The Bluest Eyes

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.

Society continues to rape Pecola through its refusal to acknowledge her as a human being. Since society thinks she is “ugly”, no one needs to care for or love her. For example, one of the biggest insults that her peers use for teasing boys is using Pecola as the insult.

Pecola’s misery is so complete, so deep, that she convinces herself that her only hope for a better life rests in changing her eye color. Even more pathetically, "Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes … Although somewhat discouraged, she was not without hope" (Morrison 46). Pecola was doubly tragic in that she placed all her hope in something which could never really happen and, despite her earnest belief, change nothing if it did.

This can be seen toward the end of the novel, on page 199, where, in a conversation between Pecola and a figure of her thoughts, Morrison reveals that Pecola may have been raped twice. “You said he tried to do it to you when you were sleeping on the couch. ‘See there! You don’t even know what you’re talking about. It was when I was washing dishes,’” reads the exchange. These lines also tell the reader that even with this information, Pecola is still internally unsure of what happened herself. Through internal dialogue, her personal insecurities are projected. Dialogue is key in presenting major ideas in the novel.

In order to fulfill her greatest desire of having blue eyes, Pecola decided to seek out Soaphead Church for help. Growing up “ugly” resulted in Pecola having internalized self-hatred. She often sat wondering and “trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored and despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike.” To Pecola, eyes were everything; “everything was there, in them” (Morrison 45). Because her eyes were so important, she thought that if her eyes were different– she would be different, too. Pecola thought that this was the key to obtaining the respect that her peers had. Although she did not understand that she was pressured into believing her non-white features, her low self-esteem resulted from these predominantly white beauty standards. Being surrounded by the idealization of white girls with blond hair and blue eyes as the definition of beauty, Pecola began to pray for those blue eyes that were often idolized by whites and blacks alike. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, through a marxist point of view, Pecola’s wish for blue eyes depicts beauty as unattainable as long as European beauty standards continue to be idealized.

After the rape incident, as introduced in Act three, Pecola spends her days talking to her reflection in the mirror, going through the garbage, and flailing her arms around, as if wishing they were wings so that she may fly out of that damaged

In doing so, she rejected the needs of her family entirely, not even her own daughter could call her “mother” instead she was forced to call her “Mrs. Breedlove”, a symbol of the unfamiliarity of the connection that should be filled with love, but was only filled with hatred and rejection. This increased when Pecola was raped by her father, followed by her mother beating her until the baby died. This final blow, the hopelessness of rejection caused by both the internal and external racism, was what drove Pecola insane, and would drive any person to madness, because the pain that this racism caused is the pain of being alone, a pain which no human can bear. The abuse from racism is never forgotten, it leaves a scar; the pain may recede after time, but the scar remains.

She has suffered her entire life being tormented by everyone except her two friends Frieda and Claudia. After being hurt so many times, Pecola never fights back. She never fights back because she hopes in some way she will gain attention from it. For as much as people hurt her, she is more than willing to forgive and forget. Maybe one time, instead of someone hurting her, they will be there to comfort her and tell her she is beautiful.

Pecola, one of the three main characters of The Bluest Eye, also faces deep rooted family problems ranging from her abusive mother and father to the impregnation by her father, a scene all too familiar as in The Color Purple. The common act seen between these two characters is fighting elongated abuse. Each character knows about abuse all too well from outside members of their life to some of their closest family members.

Pecola then thinks her mother has no love for her because she isn't white with blue eyes. When Pecola's dad raped her and got her pregnant her mother did not believe her. Her mother ever beat her for saying he raped her. After finding out that she is pregnant, everyone wants the baby dead, everyone except Claudia and Frieda.

He despised their helplessness because it mirrored his own influence in comparison to white men. Since he could not escape from the system of oppression, he was swallowed by it. He sought for an outlet to his scorn, oppressing those weaker than himself. Eventually, the cycle of oppression completed itself as the oppressed became the oppressor. Pecola became the victimized object of Cholly’s trauma. He reflected his childhood experience onto the destructive treatment of his daughter. Cholly and Pecola’s horrific sexual experiences manifested a type of demon within them, hatred and madness, that inevitably effected how they treated their peers.

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.

The community whom she was around endorsed her to make up her own imaginary friend so she was able to have felt loved and surrounded with company. Her imaginary friend led her to believing that she had blue eyes when she didn’t. She was happy to have her imaginary friend because it was the only one who was there for her and would “talk” back to her with positive words. Pecola never felt loved by her family nor her community. Since the baby died in her she was able to turn her life around and make herself happy by creating a person that would be benevolent towards her. This person was the only one she would talk to for the rest of her life because to her that imaginary friend gave her blue

Pecola believes that her skin is too dark and also that her skin color is not acceptable by others. In order for Pecola to be love she feels she must get blue eyes, like Shirley Temple. Shirley Temple was a young actress who everyone adored, she also had blue eyes. Pecola believes the only way to have a better scope out on life is to change the lens that she is looking out of which is to have blue eyes. In order for a child to grow up and function properly he or she must have loving and stable parents. Pecola was not feeling loved at home from her dad and most of all her mother. Mrs. Breedlove didn’t give her innocent, fragile- hearted daughter the most important essential that a child needs, which is love. More and more she neglected her house, her children, her man-they were like the afterthoughts one has just before sleep (Morrison 127). Pecola was mentally and physically abuse because she had to watch her parents fight, become intimate with each other and even become raped by her own

To begin with, Toni Morrison describes how Pecola commit things to understand or can achieve certain things. For example, “We knew she was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirley’s face” Morrison (23). This clearly explains that she does this just to be able to adjust and see this girl, as if they were not on a same level. Pecola does this by impulsion because she might think that was the right action to take to reach Shirley who Pecola taught was so different than her. Also, this example is seen when “The tears came fast, and she held her face in her hands” Morrison (90). This describes her as some who can feel easily feeling trapped and incapable of acting against that force that is pushing her against a wall. Pecola is now feeling like nothing she does can help it and quits, and she just stops