NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Desire for Blue Eyes Ugliness and sham print Pecola Brdlovs bing in very stp sh taks, very word sh brands, and very thought that hr mind councils. Pecola send hr lif skin acceptance in th ys of thos around hr. Sh blogs that if sh can just posts th blu ys that all thos whit, blond, blu-yd, Shirt-Tmpl-looking-girls hav, thn sh will also attain th lov and happiness that sms to manat from very act of the bing. Th But y by Toni Morrison depicts Pcola's lif as dark, day and as a dspam sarch for that small details of but that will chang th way othr's s hr and grant hr that internal spark of xis tnc that incessantly less hr. Through Pecola's interaction with the other characters in the novel, Morrison shows us the destructive force of valuing our self-worth by societal standards of beauty. Morrison discloses victimization in many forms throughout The Bluest Eye.
The prejudice that jumps out and victimizes Pecola seems to strengthen the idea that blue eyes will achieve for her the acceptance she seeks. As early as first grade we are conditioned to the ideal of American beauty. Samuels and Hudson-Weems point out that "the pivotal idea [in Morrisons novel] is the domination of blacks by the existing American standards of beauty: blue eyes, blonde hair, and white skin. " (10). Due to this conditioning, peers at school torment Pecola. She does not possess the standards of beauty that are instilled in the minds of all the young children; therefore, Pecola is ugly.
They use her as a pawn to invoke disgust by saying, Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove! Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove! (46). They make fun of the darkness of her skin and call her names, Black e mo Black e mo Ya daddy sleeps need. Such ta ta such ta ta (65). Beautiful people are treated differently. In the scene where Bay Boy, Woodrow Cain, Buddy Wilson, and Junie Bug are teasing Pecola, Freida and Claudia defend her.
The boys are going to bully Claudia and Frieda too until they notice that they are under the watchful gaze of pretty Maureen Peel and the boys stop... reluctant to continue under her springtime eyes so wide with interest (66). In this example, Pecola's belief that beauty brings happiness is reinforced. She believes that if her eyes were blue, her parents would stop fighting.
They would think, Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustnt do bad things in front of those pretty eyes (46). Pecola is also alienated in her classroom, she always seems to end up sitting alone, segregated from the other children in her class: [s]he was the only member in her class who sat alone at a double desk (45). Her teachers fail to acknowledge Pecola in class, she is invisible to them and [t]hey tried never to glance at her, and called on her only when everyone was required to respond (45 - 46). The unresponsiveness she encounters from her teachers contributes to her feelings of worthlessness and inferiority. Unfamiliar with what a father is supposed to be, how then, could he be a father figure to Pecola: Having no idea of how to raise children, and having never watched any parent raise himself, he could not even comprehend what such a relationship should be (160).
In the scene were Cholly walks in on Pecola in the kitchen while she is washing the dishes, he sees her and is reminded of Pauline, her mother. His mind drifts to the days of first love. He experiences a tumult of emotions; first revulsion, then pity, then guilt, and finally love overcomes him. Confused about what he should feel for his daughter, he reacts to what he is feeling at that moment.
The turmoil of emotions coupled with the tragedies and pain of his past manifest into the rape of his daughter; it is a physical manifestation of the social, psychological, and personal violence that, together with his wife, he has put upon Pecola (Samuels, Hudson-Weems 14). The truth is that there exists no happiness, no nice mother, and no smiling father for Pecola. The values all the children learn in the Dick and Jane primer have little to do with the reality they are all living. Gibson affirms that one cannot simply learn to read without being subjected to the values engraved in the text. (161). In understanding the meaning of the words, one digests the meaning behind the story. This is where the conditioning begins: ...
so [the dominant culture has] imposed upon [black children] whole schemes of value, political, religious, moral, aesthetic, that have little or nothing to do with their actual lives. They are measured using standards they cannot possibly meet because of genetics and economic and are found wanting (Gibson 161). Gibson also emphasizes that through societies control of images through control of the means of the presentation of imagery, control of? ? magazines, newspapers, window signs, of current iconography it sends a message of the reality of its values on those not having the resources to forbear the attack. (163). All Pecola hears and observes from the people and images around her is how ugly she is and how she does not fit into the aesthetic values that society has established: They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance, yes, they had said, You are right (39).
Love, caring, and family values are lacking from Pecola's life. McKay states that where such caring touches the lives of the characters, as with Claudia and with Cholly when Aunt Jimmy was alive, there is a positive influence upon behavior. When such caring disappears, as with Cholly after Aunt Jimmy's death, or was never available, as with Pecola, disastrous results ensue (69). Pecola has no role models to look up to as Cholly had in Blue who treated him like a human being rather than a nigger or a burden.
She has no caring family like Claudia who loves and nurtures her with a sense of belonging. The only adults who show any interest in Pecola are the three prostitutes, Miss Marie, China and the Maginot Line, who were outcasts themselves. Pecola, unlike Claudia, internalizes these values, blonde hair, white skin and blue eyes, and develops the first step to her demise -- self-hatred. We witness this in the way she is quick to attribute the total absence of acknowledgment of her in Mr.
Yakobowski eyes to her blackness. In the midst of the attack from the four boys in school calling her Black e mo, she stands pitifully with her head down crying in acceptance of the insults. In the scene where Maureen Peel insults Pecola and calls her black and ugly, Pecola seems to fold into herself instead of exhibiting the anger and defiance that Claudia and Frieda did. In all these examples, we become conscious of the result of allowing ourselves to accept as true what society thrusts at us as the American standard of beauty: the result is victimization.
Gibson explains that the use of the Dick and Jane primer in Morrisons novel shows one of the subtle ways that the dominant culture carries out its control through the education system. It uncovers the role that education plays in oppressing the victim and teaching the victim to oppress her own black self by submitting to the values engraved in the text (160 - 161). In the end, Pecola follows in the footsteps of her family: her mother who finds refuge in the white world of the Fishers, her father who finds refuge in alcohol. Pecola, too, finds refuge in the depths of her insanity, folding, again, into herself -- this time indefinitely. Bibliography: Awkward, Michael. Roadblocks and Relatives: Critical Revision in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye.
Nellie McKay. Critical Essays on Toni Morison. Boston, Mass. : G. K. Hall, 1988. 61. Bloom, Harold.
Toni Morrison. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990. Gibson, Donald B. Text and Counter text in The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison: critical perspectives past and present. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
and Kwame Anthony Appear. New York: Amistad: Distributed by Penguin USA, 1993. Harris, Trader. Reconnecting Fragments: Afro-American Folk Tradition in The Bluest Eye. Hence, Denise.
The Dilemma of Double-Consciousness: Toni Morrisons Novels. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993. Klotman, Phyllis R. Dick-and-Jane and the Shirley Temple Sensibility in The Bluest Eye. Black American Literature Forum 13. (1979): 123 - 25.
Samuels, Wilfred D. and Hudson-Weems, C lenora. Toni Morrison. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
Free research essays on topics related to: black e mo, toni morrisons, pecola breedlove, claudia and frieda, standards of beauty
Research essay sample on Black E Mo Standards Of Beauty
