Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

racism in The Bluest Eye

Good Essays
433 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
racism in The Bluest Eye
Unlike To Kill a Mockingbird, in which an African-American is persecuted by whites simply on the basis of skin color, The Bluest Eye presents a more complicated portrayal of racism. The characters do experience direct oppression, but more routinely they are subject to an internalized set of values that creates its own cycle of victimization within families and the neighborhood. The black community in the novel has accepted white standards of beauty, judging Maureen’s light skin to be attractive and Pecola’s dark skin to be ugly. Claudia can sense the destructiveness of this idea and rebels against it when she destroys her white doll and imagines Pecola’s unborn baby as beautiful. Racism also affects the characters of the novel in other indirect ways. The general sense of precariousness of the black community during the Great Depression, in comparison with the relative affluence of the whites in the novel, reminds us of the link between race and class. More directly, the sexual violation of Pecola is connected to the sexual violation of Cholly by whites who view his loss of virginity as entertainment.Abstract:
Toni Morrison’s fi rst novel, The Bluest Eye is a novel about racism, yet there are relatively few instances of the direct oppression. The Bluest Eye presents a more complicated portrait of racism. The characters are subject to an internalized set of values which creates its own cycle of victimization. This paper tries to show how cultural ideals based on skin color and physical features function as tools of racial oppression. For all races and for all individuals, it is critical to fully understand how society infl uences our values and beliefs. By illustrating the infl uence of cultural ideals and approaching different psychical responses, this paper shows how racial oppression works in the form of white-defi ned beauty internalization and explains its damaging effect on African-Americans. The focal character, Pecola, in The Bluest Eye is victimized by a society that conditions her to believe that she is ugly and therefore worthless, because she doesn’t epitomize white
Western culture’s ideas of beauty. This paper directs a critical gaze at the symbols of the dominant white culture that provides the prevailing images of self-identity. Only after fully comprehending the infl uences that touch and shape the lives of the whole community, can people strive to combat the defective symbols and grow to their fullest potential.
Key terms: The Bluest Eye; internalized racism; cultural ideals; white-defi ned beauty; cultural infl uence
Intoduction
Set in Toni Morrison’s hometown of Lorain, Ohio, Morrison’s fi rst novel, The Bl

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Bluest Eye, written in 1970, is novel by Toni Morrison. It is Morrison's first novel and was written while she was teaching at Howard University. The Bluest Eye tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl growing up in Morrison's hometown of Lorain, Ohio, during the hard times following the Great Depression. In this novel, Toni Morrison addresses a timeless problem of white racial dominance in the United States and points to the impact it has on the life of black females growing up in the 1930's.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Race and racism are complicated issues in The Bluest Eye. Unlike typical portrayals of racism, involving white hatred against blacks, The Bluest Eye primarily explores the issue of racism occurring between people of color. Race is not only defined by the color of one's skin, the shape of one's features, or the texture of one's hair, but also by one's place of origin, socioeconomic class, and educational background. "Whiteness" is associated with virtue, cleanliness, and value, while being black is associated with immorality, dirtiness, and worthlessness.…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ethics 101 Final

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages

    1. When discussing stereotypes and race, it is important to recognize how insignificant skin color is. Racism itself if focused mainly on cultural states, and more times than not, whites are considered culturally superior to people of color. The treatment of African Americans and Native Americans in American culture perfectly demonstrate how oppositional dichotomies of race define racial stereotypes. Cultural dominance was set since the first settlers began to participate in the slave trade. While the black slaves looked very different than their white counterparts, it was the culture of these Africans that subjected them to discrimination. Slave owners believed their culture was superior, meaning they could rape, enslave, and hold their workers prisoner without punishment. Blacks continue to be mistreated by the whites in power till this day, whether it be profiling by authorities leading to massive incarceration rates or poor representation by the federal government. Whites also believed they were culturally superior to Native Americans. Many Native Americans showed hospitality to the white settlers, but the major cultural differenced ended up destroying rel3ations and the majority of Native peoples. Only the naïve can believe that racism and stereotypes are caused by the color of one’s skin, it is cultural differences that cause the oppositional dichotomies that define race.…

    • 1700 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Colorism And Racism

    • 179 Words
    • 1 Page

    Because of their foundations, colorism and racism intertwine and, what is more, colorism an expression of internalized racism (Hunter, 2007). As a matter of fact, both of the terms mentioned are related to the preferential treatment of individuals based only on skin color. (Hunter, 2007). In academic terms, racism is a sociological dimension that supports unequal treatment of people of different skin color (Pollock, 2008). As a result, the black are considered to be inferior and are thought to be less intelligent than the white. Racial discrimination is another dimension inextricably connected with both racism and colorism. It constitutes many activities which aim is to diminish the black (Pollock, 2008). Besides, black people have to face…

