the bluest eye
Vanessa Mateo AP English
The Beauty and Race Subjectivity in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes
In The Bluest Eye, author Toni Morrison uses a combination of race and beauty as factors that contribute to a culture’s creation of artificial scale of beauty. An establishment of an artificial scale of beauty showing how a race and culture values are easily being disallowed by the ideology of being the perfect beauty of a human being. Morrison uses characters such as Claudia Macteer, Pauline Breedlove and include child star Shirley Temple to demonstrate how the hegemonic white culture is the factor of the beauty barrier that is within the black (African-American) community. White Beauty was the desired beauty, the media contributed to this assumption through their productions in films, creation of toys, images in magazines, etc. In the book The Story Behind Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes Mary Colson states “In the 1930’s-40’s white beauty was visible everywhere from candy wrappers in shops to movie screens, whiteness was presented in a positive desire” (Colson 9).Morrison uses that fact to create a scenario in which having milky skin and precious blue eyes is the desire of many due to the acceptance people gain from having those completions. Readers receive the introduction of this concept through the character Claudia Macteer.
For Christmas Claudia receives a Shirley Temple doll, see “during the 1930-40’s white dolls were the best selling” (Colson 9) and Shirley Temple was the most praised star in Hollywood. Claudia’s reaction was an unexpected one, she hated the doll. “From the clucking sound of adults I knew what the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish. I was bemused with the thing itself and the way it looked” (Morrison 20). She couldn’t understand why others found it beautiful and had an anger towards the doll it self. “I had one desire: to dismember it” (Morrison 20). As a10 year old
The Beauty and Race Subjectivity in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes
In The Bluest Eye, author Toni Morrison uses a combination of race and beauty as factors that contribute to a culture’s creation of artificial scale of beauty. An establishment of an artificial scale of beauty showing how a race and culture values are easily being disallowed by the ideology of being the perfect beauty of a human being. Morrison uses characters such as Claudia Macteer, Pauline Breedlove and include child star Shirley Temple to demonstrate how the hegemonic white culture is the factor of the beauty barrier that is within the black (African-American) community. White Beauty was the desired beauty, the media contributed to this assumption through their productions in films, creation of toys, images in magazines, etc. In the book The Story Behind Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes Mary Colson states “In the 1930’s-40’s white beauty was visible everywhere from candy wrappers in shops to movie screens, whiteness was presented in a positive desire” (Colson 9).Morrison uses that fact to create a scenario in which having milky skin and precious blue eyes is the desire of many due to the acceptance people gain from having those completions. Readers receive the introduction of this concept through the character Claudia Macteer.
For Christmas Claudia receives a Shirley Temple doll, see “during the 1930-40’s white dolls were the best selling” (Colson 9) and Shirley Temple was the most praised star in Hollywood. Claudia’s reaction was an unexpected one, she hated the doll. “From the clucking sound of adults I knew what the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish. I was bemused with the thing itself and the way it looked” (Morrison 20). She couldn’t understand why others found it beautiful and had an anger towards the doll it self. “I had one desire: to dismember it” (Morrison 20). As a10 year old