Bluest Eye Thesis

Toni Morrison, the author of The Bluest Eye, centers her novel around two things: beauty and wealth in their relation to race and a brutal rape of a young girl by her father. Morrison explores and exposes these themes in relation to the underlying factors of black society: racism and sexism. Every character has a problem to deal with and it involves racism and/or sexism. Whether the characters are the victim or the aggressor, they can do nothing about their problem or condition, especially when concerning gender and race. Morrison's characters are clearly at the mercy of preconceived notions maintained by society. Because of these preconceived notions, the racism found in The Bluest Eye is not whites against blacks. Morrison writes about

Topic: Discuss the issues of self-hatred and the aesthetics of beauty in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. What role do they play in the novel and how do they relate to its theme?

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison narrates the lives of two families, the MacTeer family and the Breedlove family. The novel digs into the themes of love, envy, and weakness, while maintaining a thick and interesting plotline. These themes are conveyed thoroughly through Morrison’s literary style. Toni Morrison’s powerful writing and structural techniques add depth to the novel, enhancing certain emotions while developing a riveting plot.

The desire to feel beautiful has never been more in demand, yet so impossible to achieve. In the book “The Bluest Eye”, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the story of two black families that live during the mid-1900’s. Even though slavery is a thing of the past, discrimination and racism are still a big issue at this time. Through the whole book, characters struggle to feel beautiful and battle the curse of being ugly because of their skin color. Throughout the book Pecola feels ugly and does not like who she is because of her back skin. She believes the only thing that can ever make her beautiful is if she got blue eyes. Frieda, Pecola, Claudia, and other black characters have been taught that the key to being beautiful is by having white skin. So by being black, this makes them automatically ugly. In the final chapter of the book, the need to feel beautiful drives Pecola so crazy that she imagines that she has blue eyes. She thinks that people don’t want to look at her because they are jealous of her beauty, but the truth is they don’t look at her because she is pregnant. From the time these black girls are little, the belief that beauty comes from the color of their skin has been hammered into their mind. Mrs. Breedlove and Geraldine are also affected by the standards of beauty and the impossible goal to look and be accepted by white people. Throughout “The Bluest Eye” Toni Morrison uses the motif of beauty to portray its negative effect on characters.

The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison that reveals many lessons and conflicts between young and adult characters of color. The setting takes place during the 1940s in Lorain, Ohio. The dominant speaker of this book is a nine year old girl named Claudia MacTeer who gets to know many of her neighbors. As a result of this, Claudia learns numerous lessons from her experience with the citizens of Lorain. Besides Claudia, The Bluest Eye is also told through many characters for readers to understand the connection between each of the adults and children. Many parents in the novel like Geraldine and Pauline Breedlove clearly show readers how adults change their own children. Furthermore, other adult characters like Cholly Breedlove

Muhammad Ali once said, “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.” Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is set in 1941, close to the end of the Great Depression. During the 1940s, disputes and riots over race were frequent (“Race Riots”). Moreover, there was segregation in housing, employment, and education throughout the United States. There was a small chance for improvement in racial relationships until World War II began. World War II revealed the racial segregation and discrimination of the nation. World War II initiated many social processes that slowly led to vital changes during the late 1940s (“Racial Discrimination”). In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison takes place in Ohio in the 1940s. The novel is written from the perspective of African Americans and how they view themselves. Focusing on identity, Morrison uses rhetorical devices such as imagery, dictation, and symbolism to help stress her point of view on identity. In the novel the author argues that society influences an individual's perception on beauty, which she supports through characters like Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove. Furthermore, the novel explains how society shapes an individual's character by instilling beauty expectations. Morrison is effective in relaying her message about the various impacts that society has on an individual's character through imagery, diction, and symbolism by showing that

They were constantly reminded that who they are was seen as ugly. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, that is exactly what happens with each character. They began to believe those lies and eventually saw themselves the same way the white people did. Each character, though black, shows a different form of “Negrophobia”, a dislike or fear of black people. There is a constant theme of negrophobia and powerlessness, in each season of The Bluest Eye.

Throughout “The Bluest Eye” the author describes beauty a lot during the novel. Having said that beauty in the 1950-1970’s was the typical blond hair blue eyes, Toni Morrison brings attention to racism and social standards after the Great Depression. There are major events that we see in the novel, the girls in the town of Ohio want to change their appearance

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a novel which is unquestionably about race, particularly about standards of beauty that make non-white people feel undesirable in a society that praises only white standards of attractiveness. However, this does not answer the question of how the novel challenges whiteness. At first glance the novel seems to praise whiteness in the scenes such as when Frieda and Pecola fawn over the beauty of Shirley Temple, or when Claudia receives a white doll from her parents and is told that she should appreciate it’s beauty early on in the novel (Morrison 19, 21). However, this is when the Bluest Eye begins it’s challenging of whiteness. After receiving the doll, Claudia begins to dismember it in order to better understand

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, depicts characters desperately seeking to attain love through a predetermined standard of beauty established and substantiated by society. Morrison intertwines the histories of several characters portraying the delusions of the ‘perfect’ family and what motivates their quest for love and beauty. Ultimately, this pursuit for love and beauty has overwhelming effects on their relationships and their identity.

“The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, is a story about the life of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who is growing up during post World War I. She prays for the bluest eyes, which will “make her beautiful” and in turn make her accepted by her family and peers. The major issue in the book, the idea of ugliness, was the belief that “blackness” was not valuable or beautiful. This view, handed down to them at birth, was a cultural hindrance to the black race.

Throughout Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, she captures, with vivid insight, the plight of a young African American girl and what she would be subjected to in a media contrived society that places its ideal of beauty on the e quintessential blue-eyed, blonde woman. The idea of what is beautiful has been stereotyped in the mass media since the beginning and creates a mental and emotional damage to self and soul. This oppression to the soul creates a socio-economic displacement causing a cycle of dysfunction and abuses. Morrison takes us through the agonizing story of just such a young girl, Pecola Breedlove, and her aching desire to have what is considered beautiful - blue eyes. Racial stereotypes of beauty contrived and nourished by

Here’s a little background information on the author, Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison was born in Lorain,Ohio on February 18, 1931, which was a time when the great depression was in effect. Her house was burned down at the age of two when her family couldn't afford to pay rent. Her father, who was from the south, witnessed the lynching of two of his neighbors and his trauma drove him to move away. He never discussed his feelings about it with his family. Toni Morrison later dealt with a little racism of her own in Washington D.C. while she was attending Howard University. After her college years she met her husband Harold Morrison whom she later divorced. The Bluest Eye was the first novel Morrison wrote. She published the book in 1970 at the age of 39. The story takes place in her hometown, Lorain Ohio and the life of some of the characters portray similar events that have taken place in Morrison's life. In an interview with Elissa Schappell, Morrison explains how she didn't expect for her to become a writer. She said that coming up being a writer was looked upon as a male preserve. She also explains how almost every female writer received some sort of permission to write, as in they were encouraged by others to start writing rather than their own free will. In The Bluest Eye there is a character named pecola. She moves to a foster home when her house burns down. This is similar to Toni Morrison's life with how her house burned down at a young age.

Before segregation was made illegal racism was more prevalent than it is today. White people were seen as the ideal that everyone should try to be while black people were shunned and classified as second class citizens not even having suffrage or basic rights that white people were entitled to. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison demonstrates internalized racism as a destructive force by making narrative choices such as switching from third to first person point of view, using varying levels of diction, and telling the stories of each character.