The Bluest Eye Trauma

Women. When hearing that word alone, you think of weakness, their insignificance, and how lowly they are viewed in society. Females can be seen as unworthy or nothing without a man if they are not advocating them and are constantly being treated differently from men. However, in the book, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, they live up to their reputations for how they view themselves. Specifically, being focused on women like Pecola, and Claudia. They are often questioning their worth from society’s judgement of beauty. Though one character, Frieda embraces it despite being black. With having everything temporary, the desire of grasping and having something permanent increases. The women desires to be of

They do not deserve to have their lives threatened or to see their mother abused the way she was. However, there were people in my family who felt as though they didn’t need any help or that they were fine and it was all blown out of proportion. While this distortion is damaging to the children who were traumatized, it also shows how trauma affects the person holding the distortion. It shows that their perspective of trauma was handled in a different way than other people and it creates a challenge. It challenged me to understand how different people perceive the trauma of others and how it affects everyone’s lives

Trauma is an event in an individual's life which is "defined by its intensity, by the subject's incapacity to respond adequately to it, and by the upheaval and long-lasting effects that it brings about in the psychical organization" (Dodge, Kenneth A., John E. Bates, and Gregory S. Petit). In Toni Morrison's, The Bluest Eye, it is demonstrated very clearly how just one unresolved act of trauma can lead to an almost never-ending cycle of tragedy in a community. The cycle of tragedy is easily transferred from parent to child, and its effects can be easily worsened by a lack of support from other people in the community.

The novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison presents the certain type of beauty admired by the main character in this fictional story, which seems to be the main content of the novel. The first thing that the people judge is the physical appearance, no matter from which part of the world anyone comes from. The stereotype of defining a beauty in a certain way still prevails in our society. On the other hand, human beings being a social animal, cannot remain secluded from the society. They shape themselves into the societal beliefs, values, trend, culture etc. of the society. Especially, the ones who do not have the tendency or ability to contend are easily influenced. Likewise, the main character, the young black girl self-loathes up to the point

When a child experiences emotional abuse, the wounds run skin deep. Kids who suffer repeated trauma feel lonely, scared, worthless and unloved, which is exactly the opposite of how children should feel. Abused children often become broken, hollow and bitter, with mental consequences that last long after the physical wounds have healed. The emotional stress it puts on children is tremendous.

Simply turn on the TV, and on any news channel the viewer is sure to hear reports regarding some issue currently present in society. Most common are stories covering crime, violence, and political scandals. What does not receive as much publicity though, is the abuse and neglect inflicted on children across the country. In literature, characters that experience maltreatment as children tend to fit the “underdog” mold, for they are unable to stand against the wrongs dealt unto them until a later time or event when they are better suited to fight back; thereby gaining the reader’s sympathy and vote for eventual victory over their antagonist. In Wuthering Heights and The Poisonwood Bible, the victimized children lacked outside support from other members of their respective communities. The same does not have to be true in the U.S. Americans have the power to make a difference in the prevalence of child maltreatment, and understanding the issue is the first step. Research and awareness of child abuse and neglect has increased in the past few decades; however, children are still suffering in today’s society. The consequences of abuse and neglect affect a wide range of categories from health and physical development; to intellectual and cognitive development; to emotional and psychological development; and social and behavioral development. In many instances, more than one type of abuse or neglect is involved, resulting in

Often times we are unaware of events that go on behind closed doors. Abuse (mental, physical, and sexual) can alter a child’s behavior, personality, and trust. Often times these children will be unwilling to participate in any activity or lesson. Not only do these traumatic events affect the child now, but it can leave lasting cognitive and behavioral problems. A child who has been abused “can be detected only through the emotional and behavioral abnormalities that it causes (G. Jacobi, 2010).”

Some say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, this could not be farther from the truth. From a historical perspective, beauty has been shown to be in the eye of the conformer. Society sets the standard of beauty and, either willingly or unwillingly, people obey. One may ask what happens to those who do not fit the standard, and the answer is simple: they become invisible. The narrator in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Claireece Precious Jones in Push by Sapphire, are all examples of how societal standards blind the acquiescent and cloak the divergent.

“Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul,” quotes Dave Pelzer, author of A Child Called “It” (“Child Abuse Quotes (493 Quotes)”). Prior to their deaths, these children have lived as prisoners of their childhood, manipulated by their abusers and forced to abandon the feelings of love and comfort that being a child should bring. For those that will see past the age of childhood, their scars will serve as a visual reminder of the events that plagued their thoughts, haunting them for the rest of their lives. Sadly, these survivors are not just left with physical scars, but severe emotional scarring as well. The trauma these children endured affects every part of their adult life, making

Whether it be a broken bone, emotional distress, or never being able to have a healthy relationship, children are always affected. Abuse effects the way children think and act. Children learn their behaviors from their parents and often abuse is a never ending cycle for most families because it is perceived as normal. Most children think “That’s how I was raised and I turned out fine”. and they never really come to terms with their injuries (whether superficial or not) from abuse. Often times it takes someone going to a therapist to realized their parent really was toxic to their health. Child abuse is an epidemic that as a society we need to try our hardest to prevent and eliminate.

According to Hussey et al (2006), it is estimated that one million children are victims of abuse and neglect on a yearly basis. Of those one million children, 1500 will die due to abuse or neglect. It is also estimated that 50% of adolescents have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event (De Arellano and Danielson 2008). One particular consequence of extreme abuse and neglect is the development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Symptoms of PTSD include persistent and recurrent invasive thoughts focused around the traumatic event, avoidance of symbolic representations related to the traumatic event, increased arousal including difficulties sleeping, irritability, concentration challenges, hypervigilance, increased

In the afterword of “The Bluest Eye”, Morrison describes the narrator of the story as “the sayer, the one who knows…a child speaking, mimicking the adult black women on the porch or in the backyard” (Morrison 213), in essence, a child acting as the narrator and imitating black women when speaking, possessing intimate secrets waiting to be divulged to the reader. By having a child act as the narrator and introduce emotionally taxing topics to the reader, the weight of these topics would be cushioned by creating skepticism about the truth behind a child’s statements in providing lots of seemingly “trivial information” (Morrison 213) and thereby “altering the priority an adult would assign the information” (Morrison 213). But rather than just being an arbitrary character in the story, Claudia can be justified as being the very embodiment

In Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye”, a character named Pecola Breedlove had always been wishing to have blue eyes, because it was considered as pretty in the novel’s world. Also, a lighter skins African American, Maureen Peal, bullied the Pecola, who have darker skin, because Maureen Peal thinks herself is cute while Pecola is ugly. Similarly, Pecola always thought of herself in a negative way, in which, she calls herself ugly. On the other hand, Maureen Peal, think highly of herself, because she came from a wealthier family and more people like her. Furthermore, Pecola did not have an easy life due to all those hardships that she had to come across through her life. Morrison’s novel shows a contrast between the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant world and the world the characters of the novel live in by showing us how the characters in the novel are not living a good life and they get treated differently because of their skin color, and they are in a lower class than the others. Also, the kids are being neglected by their parents and there are child molestation in the family. I think today’s world is slowing changing but still has some similar divisions, because there is still racism out there. However, people are starting to stand up for themselves and appreciate their own culture and ethnicity more in today’s world.

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.

Every year, child abuse and neglect affect more than one million children nation-wide (Currie and Tekin 1). Along with this, child abuse is the source of severe injury to more than 500,000 children and the death of over 1,500 children (Currie and Tekin 1). These outrageously large numbers reveal the extent to which child abuse and neglect impact society; however, they do not acknowledge the effect abuse can have on a child’s life and the repercussions that may occur in both the individual’s childhood and adulthood. While the effects most certainly include physical pain and possibly future disabilities, child abuse and neglect can also affects the child’s psychological welfare. Psychological effects are often more difficult to recognize,