Beauty and Identity in The

Bluest Eye

Prepared by :
by :

Supervised

Elmehdi Jamal Eddine

Mohammed Kandoussi

Dr.

Acadimic year :
2014-2015
1

Acknowledgment

On my spins and all my life, I will never expunge my

teacher and supervisors precious help and guidance which spur
and foster my sternuous knowledge within the ambit of
literature and intercultural communication. For this reason, I
take the plunge to liaise with Dr.Mohammed Kandoussi whose
deep-rooted knowledge in the field has made my uphill task
possible to successfully surmount.

Dedication

To my dear mother and father.

To all my classmates.
To all whom I love and respect so
much.

Table of Contents
3

Introduction.
...1

The story : The Bluest

Eye.........4
I.
Chapter one : Beauty in The Bluest
Eye........6
A. Whiteness as the Standard of
Beauty...8
B. Racial Beauty within African-American
Community ..13

II. Chapter Two : Identity in The Bluest

Eye ..17

A.
Self-Loathing :The Breedlove Family...
19
B.
Self- Acceptance :The Mac-teer Family.......
24

Conclusion
..29

Bibliography
.31
4

Introduction
It is to be made self-evident that the work reported in
this monograph is but an attempt to account for one of Toni
Morrisons novels ,The bluest Eye. My choice to investigate this
novel is not at random, nor does it crop up out of scratch.
Rather, it can plausibly be justified by my unquenched curiosity
to get in deeper touch with Amerian literature, especially
African-American literature, looking forwards to profoundly
understanding some of its prevailing issues. Another cogent
reason underlying such a choice is my being an AmericanCulture Studies major, a fact that will make it, more or less,
possible for me to cope with it in a quite esay-fashion. In so
doing ,I will try to explore how beauty- white beauty- may
hamper the identity of black women in the novel.
In their unwanted transition from Africa to America, black
women suffered from mistreatments, whippings, rape,
segregation and sudden deaths. The physical captivity did not
matter as much as the mental and psychological captivity,
which still affects black African-American womens identity and
self-image to this day. During slavery period, black women were
5

treated as dolls for their masters. They thought, as Byron

Woulard says, that the master provided them with everything
they needed shelter, food, security and sex, something that
forced them to believe that the whites way of life and physical
appearances are better than that of the blacks .
After the abolishment of slavery, lighter skin became a
social advantage and a sign of beauty, in contrast to darker skin
which ruefully became a social disadvantage and a sign of
ugliness. Light skinned women were more likely to get a job and
have a good education. They were most represented in media
advertising as being beautiful models to follow because of their
skin colour which is tantamount to the white. Dark skinned
women, on the other had less opportunities to access public
schools, and were not entitled to be in some public places.
Society regarded them as wrecked and ugly becauseof their
skin colour. Consequently, some light skinned women see
themselves as more beautiful than dark ones, while some dark
skinned think that light skinned women are not the protypical
black ;rather, they are just a white woman acting black. Thus,
this has created another kind of racism, that is to say, racism
within the AfricanAmerican community which Morrison wants
to be aware of how they are tearing themselves apart instead of
being one, not only as African-Americans, but also as
Americans.
Being an African-American, a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer
Prize-winning novelist, Toni Morrison wrote her first novel ,the
Bluest Eye, to explore the impact of the pre-established
standards of beauty which affect African-American womens self6

image and identity. The story is about a little black girl called
Pecola who is considered inferior and ugly due to her skin
colour. Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye because she felt that
someone should bring the issue of black beauty into light, and
blame not only the white society but also the black community,
especially black women, that accept the fact that they are ugly.
Morrison says that she wanted to speak on the behalf of those
who didn't catch that right away. I was deeply concerned about
the feelings of being ugly. The novel, however, sheds the light
also on how this ugliness hamper the little black girl Pecolas
identity, which she seeks through procuring and wishing for
blue eyes. This is because she finds herself abhored by both her
society in general and the black community as well.
Doutbless, the body of this monograph is divided into two
chapters. The first chapter, being revolved around the concept
of Beauty in the Bluest Eye, will serve as an access or a prelude
to what comes after in the subsequent chapter. It comprises two
sections, Whiteness as the Standard of Beauty ;whereas the
second section will be wholly dedicated to depicting the racism
within the African-American community cencerning skin colour.
As for the second chapter, it is about Identity in the Bluest Eye.
It is essentially composed of two sections, beginning with Selfhatred that can easily be seen in the Breedlove family . The
second section will adress itself to revealing the Self-love by
which the Mac-teer family is empowered. Ultimately, a
conclusion is there to infer something from all what would be
stated through assessing the limitations of the paper, besides
opening up new horizons for further research.
7

The Story
Inspired yet shocked by a childhood friend, who wishes she had
blue eyes, Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye. The Bluest Eye, which was
written during The Great Depression, in Lorain, Ohio, and which had,
still has, and it will possibly have a pervasive influence on American
Literature History, insofar as it unsparingly mirrors and provokes
many vital social issues. Most of the novel s characters belong to
the same community, the Black community. The central character,
Pecola, impersonates the reserved, the lost, the weak, and the
8

abused, all of which are due to the people she is surrendered by.
Although she is raped by her father, ignored by her mother, belittled
by her society, she still believes that blue eyes can help her have a
better life than the one she has. Morrison tries to represent AfricanAmerican community and its members in this novel as having an
important role in constructing the American society .
The Macteers family, who take in a boarder a boy named
Henry, and a girl Pecola, can no longer support those two kids on
their account. So, Pecola has to get back to her own family, which is
like hell for her. Her father Cholly and mother Pauline are only
biologically responsible for her, and all that she knows about her
brother, who flees from home because he can not tolerate his
familys cruel life, is that she has got a brother. The girl has got a
strange wish that is of having blue eyes. She prays every night
before going to sleep for that wish to happen, because she thinks
that would make her loved and accepted by her society. Yet, the
thought of how black and dark-skinned she is breaks her heart in
two, and that pushes her to hate herself, lose her identity, lose her
dignity that she can only gain back if she had blue eyes.
In the sequent chapter, the author depicts the hardships
Pecolas father and mother have been through during their lifetime.
Cholly was born and raised without his parent. He has never known
what a family looks like though his Aunt Jimmy takes care and looks
after him, and he has never experienced what love is though he is
married. He is humiliated by two white fellows, who caught him
making love and force him to carry on what he is doing while they
watch. He does not abhor the guys, but instead he hates the black
girl who is laying on the ground on him. After Chollys Aunt Jimmy
funeral, he decides to look after his father who he has never seen or
talked with before. When he reaches the station in which his
potential father is, the man standing there shouts at him and insults
9

him before Cholly explains how much he needs a father. Right after
that, he meets Pecolas mother Pauline. Pauline is dumbfoundedly
fond of movies, especially white movies. She considers herself ugly,
because she is black. She works in a white family house that she
feels it is very comforting, in contrast with her own ,in which she
feels chained in. With all that is happening, Pecola still asking for
blue eyes.
After her dream does not come true, she goes to a priest
called Soaphead Church to help her getting her wish fulfilled. He is
mesmerized and shocked by the little black girls wish as nobodyhas
asked him such impossible wish before. He wants to help her, but he
does not know how. Ultimately, he promises if she gives the dog the
liquide he gives her and the dog reacts to it, she will recieve blue
eyes the next days. Pecola has been had and decieved by Soaphead
Church because he uses her to get rid of the dog he hates.
On her own washing the dishes, Pecola is not aware that her
father has got in watching her beautiful legs that his sexual desire
can not be stopped at their sight. He holds her waist and put her on
the floor enjoying the innocent body tenderly. He rapes her. When
her mother gets back from work, she finds Pecola lying on the floor.
Pecola tries to tell her mother the truth, but she does not believe her.
Pecola neither knows what has happened, nor how it can affect her
life, nor does she want to know, because her aim is to get blue eyes.
Shortly, Pecola is pregnant. Unlike others, Frieda and Claudia
Macteers stand by Pecola and help her to keep the fetus alive.Thus,
they save up money so that they can afford all the things a baby
needs, yet the baby dies right after he is born. When Pecolas father
dies, Pecolas jubilation is tremendous as she considers her fathers
10

death as a fulfillment of her wish and that she actually has got blue
eyes.

Chapter one :Beauty in The Bluest Eye

This chapter is wholly dedicated to briefly discuss some

issues related to Beauty in The Bluest Eye, and how white
standards of Beauty can determine who is beautiful and who is
not. It comprises basically two interlinked sections, and each
section adresses itself to a particular topic. The first section
deals with whiteness as the standard of beauty that affects The
Bluest Eyes main character Pecola and her family in a way that
they no longer like their blackness. The ensuing section will
depict the superiority of light skinned blacks to their
conterparts the dark-skinned ones via providing some clues
from the novel that show clearly how dark-skinned people are
marginalized within their community.

11

Introduction
Kids are always told by their parents not to lie to themselves
because a self-addressed lie can eventually be accepted as a
truth, and when it becomes a truth, they end up believing in
it. This is the case of many of Toni Morrisons characters in
The Bluest Eye. They believe that to be beautiful, they have
to meet some beauty standards established by the whites. In
the Breedlove family, for instance, Pecola and Pauline are so
obsessed with whiteness that they start believing that they
are ugly. Even if this ugliness does not belong to them, it
almost surrounds their lives in every aspect. They are seen
by

society

as

being

socially

marginal,

psychologically

wrecked, and physically monstrous because they themselves

pave the way for society to treat them so. As Morrison says:
You look at them and you wonder why they are so ugly; you look
closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came
from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious
all knowing master had given each one of them a cloak of ugliness
to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.

What is at issue is the fact that they want to be as beautiful as

the white girls by means of wearing blond hair and having blue
eyes, which is inaccessible and unattainable for blacks.

12

The purpose of this section is to explore how some black

women see themselves in countrast with white women, how
white beauty has become the standard of beauty, and how
being black can prevent one from appreciating ones sefl.

Whiteness as the Standard of

Beauty
From the very beginning of the novel, this self-destruction of
the black girls and women is represented in the soliloquy of
Dick and Jane. This kind of soliloquies,

which American

childeren took as a part of their school curriculum, and which

mirrors the perfect home and family all Americans want to
have, a fact that shows how little children are brainwashed 1 .
Here is the house.It is green and white.It has a red door.It is very
pretty.Here is the family,Mother,Father,Dick,and Jane live in the
green and-white house.They are very happy.See Janeshe wants to
play.Who

will

play

with

Jane ?

See

Mother.Mother

is

very

nice.Mother,will you play with Jane ? Mother laughs. See father.He is

big and strong.Father,will you play with Jane ? Father is smiling.Here
comes a friend ..The friend will play with Jane.

In light of this, we find Pecolas mother, Pauline, unhappy with

the life she has been leading because it has been destroyed in
her quest to reach white beauty standards. She already
considers herself ugly, since, as a child, her foot was trapped on
a nail that left her foot deformed. She always blames her
ugliness on her deformed foot: her general feeling of
13

separateness and unworthiness she blamed on her foot. Yet,

this is beside the question because her ugliness, according to
the white society, lies in her skin color, which is easily observed,
and which she herself believes a source of ugliness. This
internalization of the look of the majority culture, David L.
Middleton claims, symbolizes the deep-rooted ethnocentrism of
white superiority, and

how white values and standards are

woven into the very texture of the fabric of American life 2.

Pecolas mother only uses the foot to deny the fault the
others see, though the others belittle and ignore her just
because she does not fit into the western standards of beauty.
Furthermore, when she gets married, Pauline thinks that
her life will lighten up, but her marriage, which is full of fights
and loneliness, is another factor that makes her believe that she
is ugly. Before she gets married, she dreams of a man who will
transform her life and lead her to happiness, yet, her

man,

Cholly, is never able to make sense of or find coherence in his

own life, and he leaves her alone in her hardest times--while
she is pregnant. Therefore, to alleviate her loneliness and
ugliness, Pauline turns to the movies as her last resort, and
decides to imitate the actresses she watches. There, in the
movies, she learns, as the novel states, to differentiate between
ugliness and beauty that lies in white actresses she hopes to be
like, and these kind of ideas are probably the most destructive
ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy,
thrived in insecurity and, ended up in delusion It was really a
simple pleasure, but she learned all there was to love and all
there was to hate. The thing to love is the white
14

peoples

beauty and lifestyle, and the thing to hate is her own skin-color
and people.
For Pauline, to be as close as possible to her beauty idols,
she starts working for a white family, the Fishers. She thinks
that this family has got beauty, order, cleanliness, and praise
that she no longer looks after her own family and house. for
Pauline, this white familys house does not only security and
warmth she lacks in her life ,but also the white beauty she will
never gain. Pauline feels there as if she is part of that beauty as
her skin gloved like taffeta in the reflection of white porcelain,
white wood work, polished cabinets and copperware.
This, however, leads her to self-denial and hate for her own
daughter, that is to say, her race. She finds the Fishers little
daughter beautiful, while her own ugly. This ,however, can be
seen when Pauline gets mad at her daughter because she drops
the blueberry on the Fishers kitchen floor.
Nervously knocks a blueberry onto the kitchen floor,
her mother strikes her and curses her.

Instead of conforting her daughter ,Pauline comforts the Fisher

daughter and shouts to Pecola to pick up that wash get on out
of here. Thus, by accepting white beauty, Pauline destroys not
only herself, but also her daughter Pecola, who thinks that the
love she needs has gone to the white little girl instead of
settling in her because, as her mother says, she is black and
ugly.
Similarly, Pecola is convinced that she is ugly. She sees that
ugliness in her blackness and those brown-eyes and features
15

that accompany it, and she thinks that she has to do

something in the way she looks, or else she will remain ignored
and underestimated by her surroundings. She thinks that she
has to have something that will make her look like the white
girls: it had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if those
eyes of hers were different,

that is to say, blue-eyes, she

herself will be beautiful, accepted and loved. So, blue eyes

function as synonymous to whiteness, and symbolize western
standards of beauty which include blond-hair, fair-skin and blue
eyes3.
To aid in this transformation, Pecola picks up her models
that she is going to follow to be beautiful. She likes two little
white girls, one is Shirley Temple, and the other is Mary Jane,
both of whom are advertising models. Pecola drinks white milk
from a Shirley Temple cup not because she is thirsty, or likes
milk, but

because she wants to be loved and beautiful like

Shirley Temple. Like Shirley Temple, Mary Jane, who has

exquisite white skin, long blond hair, and blue eyes, is Pecolas
ideal of beauty. Pecola is fascinated by Mary Janes blue eyes,
which may help her be accepted and beautiful by everybody in
her society. Here narrator writes to eat the candy (of Mary
Jane) is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane, love Mary Jane
.Be Mary Jane.
Therefore, In a society that values whiteness and white
features, Pauline and Pecola can not define themselves as
beautiful, and both believe in the fact that they are ugly. Being
a toothless, foot deformed, and dark-skinned woman, Pauline
cannot

see

anything

but

the
16

ugliness

of

her

physical

appearance which contradicts what she watches on the movies.

