. For example, in the “accident” when Pecola went into Junior’s house, Junior killed the cat and impute to Pecola. His mother, Geraldine, saw Pecola was holding the dead cat. Without any thought and didn’t even ask for the truth, Geraldine simply called Pecola a “nastylittle black bitch.” This event, again, reinforces Pecola’s view of what beauty means.

In the aftermath, there is a dialogue presented between Pecola and an imaginary friend. The dialogue includes conflicted feelings of Pecola’s rape, and her deluded thoughts of her wish for blue eyes has been granted. She believes that the changes in behavior of the people around her are because of her new eyes, and not the news of her rape. Claudia speaks for a final time, and describes the recent phenomenon of pecola’s insanity. She also suggests that Cholly, (who had since died), may have shown Pecola the only affection he could by raping her. Claudia believed that the whole community, herself included, have used Pecola as a way to make themselves feel beautiful and happier.

Pecola obsesses over all things white because the town makes fun of her blackness. Pecola is alone due to her lack of beauty. In one scene Pecola is laughed at called “e mo” and other names as other black children make fun of her blackness. Morrisons uses collective voice to show the racial segregation at the time was not only white people, but it was the different shades of black. Something that someone cannot control. The boy bullying Pecola “had extemporized a verse made up of two insults about matters over which the victim had no control: the color of her skin”(Morrison, check page#). Pecola, only a young girl begins to become outcasted from society especially after

No matter how ugly, mean, pitiful one can be, the family is always meant to support, raise, guide, nurture and be a means of inspiration in anyone’s life. In the novel, this isn’t the case for Pecola, which is why she gets mentally unstable as she couldn’t bear the torture of ugliness of not having blue eyes. Blue eyes are the one and only reason she could blame as per to her ability and thought process. In fact, she doesn’t get the real ugliness of how her father rapes her, the ugliness of how the mother choose the white girl over her, the ugliness of the fights between her parents is coming from their unpleasant past. After all, she doesn’t have that mentor in her life to explain what was happening. Everybody in her family is occupied with their own mindset. She is very young to understand and analyze on her own. The narrator Claudia even gets to compare between her and Pecola and starts accepting life and feel blessed for having a supportive family, which she doesn’t feel until Pecola enters in her life. So, this shows how young kids psychology is totally built upon the type of family environment she/he gets. There is a saying that young kids are like a raw clay ready to be shaped into the different form of objects by the potter. Undoubtedly, it stands so true. Indeed, kids shape themselves according to the type of environment they grow up with. By all means, Pecola’s family is the

If she had beautiful blue eyes, Pecola imagines, people would not want to do ugly things in front of her or to her. The accuracy of this insight is affirmed by her experience of being teased by the boys—when Maureen comes to her rescue, it seems that they no longer want to behave badly under Maureen’s attractive gaze. In a more basic sense, Pecola and her family are mistreated in part because they happen to have black skin. By wishing for blue eyes rather than lighter skin, Pecola indicates that she wishes to see things differently as much as she wishes to be seen differently. She can only receive this wish, in effect, by blinding herself. Pecola is then able to see herself as beautiful, but only at the cost of her ability to see accurately both herself and the world around her. The connection between how one is seen and what one sees has a uniquely tragic outcome for

Many of the characters who associate with middle-class white culture feel the need to separate themselves from lower-class blacks whom they identify as lazy and criminals “I destroyed white baby dolls….The truly horrifying thing was the transference of the same impulses to little white girls." (pg. 22). "White[ness]" is associated with value, virtue, and cleanliness while being black is associated with immorality, dirtiness, and the sense of being disposable. The novel involves mostly black characters and due to this the idea of being white exists on a spectrum. Race is not only decided by the genetic make-up of one's appearance and skin, the shape of one's features, or the texture of one's hair, but also by one's place of origin, socioeconomic class, and educational background “... his mother did not like him to play with niggers. She had explained to him the difference between colored people and niggers. They were easily identifiable. Colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud” (pg. 53). These ideas of race being valuable became a main point in the story. And by internalizing these ideas about race the main characters ultimately obtained a racial self-hatred, which created various forms of dysfunction in the characters'

It had occurred to Pecola … that if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different…. If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they’d say, " Why, look at pretty-eyed Peola". We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes (Morrison 46).

            Pecola's mother, Polly Breedlove, also wrongly placed her anger on her family.  As a result of having a deformed foot, Polly had always had a feeling of unworthiness and separateness.

During their outing, Maureen is questioning Pecola about seeing her father naked and about periods. The girls end up getting in an argument because Maureen will not stop asking uncomfortable question. Maureen calls the other girls black and ugly. When the girls arrived home, Henry is in the house the Marie and Poland receiving “entertainment.” When spring arrives, Henry touches Frieda

At an early age Pecola learns that she is not thought of as beautiful and that society does not believe that she is an equal with a blue eyed fair skinned girl. Because she is constantly undervalued and rejected, she begins to hope that one day she will have blue eyes so that she will be respected. Pecola’s family, The Breedloves, lived in poverty and in an unpleasant storefront because, as Pecola, they did not believe they were worthy of a better home. Pecola’s family “stayed there because they believed they were ugly” and since they felt that self worth was based on appearance they believed they did not deserve any better

Claudia's fantasies of her mother metaphorically symbolize the situation in town after the public becomes aware of Pecola's pregnancy. The tornado symbolizes Pecola's pregnancy, which threatens to reveal the self-hatred and ugliness of the community, Claudia's vision of her mother shows how individuals ignore reality. The removal of Pecola from school because her pregnancy is the outcome of racial-self-hatred, self-perceived ugliness, sexual violence, and oppression, which exposes these underlying facts of their lives. The baby's death would provide the ultimate solution to this problem, removing the symbol of their hidden reality so everyone can comfortably ignore it. Claudia and Frieda have been blinded by racism and violence, perhaps because

Pecola is constantly labeled as inferior due to her ugliness and copes with her sorrow by conforming to society’s label. Throughout the novel, Pecola’s fascination with white girls is heavily expressed. It is first shown very early on when Pecola admires the Shirley Temple cup. Claudia narrates, “She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face” (19).

Finally the rape by her father is the last evidence Pecola needs to believe completely that she is an ugly unlovable girl. While in most cases a father figure is one who little girls look to for guidance and approval, Cholly is the exact opposite. He hurts Pecola in a physical way that in one attempt measures up to the years of hurtful mockery. After this event, Pecola went insane, forever stopping her from finding what she really is.

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, depicts characters desperately seeking to attain love through a predetermined standard of beauty established and substantiated by society. Morrison intertwines the histories of several characters portraying the delusions of the ‘perfect’ family and what motivates their quest for love and beauty. Ultimately, this pursuit for love and beauty has overwhelming effects on their relationships and their identity.