English 2000 Perspectives in Literature

Love is a big factor in the Novel “The Bluest Eyes “ by Toni Morrison. It plays a huge part in how the theme is set. It can be clearly seen with Pecola how lack of love affects her. Pecola does not receive very much love from her mother, or her father. Most of the time the father is drunk and ignores her. Pecolas mother is also very uncaring with her. Many times throughout the novel Pecocla is in need of someone to explain certain changes but cannot seem to find help from her mother so she turns to others.  Theses are two clear examples of how she is not shown any love and in result of that Pecola feels some sort of hate or jealousy when she sees others like her being treated differently. When Maureen Peal was first presented Pecola describes all the differences between the treatments she gets. Pecola describes her as a Light skin black girl who seems to be rich. Pecola also States that Maureen get more respect from everyone, even the white teachers. This impacts Pecola even more because she sees this other girl that is being treated better with some amount of love and Pecola get nothing.

On page 17, Morrison writes, “Being a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment.” I believe that like most of the immigrants they have that dream of making money and to have power so they won’t be a minority; be ignore and consider garbage by the superior class. in the novel The Bluest Eye Pecola; wants to be lighter, with blue, blonde curly hair to be beautiful and be appreciated by others. She believe that having those characteristics would be the free pass in society ; meaning she will be accept and considered beautiful, treated with respect.  White race has the power and authority to advertise whatever they consider beautiful and put down the beauty of the black race. They society have implied into young girls and everyone else that in order to be consider beautiful you have to be light skin, thin body, blind hair and BLUE Eyes. This is the same as the American dream because it consists of people trying to move up in their social status by working and getting the nice cars, houses, clothes, all of the things that are seen by society, as the things that are what an American should have. However, in the Bluest Eye Implies beauty, what society have consider every woman should e to be consider beautiful and be fit on society.

            In Two or Three Things I know for Sure, Dorothy Allison compares violence to sexuality, similarly to The Bluest Eye,by Toni Morrison. Dorothy compares the relief of releasing anger to the relief of an orgasm. She states that “his fear was sexual and marvelous-hateful and scary but wonderful, like orgasm, like waiting a whole lifetime and finally coming (Allison 47)”. Meaning that violence is similar to sex in that it has a build, a plateau and then a climax, similar to sex.Toni Morrison also compares the two in a similar fashion when Cholly rapes Pecola. She demonstrates a connection between the hatred he felt mixed with tenderness while he was committing the violent act. After Cholly rapes Pecola and stands back up, Morrison mentions that”the hatred would not let him pick her up, the tenderness forced him to cover her (Morrison 163)”. He was conflicted with the hatred and anger he felt towards Pecola(and women) for loving him, his desire and his need to be “tender” and protective.

          Dorothy Allison and Toni Morrison both speak of sex as a very empty, painful, and violent experience. Their use of molestation and the rape of Dorothy as a child and teen and the rape of Pecola are both similar.Both novels talk about the ruining of childhood because of the rape and relates it to sexuality by how it altered the characters perspective about sex, and especially love;how it’s suppose to feel and what it is really like.

Throughout The Bluest Eye, Pecola is the main major character despite Claudia’s perspectives within its story. I think Pecola is somewhat a symbol of the black community’s self hatred and belief in its own ugliness. She has this huge admiration and obsession of a white girl’s perfect yet flawless beautiful feature that she could never receive. Due to her insensible insecurities regarding herself, she was being abused and brought upon hatred by others, especially her family. All she desires and wants is to disappear from facing this emotional life she’s been undergoing through. Her life has been completely damaged by horrible violence from her appearance, race, social status, and so forth. Pecola’s only wish is to receive blue eyes for herself thinking she will no longer be abuse. That was her ‘logical’ reasoning or rather escape from her complication lifestyle.