    • 179 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bluest Eye is a novel by Toni Morrison that takes place at the end of the Great Depression in Ohio. In the novel, the MacTeer family first takes in a young boarder named Pecola Breedlove after her father Cholly has attempted to burn down the family home, but she is soon reunited with her own family despite their hardships. The MacTeer family are essential to the novel because one of the young daughters, Frieda, seems to suffer from a much less severe racism than most other characters, going as far as to destroy a white doll she is given. Cholly drinks, and Cholly and Pecola’s mother Pauline are physically abusive towards each other, leading her brother Sammy to run away from the home.…

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bluest Eye is a complex novel written by Toni Morrison, an African American literary theorist. Morrison evokes a society still plagued by the premise of slavery and the exposes this mode of white inferiority through The Bluest Eye. “Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe”, Morrison endows these last couple of sentences with a lyrical quality that makes the readers truly understand the depth of Cholly’s character and the “freeness” he experiences. Morrison initially introduces Cholly Breedlove as the antagonist, a drunk and very abusive father; any man who would beat his wife, set his house on fire and rape his daughter couldn’t…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One reason critics praise Toni Morrison’s, The Bluest Eye is because of the way the novel accurately portrays the way society views itself and others (Hoffman). She precisely shows in her work, that mankind is flawed in this aspect. Similar to that, Toni Morrison asks the novel’s readers “to think about perspectives of all types” (Hoffman). With the book’s inclusion of racism and self loathing the author wants the readers to connect with the protagonist, on an emotional basis, and try to first-hand understand Pecola’s perspective. Perhaps the most significant reason critics cite in favor of the novel not being banned is the story’s potential to incite analyzations about self-esteem and body image (Lalami). Readers and educators alike could read the book in detail, and have discussions about the author’s…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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 from the racial oppression, but they also suffer from violation and harsh actions brought to them by men (LitCharts). Male oppression is told all throughout the story, but the theme of women and feminity with the actions of male oppression over the women reaches its horrible climax when one…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Naturally, racism is embedded in society; moreover, historically as human selfishness, enslaving, and advantage in efforts to be superior to other races. Social constructs in efforts to change this view…

    • 1532 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zuckerberg's Hoodie Essay

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Race is a factor of life that is constantly being judged by society. Society has created individuals who judge others on skin color, and ethnicity; spawning hate and spreading acceptance of different set of standards to each race. “Largely about what wealthy… white men wear in silicon valley and wall street” (Sengupta 228). Race is part of the identity, most of the time it determines how you are treated by others, how one’s life is lived, and which stereotypes are carried. “... from racist people who think all Asians look the same! or ...Why on earth would you say something like that?” (Chung para. 9). Race is the…

    • 414 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    One of the most controversial problems in the world today is racial inequality. Ever since I was a little girl, I was always told to see the beauty coming from the inside of a person's heart and to never judge someone by the color of their skin. As I got older, I started to realize just how serious of a problem this was and that many people take racial segregation and inequality to an extreme level.…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Race Social Construction

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As previously stated, race is a social construction that occurs when society places individuals in categories that are based solely on their physical differences such as skin color and other physical attributes (Schaefer, 2013). This type of racial ideology has been politically supported and reinforces the belief that one race is superior or inferior to another. The Holocaust and slavery are examples of the detrimental impact this type of racial categorizing has on society. Just like social construction, the biological view of race was utilized to justify and perpetuate racial discrimination. However, unlike…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the US, racism is a well known issue. From racial profiling to other issues such as affirmative action, police brutality against minorities and the history of slavery and the rising resentment against immigrants (http://www.globalissues.org). Here the writers point out about the racism that is occurred in novel of The Bluest Eye, where racism is one of the biggest issue occurred in the novel. Since the history of black peole related to the slavery that involved their ancestors, the racism that happened 1965 still clasified black as the lower class in American society.…

    • 1675 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    the bluest eye

    • 845 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Toni Morrison’s book, The Bluest Eye, the character Pecola Breedlove is a passive, young and quiet girl who lives a hard life; her parents are constantly physically and verbally fighting. Throughout the book, Pecola is reminded continuously of how ugly she is, which fuels her aspiration to be white with blue eyes. Pecola, a poor black girl, is compelled to believe that she is, in fact, ugly. Tortured and tormented by almost everyone she knows, the identity of the protagonist, Pecola Breedlove is destroyed by both society and her family situations and experiences. This presents the reader with the idea that society and or family experiences can tear an individual from their identity if they are mentally weak enough.…

    • 845 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ugliness

    • 1382 Words
    • 6 Pages

    When a person defines another person as “ugly,” one must wonder what validity their definition holds. Questions to ask would be why the particular person is ugly, what repulsive traits does he/she possess or contain to make him/her this way, or most commonly, what does he/she look like. The answer to that question, if asked in the 1940’s in Loraine, Ohio, would be “she is ugly because she is black,” or even more appropriately, “she is ugly because she is not white.” Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” is not the typical black American’s novel written in 1970 (or at all). It shows a different part of life and a different understanding than what is typically shown with a positive, triumphal, or most commonly, hopeful ending. Instead, it shows what can easily happen to a young girl growing up who has never had a sense of who she is, merely because she would have to be somebody else just to exist. Blue eyes would make her a person. Until then, she is no one.…

    • 1382 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays