Thesis

Contents.
Chapter 1 European existentialism and Afro-American existentialism in literature.
Existentialism as a philosophical frame and its role in 20th century literature (IN
EUROPE)
 Kierkegaard
 Nietzche
 Sartre specially the concept of the second look

 Black-existentialism and its representatives
 Dy Bua
 Franz Fenon
 Black pessimism

Afro-American writer and Black existentialism
o Ralph Ellison ( a short biography and his writing career)
 Element of black exitentialism and black pesimism in the invisible man,
 -the match point between european existentialism, black exitentialism and black
pessimism
 Toni Morrison ( a short biography and her writing career, )
pessimism
The first chapter describes the key elements existentialism first as a philosophical movement key
elements (not in details) specially the element of this philosophical stream that match to the idea
of the second look. Than it goes on by describing this stream and its influence in afro american
critical thinking and literature, more preciselly in two writers T.Morrison and R. Ellison.
Second chapter The relationship between self-perception and the other's point of view in
the two novels
 This chapter will brefly describe the story by analysing the main character of Ellison in
the invisible man the unnamed man, why he is unnamed, to move on the the idea of the
invisibility in the novel and its meaning in the literature.
 The second part of this chapter will deal with the bluest eye and self perception of Pecola
Breedlove that struggle within her.
 After that this chapter offers a critical comparison between the two novels, based on the
afro american critical theory and black pessimism.
Third chapter The shape of Racial, ethinc and gender identity of the unnaimed man and
Pecola Breedlove under the white egocentism.
 This chapter discusses the formation of identity, of the two characters according to the
gender studies theory.
 The perception of beauty and the standarts shaping it in the novel the bluest eye,
 the formation of identity of the unnaimed man, way he is unnamed,.
Conclusion
A short vocabulary of the concepts used
Biblography
Chapter 1 European existentialism and Afro-American existentialism in literature.
Existentialism as a philosophical frame and its role in 20th century literature (IN
EUROPE)
 Kierkegaard
 Nietzche
 Sartre specially the concept of the second look
 Black-existentialism and its representatives
 Dy Bua
 Franz Fenon
 Black pessimism
 Afro-American writer and Black existentialism
o Ralph Ellison ( a short biography and his writing career)
pessimism
 Toni Morrison ( a short biography and her writing career, )
pessimism
The first chapter describes the existentialism first as a philosophical movement (not in details)
specially the element of this philosophical stream that match to the idea of the second look. Than
it goes on by describing this stream and its influence in afro american critical thinking and
literature, more preciselly in two writers T.Morrison and R. Ellison.
Existentialism emerged after World War II, it appears as a philosophical trill in Paris, as in its
early days, existentialism was born as a literary movement, by philosophers who applied
existentialistic ideas to their writings, but without giving an accurate definition to this current. It
was Sartie who first used the term to explain his ideas. Although a good school was not formed
in this philosophical direction very quickly it influenced any form of thought such as literature,
theatre, art and theology.
As with any current or philosophical thought, several factors must be fulfilled or conquered, even
for the formation of existentialism as a good form of philosophical thought influenced a number
of factors.
A very important factor is the socio-historical context from which this current emerged, society
occurring in the face of a struggle for existence as a result of successive wars as
Existentialism as a philosophical current his beginnings had at the end of World War I and then
flourished at the beginning of World War II, wars that reversed the way of thinking.
As against the reaction to the chaos they brought, as living in an era where your very existence
does not matter and does not take into account the considerations and the man who took place in
the face of a World which and himself (man) replaced it with technology so much that people are
forced to adapt cars, causing them to lose the "man" within themselves, transforming from
"subjects" to "objects" from "uni-man" to "that-send".
Another reason that led to the crisis itself was the fact that in addition to the dehumanism that
technology brought, (since many different work profiles were made by the work force, for a
certain time, by technological machinery the same work process could be done for less time, i.e.
at less cost, replacing many labour forces with a machine, which brought unemployment),
It was also the very science that was shaking the foundations of religious faith, which until then
has been a source of value and served as a regulator for the way of life, as people believing in a
superior force attributed it to many phenomena that occurred in the world, but more importantly
was the fact that religion itself gave a moral direction to man, And atheism shook the
foundations of faith, was a very powerful influencer in the birth of Existentialism.
Existential themes have emerged from the early beginnings of philosophy, after the generation of
Socrates, Socrates who is said to have brought philosophy to earth, saw philosophy as a way of
life, so connected it to life, Socrates focused on how activity and thought should focus towards
increasing the meaning of human existence.
It should be stressed that an existentialist can be either a religious moralist, agnostic, or an

atheist. Kierkegaard was a religious philosopher, Nietzsche, an anti-Christian, Sartri, an atheist,
and Kamy an atheist, and all these writers and philosophers were praised for their works and
writings about existentialism.
But regardless of religion, both groups felt that the old current of philosophical thought no longer
responded to the individual's own demands, meaning that philosophy until then was more
academic than an approach to human life, while existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes
individual existence, freedom And choice protects the idea that people define their meaning in
life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.
Great existentialists, such as Kierkegard, Heideger, Jaspers, Sartre and others, with their ideas,
reflected the great drama of the people of the 20th century, caused by the catastrophic economic,
social and political conflicts of this heavy period.
Existentialism focuses on issues such as, human existence, and sensations that have no purpose
or explanation at the center of existence. According to this philosophy, there is no God or any
other transhensent force. The only way to counter this non-being (and thus find meaning in life)
is by embracing existence. Existential philosophers consider the nature of the human condition a
key philosophical problem.
Existentialism is presented as "human philosophy", as a humanitarian philosophy. The starting

point of existentialism is the particular, isolated individual whose interests he and his existence
have focused on. According to ecstasy, the problems philosophy must deal with are the existence
of the individual, his end, death, eternal fear before death.
Existence, existentialists say, cannot be achieved with rational recognition; The only way to get
into its core is to live and describe it as it is given to you in your emotions. According to them, of
all emotions, he who discovers the existence is the emotion of fear, which is not shared with man
from birth to death. Therefore, according to existentialism, life is nothing but nothing, which
appears to us through the emotion of fear.
Existentialism began with 19th-century philosophers Søren Kierkegard and Frederik Niche,
although neither used the term in his work. In the 1940s and 1950s, French existentialists such as
Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Kamy (1913–1960), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) wrote works
that made existential themes more well known, such as horror, boredom, alienation, absurdity,
freedom, commitment and non-existence.
Kikregard
The beginnings of this current are found by S. Kirkegard (1813–1855), a Danish religious
philosopher. Born in Copenhagen, he spent his short life with an excellent literary career,
extracting an extraordinary number of books to his death. For Kirkegard the term existence was
related to man as an individual. To exist, he said, means to be a certain kind of individual, an
individual who tries, who values alternatives, who chooses, who decides and, above all, who
engages.
Kirkegard's career can rightly be regarded as a conscious revolt against abstract thought and as
an attempt on his part to live according to Fojerbah's critic: "Don't want to be a philosopher quite
different from being human...; Don't think like a thinker, think of it as real living beings...; Think
about Existence."[CITATION Bur \l 1033 ]
For Kirkegard to think in existence, it means accepting that man is facing his own choice. People
are constantly in an existential situation. He distinguished between the spectator and the actor
and argued that only the actor was involved in existence. Of course, even the spectator can be
said to exist, but the term existence does not belong to exactly inert or inactive things, whether
these spectators or stones.
Kirkegard insists that existence should show a quality of the individual; that is, his conscious
participation in an action. Only the conscious leader exists, therefore, in the same way a man,
who engages in conscious activities of will and choice, can be said to really exist.
Kirkegard's existentialism can be summed up in his saying: "Every human being must be thought
of in the essential possession of what essentially belongs to being human." Reaching authentic
existence is not a matter of intellect; It is a ma
tter of trust and dedication, a continuous process by the existing individual in the presence of
numerous situations.
According to him, it is related to being a certain type of individual, who chooses alternatives,
decides and above all engages. "Thinking about existence" means that man is before himself.
Two of his most influential ideas are "subjectivity", and the notion which is widely known as the
"step of faith". Kierkegaard thought trusting is at the same time to be in doubt. Thus, for
example, concerning faith in God, man must also be doubtful in his beliefs about God Doubt is
the rational part of a person who includes opinion in the form of evidence, without which faith
will have no real substance. Someone who does not understand that Christian doctrine is
suspicious and that there can be no objective certainty about its truth has no faith, but is simply a
man who believes easily. Kierkegaard also emphasizes self-importance, and self-relationship
with the world, based on self-reflection and analysis of itself which brings it closer to essential
existential ideas.
Frederik Niçe
Friedrik Niche was one of the greatest influencers of modern existentialism and postmodernist
thinkers. He is considered the father of nihilism, who suggests that there is no definitive meaning
for the existence of man. His written criticisms of the existence of man, religion, morality,
modern culture and science challenged and questioned the values and objectivity of truth and
how life should be interpreted He is seen as the forerunner of modern philosophy, as although
Niche did not use the term existentialism for his philosophy, it included ideas such as; As God is
dead, life is meaningless etc. Niece was convinced that Christian virtues made people weaker.
He didn't believe in values or truth. One of the other points, where his philosophy puqes with that
of other existentialists like Sartri, is that Niche believes in the power and personal will that are
essential to superimpose themselves and become superhuman.
Nietzsche is considered philosophical lyrical as Freud in psychology, and Nietzsche denied two
important doctrines (which ruled human thought for more than two centuries) affecting his time:
(l) Darwinism and
(2) nationalism and racism.
In this work we are interested in the second as it had much influence on these works which we
will analyze. For Nichen the man who finds his true self is a superman. Superman is the one
who has the will and power to channel his will and power through reason to achieve perfection
himself. In his book "So Zarathustra Spoke" Niece speaks widely of Superman and what he
represents. "He's going to teach you superman, man's someone who has to be superimposed,
what have you done to supersede him?"
According to Nice, superman is someone who surpasses himself by being strong, with control
himself, a tolerant man, not of his dobesity but of power, a man who superimposes racial
changes. Nice talks about the mix of different races and cultures that will form philosophers,
artists and individuals.
Idea that contradicts the racial perspective of the Nazis in that period.
Such a man is free says Nietzsche, which positions him except other animals, which have power,
but cannot exercise it on themselves.
Although Niece was an atheist from temperament, the death of Yahweh he saw him uneasily. He
was shocked by the consequences that would flow once every young man became fully aware of
the consequences of the death of Yahweh.
At the same time, for Nichen the death of God meant the birth of a new day, a day when the
ethics of Christianity, essentially life-affirming, would be replaced by a philosophy that would
affirm life. His two-way reactions to the nihilistic consequences of God's death turned Niche's
attention to the central issue of human values.
Nietzsche denied the notion of a universal and absolute system of morality, to which everyone
should obey the same. People are different, he thought, so to conceive of morality as universal
means not taking into account fundamental differences between individuals. It is not realistic to
think that there is only one kind of human nature, the behavior of which can be decided by a
number of rules. However, all human beings characterize one thing, Says Nietzsche, and this is
the eagerness to rule the environment. This push, at the epicenter of human nature, is the Will to
Power.
According to Niece, moral values must be built on the basis of the true nature of man and his
environment. Unlike Darwin, which placed great emphasis on the external environment, when
describing the evolution of species, Niche focused on the inner power of man, which is capable
of forming and creating events, "a power that uses and exploits the environment".
Zhan Pol Sartri
Jean-Paul Sartri (1905-1980), was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter,

political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was among the most important figures of
French Philosophy of the 20th century.
The name of Sarthritis is identified with existentialism, its vpras are:
Imagination (1936), Priority of Ego (1937), Abomination (1938), Wall (1939), Imagined (1940),
Dog and Hici (1943), Ways of Freedom (1945), Exist Humanism is humanism (1945), Dirty
Hands (1948), Devil and Good God (1951), Criticism of Dialectical Reason (1960), Words
(1964) and Notes for a Moral (published after death in '84) etc.
Human existence according to Sarti precedes the essence (its essence). Man is never something,
but a being who struggles to become like that. He (therefore man) is what he creates, he himself
unconditional to nothing and in complete freedom. Man enjoys the right to choose every time he
desires and is condemned to absolute freedom.
. But the practice proves the choice is not arbitrary but conditional. Freedom and absurdity
according to existentialism create individual metaphysical anxieties, uncertainty, loneliness and
endless weaving in individualistic mazes. Sartre's version of existentialism focused almost
entirely on the existence of the individual. Therefore, Sartri's classical formulation of the basic
principles of existentialism; That is, that existence predates the essence, is an overthrow not only
of Hajdeger's intentions, but also of traditional metaphysics, which since Plato's time has called
essence predates existence. To say that existence precedes substance means, according to
Sarthritis, that man, in the first place, exists, faces himself, comes out into the world and then
defines himself.
The important consequence of establishing existence before essence in human nature is not only
that man creates himself, but that man is responsible, as his existence depends upon himself.
Sartre's primary idea is that people, as people, are condemned to be free. This theory relies on
his position that has no creator, and is illustrated using the example of the paper prestar. Sartri
says that if someone is considered a paper prestart, we'll assume the creator would have had a
plan for it: one essence. Sartre says that human beings do not have the essence before their
existence because there is no creator.
Thus; existence predates the essence. The central theme of Sartre's philosophy is human beings:
What it means to be and what it means to be a human being. Sartri argued that there are
essentially two types of dog. According to Sarthritis we have two kinds of being, for ourselves
('pour-soi') and within ourselves ('en-soi').
Sartri gives the idea that what is within ourselves exists independently of what is for ourselves.
Unlike what is within ourselves, what is outside it "for ourselves" is characterized by the lack of
identity in itself.
Another very important attribute of philosophy that Sarthritis is his theory, which says that being
the first predates the essence, so he defends the idea that man is born free from a predetermined
fate, free from a predetermined purpose and at its core as a beginning there is nothing,
Essentially, it is filled with experiences, experiences, perceptions and various socio-cultural
factors that man faces in life.
Sartri accepts Nietzsche's claim that God is dead and takes seriously Dostoyevsky's notion that if
God did not exist everything would be allowed. His existence precedes his essence. Besides this
existence there is nothing; There's only the present. In his work Abomination, Sartre writes that
the true nature of the present is revealed as it exists, that what is not current does not exist.
Another important aspect of Jean Paul Sartre's existentialism is, the link between perception and
identity, which according to him varies very little, he uses the term "the look" which relates to
the way others see you, is essential to the development of identity. So the other's perspective
towards you is part of identity creation, but it somehow threatens an individual's sense of
freedom. As this view turns the individual into an object in the eyes of the other and causes him
(the individual) to lose himself. Occurring in this situation, the individual tries to regain control
of himself by reducing the other's perspective, as long as it turns it into the object and the status
of the "other"
Who can no longer influence you with his singing.
According to Sarthritis, true identity recognition is achieved when two key conditions are
conquered:
When the individual gives up efforts to strip someone of his autonomy, and from the idea of
turning one person into one object or another
When the individual accepts his/her autonomy and perspective for his/her life, he also accepts his
status as an object or as another, in someone else's reality or perspective. This process explains
Sartri, it can happen between individuals, social groups and even between different societies. The
conclusion of Sartre's existentialism is that if man expresses his true huamnity in all his behavior,
he would never deceive himself and then honesty would become not his ideal, but his dog. In his
works he expresses the idea of anti-racism and appears against the discriminatory treatment of
Africans in France. He had a great influence on American, African, and Latin American
intellectuals. It had a major impact on freedom theories, including the freedom of Africans.
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Toni Morrison has written several novels, many of which show the influence of existentialist
thinking; however, The Bluest Eye strongly illustrates all of the major existential themes.
She thought that if she had blue eyes, the blue eyes of the accepted white ideal, she would be
beautiful and therefore loved. The acquisition of the blue eyes she so fiercely covets signifies
Pecola's step into madness. It was a safe place, where she could have her blue eyes, and where she
could be accepted.
It is within these novels that Morrison probes black life through the themes of existentialism.
Existentialism itself is a difficult concept to understand. As a movement, it asks: "What does it
mean to exist?" and it seeks to provide some answers. Existentialists believe that man is the only
creature born with the ability to think and reason; therefore, he has free will, which is considered
one reason for existence. "Existentialism seeks to explain the significance of the freedom of an
individual being within their time on earth" ("Existentialism"). Existentialists believe that man is
born into a void, or into the "mud." They believe that he has the freedom and the liberty to remain
in the mud, in a passive, supine existence. However, it is believed that in this state one is not self-
aware, and therefore life has no me
aning. Existentialists also believe, though, that man has the freedom to drag himself out of the
mud, and to choose to exist. Only through exercising this power of choice can he give meaning to
his life. This is the first major theme of existentialism (Eiermann).
This principle theme of existentialism is the idea that

