Racism In The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye fits into the study of the American novel because it tells the story of a group of Americans, who are descendants of slaves, and live in a society where, despite the fact that numerous individuals deny it, the color of their skin determines who they are and what privileges they are entitled to. This specific novel inspects the impact of a kind of seeing that is refracted through the lens of racism by victims of racism themselves. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison recounts the story of a young African American, Pecola, and the social battles of the time period, including the troubles of growing up as an adolescent black woman in the 1940s. In this novel, the upper class creates a standard of beauty that society imitates, promoted …show more content…
In this scene, Pecola takes solace from the Shirley Temple mug that she drinks milk out of, which symbolizes the glorified type of beauty. Milk symbolizes nurturance and by drinking the milk out of the Shirley Temple mug Pecola expresses her yearning to look perpetually at the blue-eyed symbol of all that she is definitely not. The milk nurtures Pecola in a false way because it permits her to have faith in false ideals. Pecola partners the false appearance of beauty with great and wholesome milk, making her view the white beliefs as wholesome. Pecola accepts that blonde hair and blue eyes are unattainable, yet when she experiences violence, she wishes for blue eyes. Pecola is an image of self-hatred and self-degradation, a trademark normal in The Bluest Eye. Her convictions were not her own. She rather acknowledges the conviction that the white society had forced on her young and pure mind. Beauty is everything that she is not and all that she never will be. Toward the start of the book, Pecola battles with the concept of beauty. “The dandelions at the base of the telephone pole. Why, she wonders, do people call them weeds? She thought they were pretty…Nobody loves the head of a dandelion” (Morrison 47). “They are ugly. They are weeds” (Morrison 50). Pecola compares herself to the dandelions. She is ugly and undeserving to be …show more content…
Additionally, Morrison goes up against the trouble of characterizing an identity under the burden of diverse, overwhelming and supremacist white society. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison depicts a few characters that acknowledge the standards offered by the white society, with terrible results. Moreover, the media and white society characterize physical beauty and thusly influence the self-esteem of characters in the novel. As indicated by this definition, African Americans cannot be appealing and, accordingly, strive to satisfy the gauges of white society. At last, Morrison’s utilization of point of view, setting, and symbolism demonstrated that racism prevailed through beauty and character expectations formed by the white