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Comparing Beauty In Bluest Eye And Anne Sexton's Cinderella

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The Different Effects That Society’s Definition of Beauty Can Have on Children as Found in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Anne Sexton’s Cinderella

Although some may readily say that childhood is an enjoyable experience filled with everyday learning and laughter, Toni Morrison and Anne Sexton describe childhood as something that is unpleasant to go through. With the different effects that representations of beauty in society can have on children, found in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Cinderella written by Anne Sexton, each protagonist is a female child who has in some form endured a hardship due to their physical appearance.
In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the protagonist of the novel is a young child named Pecola. Pecola …show more content…

The novel expresses through Pecola’s misfortunes that inward beauty is not as beneficial in society as outward beauty is. Due to her own struggles, Pecola became so obsessed and fixated on becoming a prettier, more desired individual. She grew up becoming more and more emotionally drained by the members of her community who would use her for their source of beauty. She became so obsessed with wanting to be desired that she literally became consumed by her thoughts. In order to back up the claims of her obsession, Pecola would eat candy and would literally visualize herself as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pretty, wanted individual. As she would consume the candy, she would visualize the idea that she was consuming the blue eyes that she so desperately sought after. She eventually made herself believe that she had blue eyes and was beautiful, which later then made her go insane. Pecola herself thought that if she could somehow change her physical appearance, that it would make her be more desired and loved, while also changing her state of mind. “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” (Chapter one)
While Pecola was not the source of envy but rather the fall guy for her community, Cinderella was the cause for the green-eyed monster to come out of her stepmother and stepsisters. This is because while Cinderella …show more content…

Each piece of writing offers the notion that it pays off to be pretty. These notions are found through Cinderella’s rise to riches as the prince initially falls for her looks and through Pecola’s twisted life as she was “ugly” and wound up living with

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