This feeling is transfered to her daughter Pecola, who is ignored,
belittled, and hated by her society. Like her mother, Pecola
experiences all forms of ugliness to the extent that her longing
for blue eyes drives her to insanity.This is because those two
black female characters see themselves through the eyes of
others. In light of this, Sartre observed that human relations
revolve around the experience of the Look, for being seen by
another both confirms one reality and threatens ones sense of
freedom4. So, the look of white society to those two characters
makes them believe that thy are ugly. Yet, this look, as it is
depicted in the novel, comes not only from the white people,
but from black people as well.

17

Introduction

Although Colorism, which is the discrimination based on

the skin colour, is deeply rooted within the African-American
community, this kind of discrimination is still somehow a hidden
secret. Light- skinned girls and women are perceived as
smarter, happier, and more beautiful than dark-skinned ones.
This is because light skinned women, Ronald E. Hall would
argue, have always represented the black elite, who from
slavery up to now enjoy, somehow, the same rights and
opportunites that the white women have. This, however, has led
light skinned women to think, Dee Brown argues, that just
because they are light-skinned, they are better than dark
skinned, and has pushed dark-skinned women to resent

the

light-skinned ones just because they are not real blacks. In light
of this, The Bluest Eye focuses not only on the pain experienced
by black women and girls concerning white beauty, but also the
tension between dark-skinned and light-skinned black women,
who are depicted as being more powerful, and beautiful than
their counterpart, the dark ones .

18

Racial Beauty within African-American

Community
Some dark-skinned characters in the novel, like the Mc
Teers daughters, hate the little, light-skinned girl Maureen.
Freida and Claudia are confused and do not understand why
light-skinned girls like Maurreen are more likely to be called
beautiful and lovable: We were bemused, irritated and
fascinated by her. Notwithstanding their attempt to find flaws
to restore their equilibrium, they can not find what it is that
makes her beautiful. So, Claudia and Freida

had to be

contented at first with uglying up her name, changing Maureen

Pee to Meringue Pie, an insult which they cannot share with
their peers in school like most children do, because none of
the other girls would cooperate with their hostility. They
adored her. This hatred, however, is due to Maureens skin
color, which makes her look like white girls. After all, Claudia
later on asserts that she knows that Maurreen Peal does not
deserve such hatred, because the thing to hate is not her but
her skin color that resembles the whites.
Blacks value light-skinned girls, and they devalue darkskinned ones. The little, dark-skinned Pecola is hated and
teased by her community. While playing on the school
playground, Pecola is harassed and insulted by a clique of black
boys: Black emo. Black emo .Ya daddsleepnaked. Black emo
black emo ya dadd sleeps naked .Black emo. This, in fact,
19

shows that not all of the racist acts and attitudes are
necessarily white. Such racism can generate, also, from blacks,
because those little black kids do not realize that they
themselves were black, or that their own father had similarly
relaxed habits like Pecolas; and partly because it was their
contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its
teeth.

Thus,

Morrison

zooms

out

the

black

cultivated

ignorance and self-hatred that pushes them to hate one

another just because they do not meet white beauty standards.
Furthermore, in the presence of the light-skinned girl
Maureen the little black boys show more respect to Pecola and
the MacTeer daughters and allow them to leave. When :
Maureen appeared at my elbow, and the boys
seemed reluctant to continue.

They buckled in confusion,

not willing to beat up three girls under her watchful gaze. So

they listened to a male instinct that told them to pretend we
were unworthy of their attention.

This, however, indicates the atrocity of Pecolas community,

which considers dark-skinned girls ugly, and light-skinned ones
beautiful. Thus, it would be fair to say that racism toward darkskinned girls in the novel, like Pecola, asserts how black women
eaquate their dark skin with rejection and suffering ,and the
light skin with affection and acceptance5.
The Bluest Eye describes light-skinned women and girls as
superior to, and more beautiful than, dark ones. Gerldine, who
goes to land-grant colleges, normal schools, and learns how to
do the white mans work with refinement, does not like darkskinned people, and she thinks that she, as a light-skinned
20

woman, has a better life than that of dark people. When she
finds Pecola in her house, she orders her son, who invites Pecola
into the house, not to play with niggers. She had explained
to him the differences between colored people and niggers.
They were easily identifiable. Colored people were neat and
quiet; niggers were dirty and loud.
Indeed, Gerldine is not the only character that sees these
differences. Maureen, whose beauty saves Pecola and the
McTeers daughters from the black little boys insults, and tells
them that she is Cu-ute and they are ugly:
She screamed at us :I am cute! and your ugly ! Black and ugly
black emos. I am cute!

It is quite clear from Maureens words that she associates

beauty with how dark or light you are, and clearly Maureen sees
herself superior because she looks like her the white girls. That
is to say, with her physical appearance,namely the skin color,
which she finds reminiscent of the whites. So, the novel proves,
again, beauty is not beauty if it does not match with Western
beauty standards .
Therefore, racism does not always come from those whose
races differ, but it can also occur within the same race. Lightskinned girls, as we have seen, are more preferred than those
with dark skin. Dark-skinned girls, on the other hand, see the
light-skinned ones as fake blacks. This, consequently, leads to
conflict and animosity, instead of the unity of the members of
the black community. Being hated for her skin color, Pecola
abhors herself, and becomes obsessed with white beauty to the
21

extent that she wishes

she had blue eyes which, instead of

making her beautiful, they are likely to push her to lose her own
identity.

Endnotes
1.Tessa Roynon, The Cambridge Introduction to Toni Morrison
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2013) 17-18.
2 . David L. Middleton, Toni Morrion Fiction: Contemporary
Crtiticism (NY: Garland Publishing, 2000) 48.

22

3. Eckard, P.G, Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison,

Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith (Missouri:University of
Missouri Press, 2002) 38 .
4.Steven Churchill and Jack Reynolds, eds. Jean-Paul Sartre: Key
Concepts (NY: Routledge, 2014) 112-113-114.
5. Ursula M. Brown , The Interracial Experience: Growing Up
Black/white Racially Mixed in the United States (CT: Praeger
Publishers, 2001) 30.

Chapter two : Identity in The Bluest Eye

23

The main concern of this chatpter is to scrutinize the

differences between the two black families ,the Breedloves and
the Mac-teers , in either losing or gaining their identity. For this
reason, I find it quite essential to shed the light on some very
significant issues related to how Morrison depicts the black
identity, which is both destorted by and empowered by the
same society.

Introduction

The Bluest Eye explores issues of Black identity, beauty,

self-love, self-hatred in a world where race-related violence,
24

gender differences, and class contrasts make it extremely

difficult for a large number of people to find dignity in their
lives. Identity and beauty, however, are very dangerous objects
in the story. Most of the characters search for their identity by
considering being white or having the whites lifestyle, partly
because they fail in appreciating their own race and self in
terms of beauty, and partly because they are afraid of being
discriminated against by their society, and partly because they
believe

that

whiteness

means

beauty

Despite

this

vulnerability, or, as Morrison depicts it, the wound-ability of

these characters, there are some others who are acutely aware
of their misfortune and are willing to change their present
situation by accepting who they are, as being black and poor.
The Breedlove family suffers from the presence of the white
society, and finds it very difficult to form a sense of identity. The
main purpose of this section is to reveal how Pecolas parents
transmit their sense of inferiority to their daughter, how society
confirms it by its rejection of dark-skinned people like her, and
how white beauty standards may affect the black identity.

Self-loathing :The Breedlove Family

25

Chollys childhood reflects his failure in defining himself both

as a free man and as a father. He is abandoned by a junk heap
by his mother, rejected for a crop game by his father, and
forced to make love while two white haunters are watching.
These events, shape his attitudes to others because from then
on his self-hatred grows up. He does not hate the two white
men, but instead he abhors the black girl with whom he makes
love: Chollly moving faster looked at Darlene. He hated her. He
almost wished he could do ithard, long, and painfully, he hated
her so much. He hates the girl because she has witnessed his
failure and weakness that he cannot protect her. This, however,
indicates the compatibility of the blacks in the white society,
which turns Chollys anger, being caught making love by
strangers, into shame that makes him hate himself and those
who look like him. Cholly who accepts his black identity as
inferior is deeply traumatized at the disgraceful exposure of
himself as weak and compatible1.
Ashamed as he is, Cholly wants to get back his identity by
finding his father. When he hears that Darlene is pregnant, he
runs away to Macon to find his father and start a new, fresh life
again. Yet, the son does not seem to be welcomed by his
potential father. The father says, something wrong with your
head? Who told you to come after me? At this moment, Cholly
is confused and shocked because he has lost his last hope to
gain his identity, which he has never procured before.
Indeed, when he finds himself rejected and abandoned, Cholly
loses control and soils himself
26

like a baby,

and he feels

exposed to the humiliating gaze of the others- the gaze of his

father

and

society2.

