Self-Hate in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye Essay -- Essays on The Blu

At a time when blue-eyed, pale spit out Shirley Temple is idolized by white and black alike, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove desperately seeks appear beauty for herself. In order to attain beauty in her culture, Pecola must do the impossible find white beauty. Toni Morrison shows the disastrous effects that colorism and racialism can have on a whole culture and how African-Americans will tear each other apart in order to fit into the graces of white society. The desire to be considered splendid in the white world is so compelling, that the characters in The Bluest Eye loathe their own skin color and feel shame for their culture. These feelings of self-loathing and contempt pass on from the adults to their children, creating a continuous cycle of negativity and self-hate. Here was an ugly little black female child asking for beautyA little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes (Morrison, 174). By petitioning for white beauty, Pecola Breedlove is desperately attempting to pull herself out of the pit of blackness. Because Pecola has dark-skin and authentic African-American features, black and white society has conditioned her to believe that she is ugly. Pecola.s physical features ensure her to be a victim of classical racism classical racism being the notion that the physical ugliness of blackness is a sign of a deeper ugliness and depravity (Taylor, 16). This notion allows the mistreatment of dark-skinned nation because their blackness is a link to a dark past and to uncivilized ways. Pecola does not epitomize white society.s standards of beauty because she does not have light skin and trademark blue eyes therefore, she must be ugly and ba... ...Melus 19.4 (1994) 109-127. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 24 March 2014. Lobodziec, Agnieszka. Theological Models of Black Middle-Class Performance in Toni Morrison.s Novels. Black Theology An International Journal 8.1 (2010) 32-52. Academic Sear ch Complete. EBSCO. Web. 24 March 2014. McKittrick, Katherine. Black and Cause I.m Black I.m Blue. transverse racial geographies in Toni Morrison.s The Bluest Eye. Gender, manoeuver & Culture A Journal of Feminist Geography 7.2 (2000) 125. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 24 March 2014. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York Penguin, 1970. Print. Taylor, Paul C. Malcom.s Conk and Danto.s Colors or tetrad Logical Petitions Concerning Race, Beauty, and Aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism 57.1 (2000) 16-20. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 23 March 2014.