She is always the victim, always the object of others' wrath. If she had had the inner strength of Claudia and Frieda, she would have been able to counter the meanness of others toward her by assuming a meanness of her own.
Tormented and even tortured by almost everyone with whom she comes into contact, Pecola never fights back. She is the "broken-winged bird that cannot fly." Pecola, a little black girl in the 1940s, does not survive. Today, most black girls survive the onslaught of white media messages, but even today, some fail. She loses her baby, and shortly afterward she loses her sanity.Īll little black girls try to grow up into healthy women with positive self-images - despite the fact that white society seems to value and love only little girls with blue eyes, yellow hair, and pink skin. She is raped by her drunken father and self-deceived into believing that God has miraculously given her the blue eyes that she prayed for. She realizes that no one - except Claudia and Frieda - will play with her, socialize with her, or be seen with her.
THE BLUEST EYE SKIN
She is ridiculed by most of the other children and is insulted and tormented by black schoolboys because of her dark skin and coarse features. Key terms: The Bluest Eye internalized racism cultural ideals white-de? ned beauty cultural in? uence Intoduction Set in Toni Morrison’s hometown of Lorain, Ohio, Morrison’s.Except for Claudia and Frieda, Pecola has no friends. Only after fully comprehending the in? uences that touch and shape the lives of the whole community, can people strive to combat the defective symbols and grow to their fullest potential. This paper directs a critical gaze at the symbols of the dominant white culture that provides the prevailing images of self-identity.
The focal character, Pecola, in The Bluest Eye is victimized by a society that conditions her to believe that she is ugly and therefore worthless, because she doesn’t epitomize white Western culture’s ideas of beauty. By illustrating the in? uence of cultural ideals and approaching different psychical responses, this paper shows how racial oppression works in the form of white-de? ned beauty internalization and explains its damaging effect on African-Americans. For all races and for all individuals, it is critical to fully understand how society in? ences our values and beliefs. This paper tries to show how cultural ideals based on skin color and physical features function as tools of racial oppression. The characters are subject to an internalized set of values which creates its own cycle of victimization.
The Bluest Eye presents a more complicated portrait of racism. rst novel, The Bluest Eye is a novel about racism, yet there are relatively few instances of the direct oppression. More directly, the sexual violation of Pecola is connected to the sexual violation of Cholly by whites who view his loss of virginity as entertainment.Ībstract: Toni Morrison’s. The general sense of precariousness of the black community during the Great Depression, in comparison with the relative affluence of the whites in the novel, reminds us of the link between race and class. Racism also affects the characters of the novel in other indirect ways. The black community in the novel has accepted white standards of beauty, judging Maureen’s light skin to be attractive and Pecola’s dark skin to be ugly.Ĭlaudia can sense the destructiveness of this idea and rebels against it when she destroys her white doll and imagines Pecola’s unborn baby as beautiful. The characters do experience direct oppression, but more routinely they are subject to an internalized set of values that creates its own cycle of victimization within families and the neighborhood. Unlike To Kill a Mockingbird, in which an African-American is persecuted by whites simply on the basis of skin color, The Bluest Eye presents a more complicated portrayal of racism.
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