Thus,

Chollys

past

constitutes

his

devastated identity, which leads him to end up as the utterly

degraded, and socially ostracized person, who transfers his
loss of identity to both his daughter and his wife, Pauline.
Like Cholly, Pauline has got no sense of identity. She, whose
sense of defectiveness is intensified by her crooked, archless
foot that causes her to limp, sees herself through the eyes of
others. She hates herself to the extent that she identifies with
white movie stars, such as Jean Harlow. This hatred of the self is
branched out from the

interracial shamingshe experiences

when she moves to the North and finds Northern Blacks better
than whites for meanness, and that they can make her feel
just as no count as whites do Black community, for her, does
not make her neither strong nor visible because the blacks also
find her ugly. She; therefore, takes refuge in whiteness, and
tries to ignore her real black identity.
The feeling of inferiority and loss of identity can be seen
during Pecolas birth. When Pauline is about to deliver Pecola,
she overhears the whites at the hospital refer to black women
like her as animals , and that they deliver right away and
with

no pain, just like horses.

This, in fact, explains how

Plauines surrounding society shapes her identity, marginal and

inhuman. So, the same look that devastates her husbands
identity pushes her, too, to equate her child with excrement ;
that is, with something dirty and disgusting, and calls her
ugly, as it is mentioned in the novel, head full of hair but
Lord she was ugly. Hence, Pauline projects her own sense of
27

ugliness and loss of identity on her daughter at a very early

age.
Although Pauline expresses her contempt for the white
family she works for as dirty and none of them knew, knew
how to wipe their behinds, she still considers white people her
ultimate idols. Working for a white family, she becomes what is
known as an Ideal servant, for such a role filled practically all
her needs. To put it differently, Pauline accepts her inferioritybeing a servant in a white house- in order to meet the goals of
her ideal self and win the white approbation she desires. She
finds there beauty, order, cleanliness she cannot find in her
own house and community, and which leads her to give up her
black identity. So, both Pauline and Chollys past, which is
clearly full of shame, self-hatred, and loss of identity, is going to
influence their daughter. Thus, Morrison may be here warning
us that todays shame may be tomorrows failure to find ones
identity.
John Locke says that the senses at first let in particular
ideas, and furnish the yet empty cabinet; and the mind by
degrees growing familiar, with some of them, they are logged in
the memory3. In the same sense, Pecola is the empty sheet on
which both her family and society write down who she is, and
what she is supposed to be. Living in a family that lacks love,
security, and appreciation of the self, Pecola learns how to
hate herself. For instance, her mother does not love her the way
she loves the white little girl; her father rapes her twice, and the
town mystic fools her into killing a dog to get blue eyes.So,
Pecola knows, based on what she witnesses her father, mother
28

and society doing that she is defined by what she is not -white
and blue-eyed girl like Shirley Temple and Mary Jane.
Society is the mirror through which Pecola sees herself
both hated and invisible. Malvin Lavon Walther claims that
Pecolas ugliness ,which is defined by the white features
,pushes her into being invisible and quasi-absent 4.Nobody
seems to notice her presence, nor wants to look at her. For
example, Mrs. Macteer calls her something, not someone: I got
something else in here thats going to drink me on in here. Well,
naw, she aint. Indeed, the black little boys harass her and
insult her black emo,and her temporary friend, Maureen,
makes fun of her name and relates it to a movie called Imitation
of Life where this millutto girl hates her mother cause she is
black and ugly, but then cries at her funeral. Indeed, the title
of that movie is a pun, which connotes the failure of Pecola in
imitating, or be like the others. Thus, she is, like her parents,
always deemed to be hated, invisible and lost.
Furthermore, this invisibility can also be seen when Pecola
goes to Mr.Yacobowskis store to buy Mary Janes candies.
Mr.Yacobowski does not pay attention to Pecola because how
can a white immigrant with his mind howned on doe-eyed Virgin
Mary see a little black girl? He does not even bother to look
at her as his eyes drawback, hesitate and hover releasing
that there is nothing to see. However, this look, for Pecola, is
very familiar for she has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white
people who see only her blackness. The blackness that
deteriorates her identity and drives her to insanity looking for
blue eyes. It is, as Morrison says, her blackness that accounts
29

for, that creates the vacuum edged with distaste in white

eyes. Therefore, as I mentioned above, Pecola is like an empty
sheet on which the hate of society to dark-skinned people like
her is recorded. The hate that tells her she is ugly and worthless
pushes her ultimately to look for her identity in something that
does not belong to her, blue eyes.
Pecola thinks that only blue eyes can help her get stability
and identity in her life, a wish which is unattainable for a black
girl like her. After Cholly rapes her, she goes to the church to
ask Soaphead church help her make sense of her life, to get
blue eyes. Yet, Soaphead church is fascinated by this request
that he describes as:
The most fantastic and most logical petition he had ever
received. Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty this
seemed to him the most poignant and most deserving of
fulfillment .A little black girl wanted to rise up out of the pit of
her blackness ,and see the world with blue eyes

