Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Bluest Eye 

Whiteness as the standard of Beauty

     The Bleest Eye provides an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beanty standard deform the lives of black girls and women. Implicit message that whiteness is superior are everywhere, including the white baby doll given to claudia, the idealization of  shirley temple, the consensun that light - skinned Maureen is cuter than the other black girls,the idealization of white beauty in the movies ,and pauline breedlove's preference for the little white girl she works for over her daughter . Adult women, having lerned to hate the blackness of their own bodies ,take this hatred out on their children.  Mrs. Breedlove shares the conviction that pecola is ugly , and lighter - skinned Geraldine curses  pecola's blackness. Claudia remains free from  this worship of  whitness ,imagining pecola's unborn baby as  beautifulvin its blackness.but it is hinted that once Claudia reaches adolescence , she too will learn to hate herself ,as if racial self - loathing were a necessary part of maturation .

Seeing versus Being seen

         Pecola's desire for blue eyes, while highty   unrealistic is based on one correct in sight into her world .she believes that the cruelty she witness and experience is connected to how she is seen .if she had beautiful blue eyes , pecola imagines ,people would not want to do ugly things in front of her or to her. The accuracy of this insight is affirmed by her experience of being teased by the boys when Maureen comes to her rescus .it seems that they no longer want to behave badly under maureen's attractive gaze.in a more basic sense .pecola and her family are mistreated in part because they happen to have black skin .By wishing  for blue eyes  rather than lighter skin , pecola indicates that she wishes  to see things differently as much as she wishes to be seen differently .the connection between how one is seen and what one sees has a uniquely tragic outcome  for her.

The Power of stories

      The Bluest Eye is not one story .but multiple , sometimes contradictory ,interlocking stories characters tell stories to makesense of their lives ,and these stories have tremendous power for both good and evil. Cloudia's stories, in particular standout for their affirmative power. First and foremost , she tells pecola's stories and though she questions the accuracy and meaning of her versio‌n, to some degree or attention and care redeem the ugliness of
       pecola's life. Furthermore, when the adults describe pecola's pregnancy and hope that the baby dies, cridia and frieda attempts to rewrite the story as a hopeful one, casting themselves as saviors. Finally, claudia resists the premise of white superiority, writing her own story about the beauty of blackness. Story by auther characters are often destructive to themselves and others. The story Pauline Breadlove tells about her own ugliness reinforces her own self-hetred and the story she tells herself about martyrdom reinforces her cruelty about her family Soaphead church's personnel narratives about his good intentions and his special relationship with God are pure hypocrisy.

Sexual lnitiation and Abuse

    To a large degree the bluest eye is about both the pleasures and the perils of ssxual initiation Early in the novel pecola has first menstrual periodandtoward the novel's end she has her first sexual experience, which is violent. Fried knows about and anticipates menstruating .and she is initiated into sexual experience when she is fondled by henry Washington. We are told the story of cholly's first sexual experience.the fact that all of these experiences are humiliating and hurtful indicates that sexual coming of age is fraught with peril,especially in an abusive environment.
    In the novel , parents carry much of the blame for their children's often traumatic sexual coming of age. The most blatant case is cholly's rape his own daughter, pecola , which is , in a sense a repetition of the sexual humiliation cholly experience under the gaze of two racist whites .frieda's exper is less painful than pecola's because her pare immediately come to her rescue .playing the  appropriate protector and underlining .byway ofcontrast the extent of cholly's crime against his daughter.there is also s pervasive assumption that women'sbodied are availble for abuse. The refusal on the part of parents to teach their girls about sexuality makes the girls 'transition into sexual msturity difficult .

Satisfying Appetites versus supressing them

        A number of characters in the Bluest Eyedefine their lives though a denial of their bodily needs. Geraldine prefers cleanlinessand otder to the messinessofsex, and she is emotionally frigid as a result similarly pauline prefers cleaning and organizing the home of her white employersto expressing physical affection toward her family Soaphead churchfinds physicality distasteful,and this peculiarity leads to his preference for objects over humans and to his perverse attraction to little girls . Cholly's greatest moments of happinesses are eating the best part of a watermelon and touching a girl for the first time pauline 's happiest memory is of sexual fulfillment with her husband . The novel suggests that no matter how messy and sometimes violent human desire is ,it is also the source of happiness.denial of the body begest hatred and violence, not redemption.

Symbols in the novel bluest eye

   Symbols are objects characters, fingares, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts