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Discrimination occurs when a person is treated less favourably because of their racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. Jane Elliott decided to use role-play a situation portraying the discrimination that a person of different colour would be constantly exposed to in day-to-day life.…
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Documentaries are created with the intent of showcasing the truth, however, they influence audiences by using various shots, footage and stills to present a carefully constructed version of reality. The documentary “Through a Blue Lens” (1999), directed by Veronica Mannix, was created to showcase to teen aged students the less romanticised side of drugs, and presents three representations; drug addicts, the police and the down-town east side of Vancouver, known as “skid row”. The main group represented in “Through a Blue Lens” are drug addicts.…
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1. The history of the Breedloves' home is that it use to be a store. The Breedlove's lived in a store front. It is a very unattractive building within the community. "...pedestrians, who are residents of the neighborhood, simply look away when they pass it."(Morrison 33). That statement shows me that no one cared about this abandoned store. Before the store was abandoned it was a pizza parlor, a real estate office, and a gypsies base of operations. I believe that no one remembers the Breedlove's living in the store because no one ever took notice of the store also the Breedlove's were not active with in the community to be noticed by anyone. The book states that the Breedlove's did not make a wave in the mayor's office.…
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The characters are repeatedly being subjected to images of whiteness offered through movies, books, magazines, toys, and of course advertisements. Early into the story, Pecola gushes over Shirley Temple’s beauty, and later on Mrs. Breedlove spends her days at the movies admiring the white actresses, wishing she could be in their place. The association between beauty and whiteness pushes the idea of beauty beyond the body’s exterior, making it a signifier of one’s value and worth. Many characters in the book believe their beauty means who they are in society, community, and…
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Fanny is betrayed by the father of her child, and the man she is infatuated with, when he abandons her and leaves her to beg in the streets. Her pregnancy outcasts her from the community and ultimately is the reason she is unable to rejoin her former life after Troy abandons her. This is also intersected with the fact that as a woman her situation was frowned upon and she was unable to regain respect in her vulnerable position. Fanny’s position as an unmarried, poor, pregnant woman is what ultimately causes her death of fatigue and starvation. This story of tragedy is similar to Pecola Breedlove’s pregnancy. Pecola was betrayed by her father, Cholly Breedlove, the man who is supposed to love and care for her the most, when he rapes her. This rape destroys Pecola psychologically and causes her to become pregnant. Despite the fact she is pregnant with her father’s child, her community continues to look down on her and outcasts her. Due to the oppression she faces as a girl, she is looked down upon and shunned at her lowest point, rather than cared or loved. The combination of being unloved and shunned, and pregnant with the product of her rape, Pecola is driven to a psychotic break. Both girls are unable to control…
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A main theme in the novel is that Pecola believes traditionally white features such as blue eyes are seen as more beautiful than her own black features and often longs for them, thinking it will make her life easier if she was prettier, and other characters in the book, like…
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Beauty standards set by society for black women fuels into their insecurities and drives them towards self-hatred. From the start, Pecola’s community, classmates, teachers and parent’s drill into her head that she is unattractive. Pecola Breedlove comes to admit she is ugly as she starts obsessing over the idea of having the bluest eyes to make her attractive. Pecola full-heartedly believes that blue eyes are a necessity for beauty and if she were to by some means acquire them, all of her problems in life would disappear. “Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes” (46). Pecola assumes blue eyes are the key to gaining admiration from her community and love from her family. While Pecola Breedlove is constantly reminded of everything she is: ugly, poor, and black; her innocence is also stolen from her as she is figuratively raped by society and literally raped by her father.…
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The Bluest Eye is a novel written by the famous author Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison whoms real name is Chole Anthony Wofford was born in 1931 in Loraihn, Ohio. She was the second of four childern in a black working class family. Morrison grew up in a integrated neighborhood and did not fully realize racial divisions until she was a teenager. She admits that as a child she was the only black and the only one who could read. She always had an interest in literature and even took Latin in high school. She graduated from Lorain High School with honors in 1949. Morrison furthered her education and her strong desire for literature at Howard University. She majored in English and graduated from Howard in 1953. Not yet satisfied with her education Morrison decided to also attend Cornell University. She taught English at both Howard and Texas Southern University. After returning to Howard to teach English Morrison met her future husband Harold Morrison. They got married in 1958 and had their first son in 1961. Morrison first novel was The Bluest Eye which was published in 1970. It was about a young African female who believes her life would be perfect if she had blue eyes. Her next novel was Sula which was published in 1973 and explores the good and evil through the friendship of two women who grew up together. Sula was nominated for the American Book Award. Her next work Song of Solomon became the first work by an African American author to be a featured selection in the book of the month club since Native Son by Richard Wright. Other works include Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love and many others. Morrison has won many famous awards during her writing carrer. Her novel Beloved won New York State Governor's Arts National Book Award nomination and National Book Critics Circle Award nomination. Morrison biggest accomplishment though has to ber her Nobel Prize for Literature in 19993. She became the eighth woman and the first African-American to win the prize. She is…
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Claudia shows clear signs of rebellion towards what the dominant culture regards as beautiful: how white people look like - blue eyes, yellow hair and pink skin. While Pecola submits to the prejudiced beauty standards, Claudia fights against them. She rebels by hating anyone or anything that is labeled as ‘beautiful’ by her society. She finds herself imagining and sometimes even engaging in acts of violence towards these people. She also attempts to find flaws in these ‘epitomes of beauty’ to resist how ‘beautiful’ they were labeled and seen.…
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Alienation. A withdrawing or separation of a person or a person’s affections from an object or position of former attachment (Merriam Webster). Society has ways of alienating people for multiple reasons such as their race, gender, class, or beliefs. In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, the character Pecola was alienated not only by society, but by her family as well. Pecola’s alienation was due to the fact that she was raped by her father and carried his baby. This reveals that society has very little to no values, and that they always assume the worse about people.…
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After reviewing my grade on The Bluest Eye essay, I can honestly say that I did a great job considering I got 83% on the previous essay. I was more prepared and I took my time to write it. Going over the notes on the book as well as doing a little bit of research gave me the information I needed to write my essay. I noticed that my writing has improved significantly compared to where I started at the beginning of the year. On this particular essay I demonstrated several strengths in my paper as well as some weaknesses when it came to my essay as a whole.…
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In contrast of Claudia and Frieda, an important point to stress is that Pecola’s conviction of her own ugliness stems from the society’s judgment of her being unattractive rather than from herself. Pecola would for, “...long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of her ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike…” (Morrison 1990, 34). The impossibility of Pecola’s wish for blue eyes undermines her self worth. The intensity of her feelings of shame is profound indeed. That subjective infringement of one’s self-respect, which stems from the imposed sense of inferiority, contributes to her giving in to the cultural disregard for her own race (Zebialowicz). By Pecola internalizing the white standards of beauty, it lead her to a state in which she inhabits invisibility…
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Although Claudia and Frieda are embarrassed and hurt for Pecola, their sorrow is intensified by the fact that none of the adults seem to share the same feelings of grief and their hopefulness tries to heal their disjointed society. In the passage Claudia begins to describe how she can see the baby, the living human that everyone else wanted dead. The baby that is still in the womb, she pictures the baby, in a dark place this could symbolize death of the baby later. She paints a picture for the reader saying that the baby’s hair like great O’s of wool as in sheep leading us to think that the baby might be a Jesus figure. She describes the baby’s eyes as clean, pure because it hasn’t yet seen the evil of the world. The flared nose, as if the baby is mad or out of breathe again symbolizes death. She says kissing-thick lips, shining a light on the more sexual side making it seem like thats all your lips should be used for. She concludes by saying “the living, breathing silk of black skin”, to express that this baby is living, it is a human, it is taking a breath just like everyone else. Silk is an expensive fabric, something of worth just like this baby’s life. “No synthetic yellow bangs suspended over marble-blue eyes, no pinched nose and bowline mouth.” Claudia goes on to describe the baby as a doll, saying that they are nothing alike, dolls are fake in fact worse they are “synthetic”, and they are far from perfect, they have pinched noses, pinched towards the sky like a snooty white girl. But not like this baby, Claudia felt a yearning, a burning for someone to care for this baby to love it and want it to live. “Just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls,” she wanted this baby to come into the world to change it, to change how the world viewed black babies, to “counteract” set off the balance, of the whole universe meaning everybody and the love it had for a doll rather…
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Admittedly author Toni Morrison is not one of my favorite writers. Morrison’s novels are often dense with symbolism and allegories that are often complex to understand or can be easily misunderstood by a reader. Surprisingly The Bluest Eye quickly became one of my favorites. Like many who read for enjoyment I wanted to see the happy ending. Essentially I wanted Pecola to win, longed for her to receive her happy ending, felt it would only be fitting if in the end she learned to love herself unconditionally and accept the beauty she was born with. Unfortunately Morrison is a realist who reminds us all that life does not always come with a happy ending, the good guy does not always win and no matter how hard you pray life does not always give us the desires of our hearts.…
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On the opposite side of the spectrum, Pecola and her little brother, Sammy, have grown in a terrible living situation. This is reflected in not only Pecola’s behavior, but also her brother. The entire family holds a strong distaste towards themselves. They feel the pressure of being a stark contrast from the desired appearances of others. “Except for the father, Cholly, whose ugliness … was behavior, the rest of the family--Mrs. Breedlove, Sammy Breedlove, and Pecola Breedlove--wore their ugliness, put it on, so to speak, although it did not belong to them.” (Morrison 30). The Breedlove family buries into themselves, hiding their faces away from staring…
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