How Does Toni Morrison Use Symbols In The Bluest Eye

The concept of physical beauty and desire to conform to a prescribed definition of what is considered beautiful can destroy a person's life. In Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye, many characters are obsessed with attaining the idealist definition of what is considered beautiful. The characters of Geraldine, Pauline, and Pecola all believe that physical perfection leads to acceptance; however, it is the same belief that causes their personal downfalls and prevents them from recognizing their own inner beauty.

Pecola Breedlove is one of the characters who constantly tries to consume whiteness. She first exhibits this behavior when she drinks three quarts of milk (Morrison 19). By drinking a large quantity of milk, Pecola attempts to absorb the whiteness of the milk, expressing her inner desire to be white. Moreover, she drinks the milk out of a Shirley Temple cup. During the 20th century, Shirley Temple epitomizes the cute, little white girl of the era. Hence, when Pecola drinks milk out of the Shirley Temple cup, Pecola attempts to be like Shirley Temple, a white girl adored by society. Another situation Pecola tries to consume whiteness is when she buys the Mary Jane candies (49). The wrapper of the Mary Jane candy depicts a girl with a “Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle

Toni Morrison also grew up in Ohio during the 40’s and racism was not really a part of her life until her teen years. During the time Toni Morrison was writing The Bluest Eye she was going through a divorce while being a single mom: this has some correlation to The Bluest Eye because it shows a rough relationship with the father and it may have been a way to express her emotion. In the early 20th century, it makes sense that the African Americans in The Bluest Eye would have problems finding self love and in fact have it be self-hatred. During this time which was around world war 2 blonde hair blue eyes were to be considered beautiful and this is what Claudia among many other African Americans have looked up to these white people that were looked at to be more superior and more beautiful just because of their race; over time they began to get jealous of the blonde hair blue eye girls and even got so mad they had thrown away even the dolls that had these traits.

In this passage of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses symbolism and a simile to show the loving desire Pecola had for the cat. To Pecola, the cat representes of what Pecola yearned for to be beautiful “He was black all over, deep silky black, and his eyes, pointing down toward his nose, were bluish green” (Morrison 90). Pecola believes that she is ugly and unwanted by the world, but this cat catches her eye because of his eyes. She wants to have blue eyes and she begins to care for the cat even when he tore up her dress.

The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel written by American author Toni Morrison. The novel depicts a year in the life of an 11 year-old black girl named Pecola who believes that having blue eyes would make her beautiful and worthy of the love of others. Throughout the novel, Morrison takes us through the perspectives of important figures in Pecola’s youth, including her father, Cholly, who drunkenly rapes her and leaves her pregnant. Morrison explores the psychological repercussions of a young black girl who is raised in a society that base their ideals of beauty on “whiteness”. I will be using a blend of Frye’s fictive modes and Hero From Across the Sea and Female Archetypal Imagery in order to demonstrate how Toni Morrison in her novel The Bluest

We are told certain facts about Pecola Breedlove from the perspective of different characters. One being, “Here was an ugly little black girl asking for beauty...A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes” (Morrison, 174). White beauty

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

For one year, Pecola prays that her eyes will turn blue. Being a black little girl in a society that idolizes blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty, Pecola thinks she is ugly. Pecola stares into the mirror trying to find exactly were the ugliness comes from. She sympathizes for the dandelions because she knows what it is like to disliked. Pecola states that "they are ugly[,] [because] they are weeds" (50). She finds beauty in the weeds, because she thinks that people see her as a weed. A new little girl, named Maureen Peal, comes to Claudia and Frieda's school. Maureen is popular for her looks, which people see as beautiful. She has lighter skin and eyes than most of the other children, and everyone adores her because of this. She is looked upon as beautiful because her characteristics are somewhat more "white" than other black people's. This causes many to be jealous of her. However, Claudia and Frieda are not jealous. They see through the standards placed on beauty, and if Maureen is what is beautiful, this means that they are not beautiful according to society.

Being constantly picked on and not having familial support causes Pecola to begin to want to escape reality. She does this by fantasizing beauty and the idea that to be beautiful she has to be white. Pecola begins to idolize the beauty icon at the time, Shirley Temple, who just so happens to be white. The MacTeers begin to see this obsession, they, “…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” (23). Even those around her are beginning to notice Pecola’s strange idolization of Shirley Temple.

In the novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison portrays the psychological murder of the most vulnerable and fragile member of society, a little black girl, in order to criticize and condemn the influence of racial discourses upon the self, to the extent that they can demolish the sense of identity. These discourses are based on stereotypes which in the novel take the form of the canon of white beauty, being the blue eyes the epitomized image. In order to make the reader aware of this fact, Morrison brings a powerless and voiceless figure, Pecola Breedlove, to the centre of attention in order to condemn why and how she considers rejection (of herself, and it implies her identity too) as legitimate. As a consequence, she is unable to cope with reality and, therefore, she needs to construct an invented world to survive, which leads her to live in madness.

In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, Morrison details the life of a young African American girl named Pecola who grows in Lorain, Ohio in the years following the Great Depression. The goal of the book is to explain how and why Cholly Breedlove, Pecola’s father, came to molest his own daughter. An alcoholic and abuser, Cholly's violent and aggressive behavior is a reflection of his troublesome upbringing as a child. While only four days old, Cholyl is abandoned by his parents, leaving him to be brought up by his aunt, Jimmy. Shortly after Aunt Jimmy dies, Cholly's first sexual encounter, at age 14, is ruined when it is interrupted by two white men, who force Cholly to continue while they mockingly watch. Cholly’s gestures of violence

Before the publication of The Bluest Eye, there were many other works that explored the concept of discrimination in our society. Anais Nin, Adrienne Rich, and Virginia Woolf serve as some of the key philosophers of this time. By examining and correlating Morrison’s novel to other pieces of literature, a poetic insight is found in the contents of the book. These poems provide the reader with a different perspective on the themes presented. Morrison utilizes this feature in her own writing, weaving her ideas with excerpts from the children’s primer Dick and Jane. Morrison does not base her content from the excerpts, but utilizes them to strengthen her beliefs.

Toni Morrison does this to convey that people often only try to understand someone and their problems once they’re too far gone to help. Pecola’s conversation with her own imagination gives the unfortunate circumstance that Pecola finally has a friend she talks to, but it’s one she’s had to create herself. Not only does this reveal that she’s been abandoned by even characters who caused her harm, but also that her imaginary “friend” isn’t formed from a child’s imagination but is an escape from the darkness that she’s witnessed. Finally having access to the inner working’s of Pecola’s mind it’s clear that her way of thinking has been altered, for example she thinks that all the stares she’s been getting from people in the town are because they’ve noticed her “blue eyes”.

He hated her. He almost wished he could do it-hard, long, and painfully, her hated her so much. The flashlight wormed its way into his guts and turned the sweet taste of muscadine into rotten fetid bile,” (Morrison 148). The consequence of the men interference brings two factors into the characterization of Cholly. A feeling of impotence in Cholly. Similar to Pecola, Cholly learns to self-hate his own blackness and young Darlene blackness along with her image of being a female. The second is the feeling of impotence that he is able to carry into his adult life and has yet to vanquish as he meets Pauline and begins to form family. The feeling impotence enables Cholly to later on not only deconstruct Pauline physically and psychologically. Cholly fails to become stable enough to provide his family with the basic necessities and turns to alcohol a source of relief and igniting fights with his wife in front of his children. Often, he causes his problems than resolutions and in his moment of insanity he commits an ultimate sin, the raping of his

Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eyes is about a young adolescent girl named Pecola who made no attempt to fight back against those who mocked her or damaged her body and mentality. Pecola’s peculiarness caused the people around her to become aware of her difference, which made them hate her for the ugliness that reflected in themselves. My opinion of this novel is that Morrison inserted a society where they used Pecola as a punching bag, and a scapegoat to illuminate the superficialness of perceived beauty in the novel. I think Morrison was trying to highlight how beauty and love can go hand-in-hand; but the two factors can be destructive as well if one has neither of them. If someone is beautiful, then they will be loved more than a less beautiful person---Pecola is considered “ugly” and she wants to look like talented and beautiful Shirley Temple who is an idol among society. Pecola’s life was also lacking love as it did beauty---her household had no time for affection, and her parents were bitter and engrossed in their own reality. The lack of love and lack of beauty hurt Pecola along with the mockery and damage she received from society caused her to isolate herself by becoming insane so she could not be hurt ever again.