RACIAL SELF LOATHING IN THE BLUEST EYE In "The Bluest Eye"‚ author Toni Morrison builds a story around the concept of racial self-hatred and how it comes to exist in the mind of a young child. "The Bluest Eye" deals directly with the individual psychology of the main character‚ Pecola Breedlove. So intense are Pecola’s feelings of self-loathing and inferiority that she would do anything to soothe them. In her young mind‚ she needs a miracle; she needs the bluest eyes. All of the tragedies in this
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The main characters in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison were Pecola Breedlove‚ Cholly Breedlove‚ Claudia MacTeer‚ and Frieda MacTeer (Morrison‚ 2007). Pecola Breedlove is an eleven-year-old black girl around whom the story revolves. Her innermost desire is to have the "bluest" (Morrison‚ 2007) eyes so that others will view her as pretty because that is what the white people have. In the end that desire is what finishes her‚ she believes that God gave her blue eyes causing her to become insane.
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females. In her six novels‚ Morrison tells the bias images of black women as powerful or powerless. In two of her works‚ "The Bluest Eye" and "Song of Solomon"‚ one of the many themes are Women and Feminity and Abandonment of Women. To begin‚ "The Bluest Eye" is Toni Morrison’s first novel. This novel tells a story of an African American girl’s desire for the bluest eyes‚ which is the symbol for her of what it means to feel beautiful and accepted in society (American). In the novel‚ women suffer
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the universal tales and myths like The Odyssey or Gilgemish. Slaves on every plantation were telling tales that would later be the groundwork for African-American literature.<br><br>African- American folklore has since been taken to new levels and forms. Writers have adopted these themes and have fit them into contemporary times. Most recently author Toni Morrison has taken the African- American folklore themes and adapted them to fictional literature in her novels. Morrison comments on her use of
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in black literature. African-American novelists in the early 20th century offered a predominantly white audience an insight into black culture and vocalized the injustice had by their hands. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye both incorporate controversial female protagonists facing the challenge of mental oppression by both personal and societal belief‚ and physical abuse at the hands of their aggressors. Whilst each arguably feminist bildungsroman faces criticism for
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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. Pecola Breedlove is young black girl who believes she
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In The Bluest Eye‚ Claudia MacTeer narrates the story of her childhood and how she grew up in racism. Morrison shows how it was both hard and easy to grow up as a black during those times. She describes how the blacks’ suffering is never resolved during the time span of the book. In this novel‚ she and her family take in Pecola Breedlove‚ a girl whose family is destroyed by her father’s bad drinking habits. Throughout the story‚ they treat her as if she belongs and does not acknowledge her ‘ugliness’
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The Destructive Force in Beauty Beauty is dangerous‚ especially when you lack it. In the book "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison‚ we witness the effects that beauty brings. Specifically the collapse of Pecola Breedlove‚ due to her belief that she did not hold beauty. The media in the 1940 ’s as well as today imposes standards in which beauty is measured up to; but in reality beauty dwells within us all whether it ’s visible or not there ’s beauty in all; that beauty is unworthy if society brands
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Read the Following passage and in a well written essay discuss how the author Toni Morrison uses stylistic devices to convey the tone of the time period (1941‘s) through Claudia’s eyes. Passage: Pg 10 Stylistic Essay: The Bluest Eye In the passage from The Bluest Eye‚ written by Toni Morrison‚ the author writes about difficult challenges that not only the young girls in the book have to face but everyone of that time has to endure. Taking place in the 1940’s the author uses many stylistic
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Helpless In “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “From Songs of Experience: The Chimney-Sweeper” by William Blake‚ the main characters are highly disadvantaged children. Morrison’s characters are experiencing the effects of the great depression‚ while Blake’s speaker is a victim of child labour during the industrial revolution in London. Blake’s speaker describes the child workers as experiencing “misery” (141). According to the Oxford English Dictionary‚ misery can be interpreted as “distress caused
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