The Bluest Eye
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2 word format
document in English
literature
school essay
published 22/10/2007
review : Completed
level : General public
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Summary
In “The Bluest Eye,” Toni Morrison explores racial tension in the town of Lorain, Ohio, immediately following the Great Depression. The novel follows the lives of a number of African Americans, including Claudia MacTeer, the narrator, Pecola Breedlove, the main character, and Pauline Breedlove, Pecola’s mother. The central theme of the novel is the pervasive idea of white culture as the standard of beauty, and the subsequent belief that black culture is ugly and undesirable, and the way that this belief influences the lives of the three characters. Both Pecola and Pauline have completely accepted the idea of whiteness as the standard of beauty to the point where they see themselves as being ugly and undesirable, and aspire to become white: Pecola desires to have blue eyes and Pauline wishes to look like the white celebrities she sees in the movies. On the other hand, Claudia resists the message that she is ugly and does not succumb to the self-loathing that is prevalent among the town’s African American population.
Table of Contents
- Pecola Breedlove, whom the novel is named after, is the character that is the most susceptible to the belief that white culture is beautiful, and is also the most affected by it.
- Unfortunately, Pecola's life does not change and she is constantly reminded of her ugliness.
- She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute beauty
- Like a drug addict awakening from a euphoric stupor must come to terms with his squalid existence, so to did Pauline find a stark contrast between the scenes in the motion pictures and the scenes in her home.
- In contrast to Pecola and Pauline, who see that whiteness and white culture are the standards of beauty and who try to emulate white women in an attempt to change their lives
- In summary, a prominent theme in the novel 'The Bluest Eye' is the prevalence of the notion that whiteness is the ideal standard of beauty
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