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"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison Tony Morrison became the prominent American writer of the second half of the 20 th century mainly because of her novel The Bluest Eye published in 1970. The family relations, beauty and ugliness cruelty and love are in the focus of the novel. The novel is written by a black writer and though formally the novel is about the family relations, its essence is much more complicated than just a story about family relations. The novel The Bluest Eye raises a question of the racial relations in America. The topic of racial inequality is one of the central topics of the novel.
A young black girl Pecola is searching for her identity. Her search reflects the search of the Afro Americans. They are all looking for their identity. Their roots are in a different culture and they try to find their own African American way which would be adapted to the American reality. The novel of Tony Morrison underlines that the times of a dream expressed by the Great American son Martin Luther King are far ahead. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. " (Martin Luther King) The novel is narrated by a young black girl, Claudia Matter and the reader realizes through her perception of the atmosphere in the family of her friend Pecola Breedlove. The family relations in the Pecola's family are very cruel.
The topic of racial inequality is one of the central topics. The Pecola's mother Pauline is hostile to her family because she keeps comparing the life of the white family for whom she works as a maid with hers, seeing some kind of ideal in the life of the whites. This is the manifestation of the lost identity of the Blacks, an identity which has been suppressed by the cultural development of America. African Americans and their tragedy of the lost culture are in the center of the novel. The novel is built on the passionate desire of Pecola to be loved by her family and her school friends. Pecola thinks that the reason of the hostile attitude towards her is her black skin and she wants to resemble the American idols like Shirley Temple.
Shirley Temple is just an idol created by the mass culture, an idol which is a part of American dream. The conventional American perception of beauty is connected with the blue eyes and white skin like that of Shirley Temple. Shirley Temple As a child star, Shirley Temple embodied cultural ideals of innocence and instinctual understanding believed inherent in idealized childhood. As a child star, Shirley Temple embodied cultural ideals of innocence and instinctual understanding believed inherent in idealized childhood. A talented young singer, dancer and actor, she no doubt deserves acclaim for her abilities, but as a cultural representation, she symbolizes far more than uncanny, childhood innocence. Appearing on screen with male and female, African-American actors, Shirley Temple also symbolize the directed energy of African-American adults toward the care of white children.
Subservient to her needs, and trapped in the stereotyped roles available to them, the adult actors who appeared as her caretakers often appeared to be childish, rather than childlike, a demeaning position, especially when contrasted with the simulated adult behavior exhibited on screen by Shirley Temple. She keeps them "in their place" partly by imitating Little Eva, the wise and noble, white child of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and partly by her mere presence on screen. As a representation of Little Eva, Shirley Temple characterizes the saintliness of the "good" child, saintliness "worthy" of glorified attention and near worship. If we think of Shirley Temple as Little Eva, then we might also visualize her companions as Uncle Tom or Aunt Chloe, who love their own children, but in embracing the conditions of slavery, willingly put the welfare of white children above their own (Trudy Mercer). Tony Morison studies the state of the blacks in America.
She names the things which sometimes are not in public but in minds. American society is divided according to the racial principle and nobody can do anything with it. According to Morison the whites consider their black nationals to be Others. She states that America treats its black citizens like people of a lower grade, pariahs, There are several levels of the pariah figure working in my writing. The black community is a pariah community.
Black people are pariahs. The civilization of black people that lives apart from but in juxtaposition to other civilizations is a pariah relationship. In fact, the concept of the black in this country is almost always one of the pariahs. But a community contains pariahs within it that are very useful for the conscience of that community. (The Bluest Eye. Review). American culture has produced the utopian image of America, called an American Dream.
It is not bad at all; it indicates, at least the standards to be reached and the goals to be gained. This collective image is an image of a rich country populated with the nice successful people. There is only one problem in this image. The country is rich and the society is successful, but people personified this success are narrated with the blond hair and white skin. This is just what great American Martin Luther King said about. The racial inequity is in the very essence of the American society.
This racial inequity is indicated not in the hostile relations of the Whites to the Blacks but in a lack of the black standards of beauty, misperception of the peoples attitude towards Pecola. A color of the skin is given by God and it can not define the position in the society. Pecola identifies her personal position in the community with the position of the black community in the American society, i. e.
as soon as the Blacks are pariahs in the society; she fells herself a pariah within the community. What is more, she understands the position of the black community in the American society and naively associates it with her personal position in the black community. Her dream of blue eyes is a naive attempt to break through the concept of other, i. e. it is a protest against her position of pariah. Tony Morison intentionally uses a dream of a small girl which would never come true to underline the impossibility of her dream to become like an American icon Shirley Temple in the same way as black community would never become an equal part of the society.
The values of the society imposed on the black children are destructive. Pecola is morally suppressed by values she accepts. These values are dominant and black children are not able to evaluate them critically. Pecola is destroyed by the cultural values she adopts.
The white culture influences the personalities of the black people especially young ones. The Anglo Saxon standards of beauty follow the children outside the class. Movie blondes with blue eyes catch their sight from the cinema screens, billboards, newspapers and magazines. There is no place to hide from the bluest eyes.
These beauties keep telling the children that if they were white with blue eyes they would achieve success. This destroys the girls identity. She mistakenly associates her physical appearance with the wealth and happiness. White mass culture shows white skin, blue eyes and blonde hair in association with wealth, happiness and success and a young girl realizes falsely that her life is defined by her appearance. Pecola's admiration of Shirley Temple is one of the tragic illusions. The success of the movie star Temple poisons the life of Pecola.
The mass culture shows the physical beauty in the context of prosperity. All wealthy people are white and that is why a dream of prosperity is a utopia for the blacks. Pecola considers herself to be ugly because it is American mass culture that idealizes the white skin and the blue eyes, features which are unreachable for Pecola. This self humiliation develops the complex of inferiority of the girl. Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike, She was the only member of her class who sat alone at a double desk. (Tell, Lynne) This inferiority complex makes Pecola think that all her troubles are caused by her ugliness. She does not have any standards of beauty unless those, brought by the American media, i.
e. the bluest eyes. Her complex is so high that she hates herself, she hates watching herself in the mirror. She thinks that if she had blue eyes her problems would go away.
This is the ultimate howl of despair of a girl. She is not able to realize the true causes of her troubles and finds the false and unreal reason. A utopian desire to resemble an American idol became an obsession for Pecola. Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes.
She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people. (Morrison, Toni, p. 45) It is notably to compare the attitude of the black Americans towards the traditional white culture and the attitude of the white Americans towards the blacks... When Pauline is ready to give a birth to her second child the doctor explains the students that black women deliver right away without pain, just like horses. Pauline makes a noise just to show the doctor that she is not a horse. They deliver right away and with no pain. Just like horses (Morrison, Toni, p. 46 - 47) Pauline made a noise of pain, but that pain was more moral than the physical one. That was the pain of her soul, a wounded soul and not of her body, as if her soul was crying, look at me, God created me equal to you, you are doctors and I have the same body as white women do; and Im experiencing the same pain as white women are; and Im equal to them because Im crying of pain in a way they are, Im not a horse.
The black girls adore and hate the white symbol of America. Claudia hates Shirley Temple "because she danced with Bojangles, who "was my friend, my uncle, my daddy" and because he "was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heels" (Morrison, Toni, p. 46 - 47) Shirley Temple was extremely popular in America during the Depression. She helped to strengthen the spirit of the nation. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, speaking in 1935, praised Shirley: During this Depression, when the spirit of the people is lower than at any other time, it is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents, an American can go to a movie, look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles (The Bluest Eye, Review).
When the nation needs to raise its spirit the value of such idols like Shirley Temple is very high. The position of the black Americans in the society, their success and illusions are narrated by a number of American writers. Doctorow in his brilliant saga The Ragtime describes...
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Research essay sample on The Bluest Eye By Toni Part 1
