The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The literary piece The Bluest Eye, write by Toni Morrison and published in circa 1970, has centered on the story of an el withal-year-old womanly character, Pecola Breedlove (Foerstel, 2002). The central theme that has been apparent in the story is the desire of Pecola to put on white skin, blonde hair, and sulky eyes. Not still when does she want a set of blue eyes provided she actually wants the bluest shade of blue that there is.Her desires for this kind of physical appearance stems from her idea that those who are given(p) these physical features are given or are receiving a veritable kind of privilege from the society because of the stigma associated with it. Chloe Anthony Wofford, more popularly know as Toni Morrison, is the second of four disastrous children who belonged to a family who worked their way to upkeep (Toni Morrison Biography, 1993). She was born in 1931 in Ohio and displaceed to earn her degree in reputable universities, more specifically Howard and C ornell University (Toni Morrison Biography, 1993).She has earn her positions in credible institution some(prenominal) in the academic ladder and in writing (Toni Morrison Biography, 1993). Later on, she make an impact with the novels she made that showed the plight of the obtuse Americans that contained narratives of different characters lives (Toni Morrison Biography, 1993). With the novels she made, she has earned several awards and recognition from different award-giving bodies in the field of literature that even included the Pulitzer Prize for the year 1988 (Toni Morrison Biography, 1993).Summary of the Novel In Morrisons novel, The Bluest Eye, Pecola has shown to be a girl who is born to parents who lived difficult lives in their past. Pecolas m another(prenominal), Pauline, has lived in isolation, often beaten up by his husband who she often provokes to do such, and only feels worth at work where she is made to clean the signaling of a duster woman. On the other hand, P ecolas father, Cholly, is a rum whose current state of misery is blamed to his parents abandoning him when he was still a child.He is made to live with his great aunt and an experience he could not forget is the incident where he felt humiliated when to sporty work force caught him cohabiting and sexually exploited him. Soon, he found where his father is precisely the last mentioned refused to take him in his life and later on met Pauline. They built a life together but soon, love is lost mingled with them and they set about both lost e realthing they had. Pecola came to their lives but she has also received failures from the personal angst of her parents.She has select the desires of being discolour from her mother as they both think that it is their only way to draw acceptance from the society they live in. It has served as an all-important(a) part of their lives to desire for the physical features of a White individual because it in some manner gives them hopes of bein g in a better condition than what they have now. However, it gives them frustrations, too, as society continuously rejects them and presses on their being disconsolate as the very reason why they are treated badly. As for the miseries of Cholly, he ends up raping Pecola out of both guilt and emotional feelings for his child.Pecola becomes pregnant but the mess up dies and her father decides to rape her for the second succession. After this, she becomes lunatic which is the time when she eyeshot that she had the bluest eye there is. Approach to the Novel The novel, during the time of its publication, has taken a different course from the usual ones taken by the cutting women writers, who, in their literary works, meant to destroy negative stereotypes of blacken women, to present the family between Black men and women as complimentary, and to affirm the Black family and community (Dubey, 1994, p.33). It has been exceptionally learned as a literary piece that has laid before it s listening the problems within the selves of the Black community that requires attention in graze for them to proceed into accepting that they are a race equally superior and equally beautiful as the White (Dubey, 1994). While they condemn the disparities between the White and the Blacks, within them are the desires to be among the White people.Their condemnations arise from the issues they have with regard to their acceptance in a society dominated by the White people and they see that assimilation to this extra culture is the means through which they could fight it but is actually not. As shown in the novel of Morrison, it is outperform to realize the psychological and social impacts of the desires to be White in couch to fully acquire an identity for the Black community (Dubey, 1994).Moreover, it should be silent that the work of Morrison requires an see to iting of the history of the Black community as they try to establish a place for their selves in the society where they live in. in that respect is a common factor which should be targeted, which is the presence of direct and corroboratory discrimination against the Black community. Through time, it has become apparent that there is unfeignedly a big difference with how White and Black individuals are treated. Moreover, the line of descent for the discrimination felt by the Blacks should be understood in order to understand the novel.This is because the source of the Black characters in the story stems from a real-life plight that is not explicitly stated in the text. There is a carry to unravel the true cause for the behavior of the characters in order to understand the way they feel and the way they are in terms of their relationship with society. Traditional beliefs, Practices, and Artistic Forms The Bluest Eye also contains elements of traditional beliefs, practices, and artistic forms in the later life of Pecola.When she became pregnant, Claudia and Frieda McTeer, children of the cou ples whom Pecola lived with, used their money in order to get marigold seeds. They believed that if this would bear flowers, then the baby of Pecola would live, which is what they wanted despite the opposite lieu of the people in their community. The money they used in order to demoralise the seeds is originally meant for the bicycle they wanted to buy for themselves but because of the importance and great belief they put on this practice, they prioritized the seeds instead of the bike.Their belief on this particular practice is further reinforced as the plant does not develop and the baby of Pecola dies, which they could correlate because of the incident. Moreover, it has shown that the artistic manner of communication by the Blacks has been adopt by Morrison. The beginning wants to present the aural literature as she by choice formed the sentences in such a way that a Black individual will be heard conversing to the audience and to other characters.To a certain extent, it p ushes the come out away from the typical written expression but delves more into the spoken style (Toni Morrison, 2009). While there are critics who mentioned that her prose is abounding, she claims that it is an infixed quality of the Black language (Toni Morrison, 2009). She treats the manner of speaking observed from the Black people to be a distinct and different set of language that forms a body of its own as modifications and creations have evolved to how they use this language now.Moreover, it is said that the novel and other literary pieces written in the akin manner has replaced the percentage of music played by the Blacks before (Toni Morrison, 2009). However, fill-in may not be the term intended for this but rather, they entirely shared the same portion and works towards the same goals, because of the same purpose, but uses different means. Preserving the Black Language With the manner by which the author unified the words and the sentences, the Black language h as become apparent throughout the text.The rich and poetic form that is embodied in the language of the Blacks is an element that the author wants to retain. This lies beneath the psychological and social themes of incest, racial discrimination, and desires to be White. It tries to preserve the approach of this language developed within this race through the experiences of the characters and the conversations included in the story. It has been mentioned earlier that the different forms of Black music has shared a role with the literary pieces in keeping the culture alive for the Black community.With the onset of popular culture and the desires for assimilation, it is important that the unique characteristics and the distinct nature of the Black culture be preserved together with their history and unique experiences. Adopting other Cultures and Traditions As the author means to direct the entire story towards the Black community, most of the cultures and traditions that have been pr esented come from that of the Blacks. However, it still relates the Black culture into the White because of the interaction between the two that served as the important aspect of the paper.The only element that is taken from the White culture is the seemingly distorted and limit view of beauty, which requires them to see it within a white-skinned, blonde, and blue-eyed individual. Better word and the regard for superiority of people fitting this description has been ingrained into the lives of the Black characters as it is adopted from the White culture. This is seen to be the condition of the people during the time of the narrators existence but is constantly changing as we now see it. References Dubey, M. (1994).Black women novelists and the nationalist aesthetic. Indianapolis, IN Indiana University Press. Foerstel, H. (2002). Banned in the USA A reference guide to book censorship in schools and public libraries. (2nd Ed. ). Westport, CT Greenwood Publishing. Toni Morrison Biogr aphy. (1993). Retrieved April 1, 2009, from http//nobelprize. org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-bio. html. Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye. Retrieved April 1, 2009, from http//academic. brooklyn. cuny. edu/english/melani/cs6/morrison. htmlblack.