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One of Toni Morrison’s main themes in her book titled The Bluest Eye, is the
effect of white society’s standards and their influence upon the depicted black
community. Toni Morrison effectively uses the young impressionable character
Pecola Breedlove, among other characters, to demonstrate how damaging the ideas
and beliefs formed about oneself based on this “society’s standards” can be when
taken to the extreme. Morrison’s audience is given a number of examples that
display the power of influence and belief.
In the beginning part of the story, the reader is introduced to Pecola, the
girl who had no place to go because her family had ended up “outdoors”. This is
why she comes to live with the MacTeer family and it is here that she first
encounters her fascination with the white, blonde haired, blue-eyed look of
Shirley Temple. “She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the
silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face,” which was pictured on the cup
(19). A few pages later the reader learns that Pecola continues to drink and
drink milk just so she can stare at the picture of Shirley Temple, making Mrs.
MacTeer upset because the milk is so expensive.
Speaking of the well known icon, Shirley Temple, the character Claudia after
explaining about how she “destroys white baby dolls”, says, “I learned much
later to worship her, (Shirley Temple) just as I learned to delight in
cleanliness, knowing, even as I learned, that the change was adjustment without
improvement” (23). Claudia’s statement explains how she was not interested in
baby dolls and the thought that they along with Shirley Temple were adorable.
Despite this, she later was made change her mind to fit the norm of society’s
thoughts.
Next in the scene where Pecola’s family, the Breedlove’s are being presented
to
the audience the narrator says, “They lived there because they were poor and
black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly” (38). This
explains why the Breedlove family lives in an abandoned storefront on the run
down part of town and why they stay there, with not intention of moving. There
is no use in moving to a nicer place because they truly believe that they are
ugly and therefore belong in an ugly place. In allowing themselves to foster
these beliefs they are creating an internalized oppression that is not only
apparent in their thoughts and ideas, but in their way of living as well—making
it impossible to escape from. Society had helped to enforce this belief of
ugliness and impress it upon them in their adopted way of thinking because “They
had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in
fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every
glance” (39).
In this story Pecola is also made to change her concepts of the world around
her because of what society will accept and reject. The reader can observe this
change when Pecola say aloud to herself, “They are ugly. They are weeds” (50).
In this statement she is referring to the dandelions that she thought were once
beautiful and little bursts of sunshine a few minutes before she encounters the
storekeeper of the candy store. The storekeeper, Mr. Yacobowski had treated
Pecola rudely and as if she were invisible, which caused her not only to view
herself negatively, but the dandelions as well. When she is expressing her
dislike for the dandelions she is actually reflecting on how she feels about
herself.
To add to this, Pecola while visiting the candy store has bought three Mary
Jane Candies, which have pictures of Mary Jane on the wrappers. They are
described as having a, “Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue
eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort” (50). This is the valued
beauty standard for society and Pecola is becoming aware of it that is why she
buys the candy and enjoys the sweetness of it. It is almost as if she believes
that when she eats the candy she is able to acquire these desired physical
attributes.
In the story Pecola is continually surrounded by the blue eyes of baby
dolls,
people, Shirley Temple and Mary Jane Candies, which worsens her already
established belief that she is ugly. This is why the narrator says, “only a
miracle could relieve her, she would never know her beauty. She would see only
what there was to see: the eyes of other people” (47). Pecola desperately
wanted to change her eye color to blue because she had the idea that if her eyes
were blue her parents wouldn’t fight in the presence of something so beautiful
(46). She was beginning to place her whole life’s happiness around the desire
for blue eyes. She felt that if she had them she would finally be pretty and
that her life would be improved because of them and their beauty.
In the scene where Pecola’s schoolmate, Maureen Peal was being described,
Morrison makes it known that she is of a lighter complexion than Pecola and
Claudia. And with this lighter complexion Maureen has some advantages such as,
having teachers call on her, while they were smiling encouragingly. Also the
audience is told that, “Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys
didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to
be their work partner; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink
in the girls’ toilet,” the list goes on and on of how nicely she was treated
because of her looks (62). She obviously had a certain power or privilege that
came with her appearance and Claudia, Frieda and Pecola were realizing it. This
is why they felt the need to make fun of her by calling her names and making up
stories about how Maureen had once had six fingers instead of five.
Later on, the reader is told that the girls, Claudia, Frieda and Pecola know
that Maureen was not at fault for having been treated so well at school while
they were not. They knew that they should not hate Maureen, but that they
should “fear the Thing that made her beautiful, and not them” (74). In this
sentence from the book the word “thing” is capitalized and italicized to
indicate a strong emphasis and focus on it. Morrison does this to reiterate
that the “thing” that the girls are referring to is the highly valued standards
set by society of what is considered to be beautiful and what is not.
Another scene that strongly emphasizes the societal prototype of beauty is
the
one in which Claudia’s mother, Pauline is found at the movies. After being
immersed into the make believe world of movies where all of the actors are
perfect and fit the society-required standards of beauty, Pauline was never
again able to “look at a face without assigning it a category in the scale of
absolute beauty” (122). On account of this influence of the “beauty scale” that
she had learned at the movies she tried to make herself look like the actress
Jean Harlow, which didn’t turn out so well because she was five months pregnant
and had lost a front tooth. When she realized that there was no way for her to
look like Jean Harlow she used the “beauty scale” on herself and decided that
she was ugly and that she better get used to it. From these movies, “she had
learned all there was to love and all there was to hate,” which made her hate
herself because she believed that she was completely and irreversibly ugly
(122).
Through these instances and several more that Morrison uses her audience is
able to gain a true understanding of how a society can impress it’s own
standards and ideals on another. Morrison’s creative plot use of the children’s
story of Dick and Jane, which deals with the white middle class world, adds to
her theme of influence from white society. Making the reader aware of how
engrained these standards of society are—they even appear in children’s
literature. |
