That shows the same thing, that Morrison is showing racism even exists in the black community. This book shows that white society controls everything, from how people feel about each other to how they see themselves and what they think is beautiful. Pecola is black, but she wants to be white, and that means she does not understand who she really is and why it is not bad to be black.
Pecola becomes so desperate for blue eyes that she goes to a crazy old black man who thinks he has the power of God, and asks him for blue eyes. It is one of the most touching and sad parts of the book. Morrison writes,
Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty. A surge of love and understanding swept through him, but was quickly replaced by anger. Anger that he was powerless to help her. Of all the wishes people had brought him - money, love, revenge - this seemed to him the most poignant and the one most deserving of fulfillment. A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes (Morrison 138).
Pecola will not ever see the world with blue eyes, although she believes she does, and that contributes to her madness. She believes the faith healer really did give her blue eyes, and that is the final thing that drives her over the edge into madness.
Her father will rape her, she will have a baby that does not live, and eventually, she will just go crazy. Not all of her dreams come true, and that is really the point of this story. Many books end with a happy ending, and the characters all find what they are looking for. Real life is different. For many people, real life is what Pecola faces, and her life can never be happy or complete. She has too many things against her, from her family, to her race, and the way she sees herself. She is a sad character, and Morrison makes her even sadder by making her so real and convincing. She could be any poor black girl in any town in the country, and that is the saddest part of this book.
Toward the end of the book, Morrison writes, "A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment" (Morrison 162). This quote shows how horrible it is to want to be something you are...
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." pg. 45 Morrison does not explain what beauty should be associated with, but she clearly illustrates what it cannot be linked with. She wants readers to understand how psychologically damaging it can be for a person to be told repeatedly
On the evening of her first menstruation, for example, she asks, 'How do you do that? I mean, how do you get somebody to love you.' And, after a visit to Marie, Poland, and China, Pecola ponders, 'What did love feel like?... How do grownups act when they love each other? Eat fish together?' " (Bloom, 26) The question of how to get somebody to love you is significant for
It is possibly or probably Morrison speaking from her own personal heart, maybe remembering her own childhood as a black girl in a time when black children were not very often used as characters in books; meanwhile, author Morrison has Claudia saying (62) "What was the secret?" Of Maureen's magical whiteness and social power. "What did we lack? Why was it important? And so what?" Morrison also offers readers a little
Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye is deals with the historical and psychological effects of defining beauty according to race. The Bluest Eye is essentially about how concepts of beauty are instilled from a very young age. It is about the life of the Breedlove family who resides in Lorain, Ohio. The novels focal point is the daughter, an eleven-year-old Black girl who is trying to conquer a bout with
Toni Morrison What meanings can be attributed to the literary accomplishments of American author Toni Morrison? How does Morrison use history to portray her stories and her characters? How did Morrison become known as one of the premier African-American authors in America? This paper delves into those issues and others relevant to the writing of Toni Morrison. What meanings are attributed to the works of Toni Morrison? Critic Marilyn Sanders Mobley -- in
Many scholars and scientists truly believed that physical beauty and grace were indicative of other "internal" traits, and that the "less beautiful" races (i.e. all non-whites, though there were gradients established in this regard) were of poorer moral quality and intelligence, and had other undesirable internal characteristics as well (Gibson 1990). This means that the concepts of beauty that are expressed in the book have both direct and symbolic
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