The Breedloves in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye Essay

In the novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses literary devices such as analogy and allusion, in addition to breaking syntax to illustrate how the characters in her story will experience a death of innocence as the novel progresses. The first paragraph alludes to old Dick and Jane books, as Pecola Breedlove has a negative view on her own family and wishes to be part of this white family shown. However, the syntax eventually breaks down, which signifies how her illusions of the perfect family disappears. Later on, Claudia MacTeer tells a story about how she and her sister Frieda planted seeds in the gardens to make sure that Pecola’s baby was safe in the second paragraph. This fails however, as they realize that kind words and deeds were useless

Pecola’s misery is so complete, so deep, that she convinces herself that her only hope for a better life rests in changing her eye color. Even more pathetically, "Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes … Although somewhat discouraged, she was not without hope" (Morrison 46). Pecola was doubly tragic in that she placed all her hope in something which could never really happen and, despite her earnest belief, change nothing if it did.

The narrative shift also serves to compare how Pecola and Claudia react to the concept of blue eyes as the ultimate beauty and shows the psychological strength of each girl.

Abuse and Its Effect on Self Image in the Bluest Eye The main character of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is eleven year old, Pecola. In the book, Pecola is ridiculed and abused by many people in her life. She is striped of her self-image throughout the book by the abuse heaped on her by everyone around her. She faces racism on a daily basis from not only white people but also her own African American community.

In the course of The Bluest Eye, Pecola Breedlove has shown signs of low self esteem. She would always be the one to compare herself to something she admires to be beautiful. Perhaps, sometimes problems surround her get a little too much, she has not yet realized the fog will clear up. For example in the autumn chapter, a quote has said “Thrown, in this way, into the binding conviction that only a miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would only see what there was to see: the eyes of other people.” There is no such thing as a “Pecola’s point of view”. She lives off of people's judgements and believe physical appearance is all there is to a person. Her desire to be beautiful is not having attractive long black hair and golden skin color, but blonde hair with a white pigmentation. Which causes her to dream and want even more.

     Although there are many different characters in this novel that are affected by the great advertisement of the beauty of a female in society, Pecola is the one to end up being insane due to the images- the image that she couldn’t possibly attain. Pecola grew up believing that she was born into an ugly family, making her ugly also. The ugliness wasn’t just from the window signs and newspapers, it was from her family and her neighbors. Therefore, she seeks the next best thing in her life, to have those blue eyes of a white girl, thinking

There are many themes that seem to run throughout this story. Each theme and conflict seems to always involve the character of Pecola Breedlove. There is the theme of finding an identity. There is also the theme of Pecola as a victim. Of all the characters in the story we can definitely sympathize with Pecola because of the many harsh circumstances she has had to go through in her lifetime. Perhaps her rape was the most tragic and dramatic experience Pecola had experiences, but nonetheless she continued her life. She eliminates her sense of ugliness, which lingers in the beginning of the story, and when she sees that she has blue eyes now she changes her perspective on life. She believes that these eyes have been given

She thought that if she had blue eyes, the blue eyes of the accepted white ideal, she would be beautiful and therefore loved. The acquisition of the blue eyes she so fiercely covets signifies Pecola's step into madness. It was a safe place, where she could have her blue eyes, and where she could be accepted.

After she meets Pecola, her concerns go to Pecola. She explains about each and every incident that occurs to Pecola and the reasons behind leading to those incidents. According to Claudia, the narrator of the story, not just Pecola but it was the Breedlove family members who treated themselves the uglier rather than the society. Only the difference is that they make a different mindset deal with it. The narrator vividly mentions by saying, “Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction/And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it” (Morrison 39). This explains more of what they were dealing with. It is impossible to make them believe that they aren’t relentlessly and aggressively ugly (38). Being young, vulnerable and more importantly, female, Pecola is the one who gets abused frequently and endures the damage in greater

Morrison also uses metaphors to describe the conditions under which African-Americans in general and Pecola in particular are forced to live. There are two major metaphors in The Bluest Eye, one of marigolds and one of dandelions. Claudia, looking back as an adult, says in the beginning of the novel, “there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941”. She and her sister plant marigold seeds with the belief that if the marigolds would grow and survive, so would Pecola’s baby. Morrison unpacks the metaphor throughout the book, and, through Claudia, finally explains it and broadens its scope to all African-Americans on the last page. “I even think now that the bear . . .” The implication is that Pecola, like so many other African-Americans, never had a chance to grow and succeed because she lived in a society (“soil”) that was

Pecola evaluated herself ugly, and wanted to have a pair of blue eyes so that every problem could be solved. Pecola was an African-American and lived in a family with problems. Her father ran away because of crime, her brother left because of their fighting parents, and was discriminated simply because she has dark-skin. Pecola is a passive person. She is almost destroyed because of her violent father, Cholly Breedlove, who raped her own daughter after drinking. Because of this, Pecola kept thinking about her goal- to reach the standard of beauty. However, she was never satisfied with it. Pecola believed once she become beautiful, fighting between her parents would no longer happen, her brother would come back, and her father would no long be a rapist. No problem would exist anymore.

With some background knowledge on Pauline, the mother of Pecola, it’s easier to understand some of Pecola's core traits. There are parallelisms between Pecola and Pauline. They find their reality too harsh to deal with, so they become fixated on one thing that makes them happy, and they ignore everything else. Pecola's desire for blue eyes is more of an inheritance that she received from her mother. One of Pauline’s own obsessions was back when she was fascinated with the world of the big pictures. As long as they can believe in their fantasies, they're willing to sacrifice anything else.

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye explores the impact of home on childhood, the formative years of any human. Throughout the book, she describes the childhoods of both adults, namely Polly Breedlove and Cholly Breedlove, and children, specifically Pecola, Claudia, and “Junior,” and leaves the reader to figure out how their childhoods shaped who they are. In the novel. Morrison argues that the totality of one’s childhood, including one’s home and experiences, is key in forming one’s disposition and character later in life. In doing so, Morrison wants the reader to see that the best defense against a predatory, racist society is the home.

A Search For A Self Finding a self-identity is often a sign of maturing and growing up. This becomes the main issue in novel The Bluest Eyes. Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove are the characters that search for their identity through others that has influenced them and by the lifestyles that they have. First, Pecola Breedlove struggles to get accepted into society dued to the beauty factor that the normal people have. Cholly Breedlove, her father, is a drunk who has problems that he takes out of Pecola sexually and Pauline physically. Pauline is Cholly’s wife that is never there for her daughters.

She drinks several quarts of milk at the home of her friends Claudia and Frieda McTeer just to use their Shirley Temple mug and glaze at young Temple’s blue eyes. One day Pecola is raped by her father, when the child the she conceives dies, Pecola goes mad. She comes to believe that she has the bluest eyes of anyone.