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The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison’s first novel in which the author challenges Western
standards of beauty and demonstrates that the concept of beauty is socially constructed.
Morrison also argues that if whiteness is used as a standard of beauty or anything else, then
the value of blackness is decreased and this novel works to demolish that tendency. Although
the slave system was got rid of later, yet the black people could not stay away from the racial
discrimination. Morrison reveals the aggression of the white culture and that the black culture
is the victim of the white cultural hegemony. With the powerful influence of white mass
media, school education and the community culture, the black of every level in the American
society have long held the standard of value that white color and blue eyes are beautiful, the
color of black is ugly. In it, the Nobel Prize winner tells the story of a young girl convinced
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Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 19:9 September 2019
Md. Minhazul Islam
White Beauty Standard in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye 189
that her blackness makes her ugly and worthless. If only she had blue eyes, she thinks, her
life would be different. The reasons of Pecola and her fellows’ tragedy are mostly lying in
two aspects: the white cultural aggression and the assimilation of white aesthetic standards by
the by the black themselves. Such kind of cultural erosion and aesthetic alienation has
brought the black into a world of endless misery. Toni Morrison as a black writer is crying
for the awakening for the whole black nation. She wants her fellows to rectify their
misunderstanding. All people are created to be equal. The white have their strength and
merits, so do the black because all are making great contribution to the world. Social
construction like beauty standard is no more thought to be happened automatically rather than
they are guided carefully to create social meaning to social significance. Social scientist
Giddens theorizes the formation process of social construction. He thinks intentional and
authoritative continuous follow of signification, domination and legitimization can lead to a
formation of a new social order. Michel Foucault opines that continuous discursive practice
results in discursive formation of a social construction. Social construction is not structured
meaninglessly. American white people are manifestly benefited from ‘white beauty standard’
in the past and today from the profit made by the hundreds of years of free labour and now
from multi-billion dollar fashion industry. For all races and for all individuals, it is essential
to fully understand how mass culture touches, influences and shapes our values and beliefs -
only after fully understanding that, people can strive to fight and grow to their fullest
potential.
Keywords: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, White Beauty Standards, Racial Oppression,
Capitalism
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison challenges Western standards of beauty and demonstrates
that the concept of beauty is socially constructed. Morrison also argues that if whiteness is
used as a standard of beauty or anything else, then the value of blackness is decreased and
this novel works to demolish that tendency. In demonstrating pride in being black, this writer
does not simply portray positive images of blackness. Instead, she focuses on the damage that
the black women characters suffer through the construction of white beauty standard in a
racialised society. As Gurleen Grewal also argues that “merely reversing perceived ‘ugliness’
to beautiful blackness “is not enough, for such counter-rhetoric does not touch the heart of the
matter: the race-based class structure upheld by dominant norms and stereotypes” (21). In the
process of structuration, whiteness is first signified, then it dominates over black people and
finally gets legitimized over discursive practices.
Toni Morrison depicts the tragic effect of imposing white ideals of beauty in the
developing female identity of a young African-American girl during the early 1940s.
Morrison portrays the psychological devastation of Pecola Breedlove who searches for love
and acceptance in a world that denies and does not value people of her race (blacks). The
whites established European standard of beauty: white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. This
Eurocentric standard of beauty which the black girl lacked was used in judging and
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Md. Minhazul Islam

