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.…
* Pecola Breedlove: She is an eleven year old black girl who believes she is ugly. She wishes for blue eyes to make her feel beautiful which is granted at the cost of her sanity.…
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.…
The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon and react to the exercise "Blue-eyed/Brown-eyed" conducted by Jane Elliot in relation to the ideas of diversity, race, and privilege. The objective of this exercise was to give white people an idea of what life is like to be something other than white. Elliot 's exercise pointed out both blatant and indirect ways that prejudice demoralizes people of color. Elliot facilitates everyone involved aiding their recognition of the cost that prejudice and racial behavior has on an individual. This exercise employed an open dialogue approach on topics that may be looked at as most people as off limits. The dialogue encouraged through the "Blue-eyed/Brown-eyed" experiment allows people to understand what it 's like to feel dispirited and the role they can play through daily interactions with people of the opposite race that promote the aspects of being supportive and understanding.…
Morrison uses these figures who show how they are admired for their cleanliness and whiteness. These characters parallel Pecola, Cholly, Pauline, Claudia, Frieda and Mrs. MacTeer, who are all reflections of “blackness” which is perceived as dirty and undesirable. These characters all show how everyone in the community is a victim of racism and in return set out to change themselves, developing body dysmorphic disorder. These characters all wish to change their physical appearance and look and act more like the mixed race characters, only to gain acceptance from their community. Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye tells the story how racism and societies standard of beauty leads to body dysmorphic disorder and the demise of a village when they fall to the pressures of what is accepted by…
In The Bluest Eye, Cholly Breedlove is a character whose childhood was filled with many…
Judy Jones and daisy Buchanan are beautiful, wealthy, and shallow young women who love but money. Both Judy and daisy dress flimsy clothes witch shows a lack of character. They know that they can get men with their cute voices and there money. They both have instances in their lives where love, money, and materialism come into play. Like when daisy accidentally kills myrtle on the streets and she thinks she’s too good too take the blame or when every time things aren’t going good for Judy, she runs off and finds a new man of the night.…
In The Bluest Eye, the main character Pecola is a young girl, who lives in Lorain, Ohio during the 1940s. She grows up in a very abusive household, where she is verbally, physically and sexually abused by her mother and father. Specifically, her father rapes her and impregnates her. Pecola is also constantly ridiculed by her community and her family for being ugly. This same community has established certain standards for beauty. In order to be considered beautiful, an individual had to conform to the standards set forth by popular icons of the time period like Shirley Temple and Ginger Rogers. It was most desirable to have white skin, blond hair and blue eyes. Pecola did not fit this ideal, so she desperately prayed for blue eyes, in the hope that she could become beautiful and be accepted by society. Unfortunately, Pecola was unable to acquire blue eyes. True to her human nature, Pecola tried to improve her life but failed.…
Beauty in the American culture has been transformed so many times most people do not even know what real beauty is. Someone can see a woman posing on a billboard in New York City and believe that she is beautiful, but who decided who and what can be beautiful. The way our culture is American people watch television, movies, internet clips constantly. People are fed images of what "beauty" is supposed to be, but this idea of beauty is from the eyes of producers, models, musicians, and actors. It seems to me that only the people who are thought to have beauty are deciding what is beautiful.…
Although it may seem unrealistic, many of us strive to be the best of the best. But at what cost would it take for one to attain such a distant goal? In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison offers commentary on the detrimental effects of black people in a society imposing them to adhere to white standards. Shown through Geraldine, Soaphead Church, and Pecola, each character believes that they need to rid themselves of their black lives in order to be obtain power in a pro-white society, but results in a destructive mentality.…
a teenager in a field with Darlene by two white men, "never did he once consider…
Every night before she goes to sleep, she prays that may she wake up with blue eyes. The image of "Shirley Temple beauty" surrounds her. In her mind, if she were to be beautiful, people would finally love and accept her. This idea of beauty has been imprinted on Pecola her whole entire life. Many people have inscribed this notion into her. Her classmates also have an effect on her. They seem to think that because she is not beautiful; she is not worth anything except as the focal point of their mockery. As if it were not bad enough being ridiculed by children her own age, adults also had to mock her. Mr. Yacowbski as a symbol for the rest of society's norm, treats her as if she were invisible. Geraldine, a colored woman, who refused to tolerate "niggers", happened to walk in while Pecola was in her house. By having an adult point out to her that she really was a "nasty" little girl, it seems all the more true. At home she was put through the same thing, if not worse because her family members were the ones who were supposed to love her. It was obvious to Pecola that her mother preferred the little white girl of the family that she worked for over her. One day as Pecola was visiting…
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.…
Everywhere we go there are going to be stereotypes that can affect us in our daily lives. Even stereotypes from years ago are still sometimes present today. For years Caucasian blue-eyed dolls was considered the best and most perfect gift for every little girl. For this time period it was considered perfect but many girls did not have the features that the doll had. This in some cases would affect minority's, who would come to think that their features such as dark skin, and nappy hair were ugly. In "The Bluest Eye", Claudia a little girl receives a little white doll for Christmas. In receiving this doll Claudia shows that receiving one of these dolls does not make every little girl happy.…
Elizabeth, yet skeptical, agreed to trying something new, and to changing history. Hazel on the other hand did not want to accept the fact that her school and maybe even her life would be changed. She despised of the idea that a poor black girl would take any attention away from her. Hazel was more outspoken and Elizabeth was more shy. You can tell this trait from the picture. These differences of course prolly began when the two women were young. Elizabeth has come to peace with her past and have moved on to much greater achievements. Hazel on the other hand will never forget the hate she once carried at fifteen years old.…