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The Bluest Eye Research Paper

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White Skin, Blue Eyes: Racial self-hatred in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison constructs in the Bluest Eye a tale about the search of beauty amid the restrictions of life, both from the social environment and from within one’s self. Through describing the experiences of black girls growing up in a culture where features of whiteness are the epitome of beauty, she develops a link between the self and the Other. The characters in the novel constantly define themselves in relation to their otherness; their blackness is shaped by white perspectives. Their identities emerge within a racist societal context and in the case of Pecola, it is constructed around her wish for blue eyes. This paper will discuss how black women define themselves …show more content…

Pecola enters the store to buy some Mary Janes, the penny candy with the picture of a blonde, blue-eyed girl on its wrapper. But, the dehumanizing exchange with the shop owner, Mr.Yacobowski who he himself has blue eyes, confuses her and awakes within her racial shame. “She looks up at him and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition—the glazed separateness” (Morrison 48). Mr.Yacobowski does not see Pecola, he does not acknowledge her as a human being. He reads her body as a text that requires merely a glance to tell him all that he needs to know. The young girl senses the store owner’s distaste for her. “He hesitates, not wanting to touch her hand.” (Morrison 49) He sees her as a material annoyance that disturbs his peace, something that he does not have or want to engage with. Pecola understands that he doesn’t want to touch her, to acknowledge her because she is black. “It is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes.” she thinks and inexplicable shame grows inside her for her black identity (Morrison 49). Her dark body, objectified by the white gaze is “the indelible and indubitable mark of her existential and ontological compatibility” (Yancy

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