Preview

The Bluest Eye Psychoanalysis Essay

Best Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1826 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Bluest Eye Psychoanalysis Essay
Neurotic Human behavior: a psychoanalytic approach to the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Abstract:
This study is a psychoanalytic approach to the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The previous research of psychoanalysis to this novel was always by using Freudian psychology. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis focuses on determinism that human Nature is not flexible. But he doesn’t emphasize much on one’s self-realization and self growth. Freud was pessimistic and believes that neurosis is present in every Human being. But Karen Horney’s theory of neurosis focuses on free will that human Nature is flexible. Everyone has capacity for self growth and all can consciously shape their lives and can achieve self realization. She was optimistic and believes that humanity is relational and instinctual drives do not criticize persons to neurosis. The author chooses Horney’s theory of neurotic human Nature to employ in this thesis. According to Horney, Human Nature and each person is unique and is not destined to basic conflicts. When
…show more content…
Pecola believes that people will value her more if she has very blue eyes, and she will be loved. Soon thereafter, Pecola falls into her imagination-her idealized self. Pecola drives herself into conflict by her consuming obsession for blue eyes, the bluest ones. The Bluest Eye is a book made for pity and compassion. The characters in this book deal with such issues mostly readers face everyday in their life and mostly not. While some people can personally understand incest and rape, but on the other hand racism and a cultural standard of beauty is a human anxiety. The people of Lorain, Ohio are cruel, selfish, and horrible to Pecola, and that has unpleasant effects. Ohio people make mistakes in The Bluest Eye. The effects of The Bluest Eye are the ruin of Pecola. Her baby comes too soon and dies. As a result, she loses her

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Angry Eye- Essay

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages

    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.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    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.…

    • 260 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    * 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.…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    values abolished the poor Breedlove parents who fail to shelter their children, Pecola and Sammy,…

    • 155 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Claudia And Frieda Quotes

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages

    To me this quote represents how Claudia anticipates the events that the book will give us the reader’s attention to, most notably Pecola’s pregnancy. She remembers that she and Frieda pointed fingers at each other for failing to grow the plants one summer, but now she thinks if the earth itself was a danger to them, a more radical possibility. I believe this quote represents the levels of Pecola’s desire, she does not want blue eyes because they apply to the standards the whites have applied, but because she wishes to obtain different sights and pictures, as if changing eye color will change reality. She feels that changing her eye color will change her perspective of life/ the way she is viewed.…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The theme of the story, “The Bluest Eye” written by Toni Morrison, demonstrates the connection between the self-esteem of African-American people (beauty and ugliness), racism and hate. The reason why this theme is discussed was because, we can go back to the origins of African-Americans, it relates to the African diaspora, Jim Crow era, and how people negatively look at blacks today in society, and white supremacy destroyed black imaginary. But before this goes on furthermore, the audience needs to understand the importance of the dominant society which strongly removed the identity of African-American. Claudia and Maureen play perfect roles during the story. They show…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better 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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Bluest Eye

    • 755 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The characters in “The Bluest Eye” are exposed to social standards and norms. The book opens with an excerpt from the book “Dick and Jane”. This excerpt represents the perfect, ideal, suburban, white family. Each chapter in the book also begins with a quote from this book. This makes the lives of the black families in the book seem worse. The comparison of Dick and Jane’s family and life to that of the black families in the book demonstrates how the black families would compare themselves to the white families. The blacks in “The Bluest Eye” feel conflicted because their self-identity does not match up with society’s social norms. An example of this is when Geraldine does everything she can to be that same as white families. She straightens her hair, uses lotion so she does not become ashy, has a steady income, and keeps in house in exceptional shape. But no matter how similar her life style is to theirs, she still does not feel as if she fits in because she knows she is black. This theme can be seen in everyday life when comparing the first and second floor cafeterias at Osbourn Park. It is more usual for white people to sit on the second floor while more colored people sit on the first floor. No one said the setup had to be that way, but it is normal for the students and it is what they are used to.…

    • 755 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory 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

    Pecola Beauty Standards

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    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.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • 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

    Critical Lens

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages

    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.…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    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.…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics