Bluest Eye -- and the Term Paper

Her mother, like her daughter, is said to be filled with a sense of self-hatred and rejection. "She [Pecola's mother] was confronted by prejudice on a daily basis, both classism and racism, and for the first time, the white standard of beauty. These experiences worked to transform Pauline into a product of hatred and ignorance, leading her to hold herself up to standards that she didn't fully understand nor could realistically attain. These standards and feelings of rejection are the qualities that Pecola inherits from Pauline. Her mother, from her birth, placed upon her the same shroud of shame, loneliness, and inadequacy." (Willis, 2006)

This is perhaps the most tragic aspect of Morrison's novel at all. Pecola soaks up self-hatred in mass culture, but she has no pure, black past to turn to, given how white culture has already influenced and penetrated the previous generation of African-Americans. Thus, The Bluest Eye is not simply a cry of despair about the suffering of a particular black family, but also a call to arms to regenerate and recreate more powerful images of black female sexuality and spirituality, before it is too late and the spiritual bankruptcy of white, American consumer capitalism reigns supreme.Morrison suggests that Pecola's inability to produce further children and subsequent delusion is not an extraordinary event, but merely a metaphorical representation of a very ordinary, tragically common phenomenon manifest within the psychology of many oppressed communities. When mass culture equates success with assimilation, and that assimilation requires virtually impossible body modification, then it is necessary to challenge the assumptions of mass culture and change them, rather than merely change one's self to suit mass culture.

Works Cited

Bennett, Juda. "Toni Morrison and the Burden of the Passing Narrative." The Bluest Eye.

Site created by Anniina Jokinenon May 21, 1997. Last updated on May 31, 2006. [7 Nov 2006] http://www.geocities.com/tarbaby2007/bluest6.html

Kuenz, Jane. "The Bluest Eye': notes on history, community, and black female subjectivity." The Bluest Eye. Site created by Anniina Jokinenon May 21, 1997. Last updated on May 31, 2006. [7 Nov 2006] http://www.geocities.com/tarbaby2007/bluest3.html

Moses, Cat. "The Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye." African

American Review. Winter 1999. [7 Nov 2006] http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_4_33/ai_59024884

Willis, Joy. "Genealogy of Rejection in Morrison's The Bluest Eye."

The Bluest Eye. Site created by Anniina Jokinenon May 21, 1997. Last updated on May 31, 2006. [7 Nov….....