In “The Bluest Eye”, one of the main characters is Pecola. She is an African American girl around the ages of 11-12 throughout the book. She is a young girl born into a lower class family. The entire book seemed to emphasize the idea of her being ugly. Claudia and Frieda seemed to feel superior looks-wise when they were around Pecola. Pecola’s idea of beauty was what seemed to be everyone’s idea of beauty at that time. Having blue eyes, white skin, and blonde hair similar to the dolls people got their daughters was the idea of beauty. This relates heavily to the theme of the book in that beauty (0r lack of) seemed to be be brought up quite constantly.

~Carlos Lema

In Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, Dorothy Allison writes about sexuality and violence affecting eachother. Sexuality is a way of expressing the anger the character had because of past violence experience in their lives. “Darlene put her hands over her face as Cholly began to simulate what had gone on before. He could do no more than make believe. …Come on, coon. Faster. You ain’t doing nothing for her. Cholly moving faster, looked at Darlene. He hated her. He almost wished he could do it-hard, long and painfully, he hated her so much” (Pg.148). In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison writes about sexuality used in a violent manner because of past events that made usr their sexuality as a way to cope with it. For example Cholly feels that when the white men made him hace sex with Darlene so they can watch, it destroyed him. Cholly felt it took his manhood away because he was helpless in that moment and there was nothing he could’ve have done to fight back and protect Darlene. In both texts it mentions sexuality used in a violent manner which were driven by past events in the characters lives that created that way of expression.

Pecola is a eleven year old black girl. She is a poor working-class girl Because her mother works for caring for the well to do white family. Pecola believes that she is ugly and having blue eyes would make her beautiful. These elements contribute to our understanding of the text theme because the author is saying you do not have to look certain way to be considered beautiful. Having blue eyes does not make you automatically beautiful. Also you should love yourself and the skin that you’re in.

Jodi Grant

On page 17, Morrison writes, “Being a minority in both cast” What do you think this

Question # 3

I think that this quote has a deep truth to it. To me this quote means that as minorities or as people of different color that is not to say the ” ideal color or race” which is white, we go about life trying to keep in our pain and tribulations of life inside and we tend to not do much about it while   striving to maybe one day achieve what we want. I feel like this and the American dream go hand in hand because the idea of the American dream is that people of any race and culture can come to America and live a successful life of any occupation they want. To have a nice house, car, and a great environment for there family to also make it somewhere important in life.

The character that I will be talking about is Claudia. Claudia even though the youngest amongst, Frieda and Pecola, by a good amount of years, is still recognized as a person and not a younger brat little sister. Claudia is very smart for her age. Her thoughts are very mature, because the scene where she spoke about the Shirley Temple doll, she describes destroying it, she kind of breaks it down to a science and speaks about the essence of the doll. When another little girl would adore it and cuddle it. Her idols are very different as well showing uniqueness in her, when Pecola and Frieda were saying how they loved Shirley, Claudia, not like a common little girl would do and agree with her bigger sister and say “yeah she’s mines too” she actually disagrees and goes with her own opinion. This show’s maturity, and a mind of her own.

Pecola Breedlove is a typical girl who wants to look pretty like Mary Jane and Shirley Temple. However, everyone in the novel calls her ugly and insults her because of her skin color. Therefore, Pecola wants to have blonde hair, blue eyes, and white skin. Throughout the novel, Pecola is a vulnerable girl because of racial harassment, For example, in school; black boys pick on Pecola because of her appearance. Also, Pecola’s parents neglect Pecola and Sammy alone in their apartment. On the other hand, Claudia is an outstanding girl in the novel unlike Pecola. Claudia accepts who she is and her identity of being black and ugly. Besides that, Claudia hates white dolls because of racist beauty standard. Claudia is a brave  girl because she protects Pecola without hesitation; for example, Claudia and Frieda fight back when the black boys attack Pecola for being ugly. Lastly, both Claudia and Pecola live in the same community and they are poor. Also, both of them agree that they are ugly and unattractive because they don’t have blue eyes, blond hair, and white skin. What factors contribute to their dominant traits?  Both of the girl views things differently in what is beauty. For example, Pecola wants to follow the trend of what is beautiful in a white society, yet Claudia feels differently from Pecola because of inequality.