Although he cannot make her dream happen, he deceives

her into killing a dog he hates, promising that if something
happens to the dog, she will receive blue eyes. Pecola, now,
believes that she really has got blue eyes, something that
destroys her self and identity altogether because at this stage
Pecolas self-destruction is complete. So, she stepped over into
madness to the extent that she talks to herself about having
blue eyes and that she is now visible, accepted, and loved.
Hated and belittled by her surroundings, and ultimately
raped by her father, Pecola has become obsessed with being
somebody who she is not-white, blue- eyed girl like Shirley
30

Temple or Mary Jane. Pecolas insanity is not only a result of her

invisibility, ugliness, or her fathers rape, but it is due to the
combination of all these things. In other words, it is a result of
both society and her parents, who filled her with ideas that
make her hate who she is and opt for something else. Thus,
Pecola may be a victim of society and her family, but she
victimizes herself more when she accepts to follow what has
already been established in her society and community because
there are some characters, such as Claudia, who are happy with
their blackness and their identity.

31

Introduction
The Macteer family is a foil to the Breddloves. Unlike the
Breedloves, who are vulnerable, weak and lost, the Macteers
are strong and happy with their blackness. Although they too
want to have blue eyes, and want to be loved and liked as the
other white and light-skinned girls, they are still acutely aware
that this is not what it should be, and they must accept
themselves the way they are. Claudia, the Macteers daughter,
is the character through which we see this self-love and selfacceptance.This section shows the fact that not all the black
characters in the novel hate their skin colour, and that by
accepting ones self one can strengthen up their identity.

Self-Acceptance :The Macteer Family

32

Caludia does not hate her body, but hates the way society
evaluates it. She says,

We felt comfortable in our skin,

enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our
dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this
unworthiness. 'This may suggest that Claudia rejects what
society imposes on black girls like her, concerning beauty and
identity, but she does not understand why society considers her
unworthy. As David L. Middelton argues that :
The young Claudia represents a rejection of
external standard which were impossible for her to meet.
Many saw these standards as objective facts : Claudia and
her sister did not. Even as a child Claudia seemed aware that
not everything that is external to the individual is objective. 5

Claudia does not want to be like white baby dolls, and she
is happy with her own physical appearances. When she receives
a white, blue-eyed baby doll for Christmas, she is unhappy,
instead of being pleased:
I had one desire: to disremember it. To see of what it was made, to
find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me,..Adults,
other girls and all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow
haired, pinked-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured.

As it is mentioned in the novel, althought he doll defines beauty

and what is constituted as the most beloved in society, Claudia
knows that the white doll does not reflect her face and body. So,
she wants to get rid of it because she could not love it, and
so she Breaks off the tiny fingers, bend the flat feet, loosen
the hair, twist the head around in order to convince herself
that this is not what she should look like, and be proud of
33

herself .Indeed,

Claudia

thinks

that

she

essentially

deconstructs whiteness by tearing apart her white doll, which

the adults think it is Claudias fondest wish. This, however,
allows Claudia to come to a greater understanding of herself
and her community, and to find her black identity in a white
society.
Claudia blames her community for giving up their identity. In
light of this, she repudiates the idea of having white baby doll
because she wants only the security and warmth of Big
Mamas kitchen, the smell of the lilacs, the sound of music and
all the things that can empower her personality and her black
identity. Her greatest wish is not for baby dolls or candy, but
for

feelings

of

family,

security,

warmth,

and

aesthetic

appreciation. She also blames the earth, the land of our

town, which is bad for certain kind of flowers. That is to say,
she blames the black community which would not nurture a
twelve-year-old girl, Pecola, who is rejected by her own
community:
this soil is bad for certain kind of flowers. Certain
seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the
land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had
no right to live. We are wrong, of course, but it doesnt matter. Its
too late. At least on the edge of my town, among the garbage and
the sunflowers of my town, its much, much, much too late.

Claudia is aware of the differences between her and the

others. At some point in the novel she learns to love Shirley
Temple: I learned much later to worship her, just as I learned to
delight in cleanliness. This learning, however, suggests that
both beauty and identity are not inborn in us, but rather, like
34

culture, they are learned. Besides, Claudias hatred toward the

light-skinned girl Maureen is due to the thing that makes her
beautiful, and that thing is the white society that apperciates
the white skin colored people and deppreciates the dark ones.
Society fills up peoples mind with the things one should love
and the things one should abhor, what to accept and what to
reject. Harlod Bloom argues that the thing that made Maureen
beautiful and accepted is her complete assimilation into the
prevailing expectation of white culture.6
Both The Breedloves and The Maccteers are socially poor,
but the Macteers are emotionally rich. It is not poverty that
makes the Breedloves hated and rejected, but it is the lack of
self-love that makes them so. Pecolas association of beauty to
race and social class leads her to feel and accept that she is
ugly ,and rejects all that constitutes her blackness including her
community and herself as she attempts to breed love instead
of accepting of her reality7.It is self-love that makes the
Macteers form sense of identity because they are not so
absorbed in material values such as blue eyes. Thus, the black
identity, which the Macteers have, teaches us that one is able
to fully comprehend how society influences our beliefs and
shapes our perception of the world around. If we accept
ourselves, race, color, we will be able to be loved, accepted,
form our own identity, and we will conquer all the stereotypes
and grow to our fullest potentials.

35

Endnotes

1. J. Brooks Bouson, Quiet As It's Kept: Shame, Trauma, and

Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison (NY: State University of New
York Press, 2000) 35.
2. Bouson J. Brooks, Quiet As It's Kept: Shame, Trauma, and
Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison (NY: State University of New
York Press, 2000) 36.

36

3. John W. Yolton, The Locke Reader: Selections from the Works

of John Locke with a General Introduction and Commentary
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1977) 126.
4. Malin Pereira, Embodying Beauty: Twentieth-Century
American Women Writers' Aesthetics (NY: Routledge, 2013)
124-125.
5. David L. Middleton, Toni Morrion Fiction: Contemporary
Crtiticism (NY: Garland Publishing, 2000) 16.

6. Harlod Bloom, The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison (NY :Infobase

Publishing, 2007) 92-93.
7. Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu ,ed. The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia
(CT: Greewood Press, 2003) 74.

Conclusion
It is no deny that the focal objective underlying th consent
study has been to figure out some of the issues Toni Morrison
rises in her novel the Bluest Eye, which are generally related to
the concepts of beauty and identity.Morrisons usage of beauty
37

here is purposful because it represents the tangible and the

recognizble. Beauty ,espacially white beauty, severs as a
hinderance to an acknowledge black identity. An identity which
is destroyed by the dominant culture ,and which seems to be
fading away by the acceptance of such culture. Morrison does
not blame the white society ,or how white people treated ,and
still treat the blacks, but she blames the blacks who
underestimate and submit themselves to the whites supermacy
and humilation.
At this juncture,the novel depicts the main characters,
Pecola and her mother, as being too obessed with whiteness.
They look for beauty in something that does not belong to
them, blue-eyes and a straight-blond hair. Both Pecola and
Pauline accept the fact that they are ugly, because their society
,and their black community see them as such. Indeed, AfricanAmerican community, as it is depicted in the novel, discriminate
between dark-skinned women and light-skinned ones, because
the latter lool like, somehow, the whites. Thus, Pecola and her
mother find it very hard to accept themselves and their
blackness, which is regarded as a sign of evil and ugliness.
In the course of rejecting their blackness, Pecolas family
loses its identity. Pecolas mother belittles herself and the life
she has; therefore, she decides to live in a white familys
house ,which symbolizes her final resort. Pecola whishes for
blue eyes that she ultimately believe she really have. Both
Pecola and her mother abhor their physical appearances,
something that pushes them to lose their own black identity.

38

On the other hand, the Mac-teers daughters are strong and

aware of the fact that they should abide themselves to their
blackness so as not to lose their identity. Claudia does not
easily submit to the white standard of beauty, she, instead,
loves and accepts her blackness though she tends to appreciate
some white figures in the novel. Claudias identity lies in her
self-love and self-acceptance that allow her to be a strong and
effective power in the novel. Morrison may want us to
understand that this character, Claudia, is the model that black
people should follow. This is because she is the mirror through
which a black identity can be possibly seen and acknowldged.
Finally, although it is clear that beauty-white beauty- can
affect black womens identity, I can not claim that I have
tackled all the aspects related to this issue in the Bluest Eye, or
provide a conclusive overview of this matter. In fact, I have
dealt with some important elements concerning beauty and
identity, but still there are others ,such as the choice of a little
black girls vanatge point in solving the black identity, that I
hope to be taken into consideration in a future study, espacially
that the idea of beauty and blackness still matter not only in the
U.S, but also in the world as a whole.

39

Bibliography
Ann Beaulieu, Elizabeth ,ed. The Toni Morrison Encyclopedia.CT:
Greewood Press, 2003.
Bloom,Harold. The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison. NY :Infobase
Publishing, 2007.
Churchill, Steven and Jack Reynolds, eds. Jean-Paul Sartre: Key
Concepts. NY: Routledge, 2014.
Eckard, P.G. Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie
Ann Mason, and Lee Smith.Missouri:University of Missouri
Press,2002. Google Book Search. Web. 18 May 2015.
J. Brooks,Bouson. Quiet As It's Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race
in the Novels of Toni Morrison. NY: State University of New York
Press, 2000.
L. Middleton, David. Toni Morrion Fiction: Contemporary
Crtiticism. NY: Garland Publishing, 2000.
Malin, Pereira. Embodying Beauty: Twentieth-Century American
Women Writers' Aesthetics. NY: Routledge, 2013.
M. Brown, Ursula. The Interracial Experience: Growing Up
Black/white Racially Mixed in the United States. CT: Praeger
Publishers, 2001.
Roynon,Tessa. The Cambridge Introduction to Toni Morrison.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2013.
W. Yolton,John. The Locke Reader: Selections from the Works of John Locke
with a General Introduction and Commentary .Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press,1977.

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