qualifying beauty, thus causing blacks to develop disdain for their own black skin as it
counters the dominant ideals.
Set in Toni Morrison’s hometown of Lorain, Ohio, Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest
Eye was published in 1970. The novel tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl
convinced of her own ugliness who desires nothing more than to have blue eyes. Through
Pecola Breedlove, Morrison vividly unfolds African Americans’ responses and reactions to
the overpowering standards of beauty in Western culture: rejection, alienation, self-hatred,
and inevitable destruction. The nine-year-old narrator in this novel, Claudia, points out in the
beginning of the novel that fear of poverty and homelessness is a more prevalent day-to-day
worry in her community than fear of discrimination, which she declaims “probably because it
(discrimination) was abstract. But the concreteness of homelessness and poverty was another
matter” (Morrison 11). However, the adult Claudia many years later comes to realize that “it
is the land of the entire country that was hostile to marigolds that year” (Morrison 164); it is
also the land, not mere poverty and homelessness that dominate the fate of Pecola. Racism
affects people’s lives in subtle yet profound ways by distorting common beauty and standards
of happiness in The Bluest Eye. Morrison tries to show how cultural ideals based on skin
color and physical features function as tools of racial oppression.
The novel starts with the description of an ideal white family but in the near-parodic
style of a school reading primer in order to signify whiteness, where Dick and Jane and their
lovely parents living in a nice and comfortable house with a lovely dog and a cat. The Dick
and Jane text functions as “the hegemonizing force of an ideology ([focused by] the
supremacy of ‘the bluest eye’) by which a dominant culture reproduces [its] hierarchical
power structure[s]” (Grewal 24). As Donald B. Gibson also argues,

[t]he Dick and Jane text implies one of the primary and most insidious ways
that the dominant culture exercises its hegemony, through the educational
system. It reveals the role of education in both oppressing the victim – and
more to the point – teaching the victim how to oppress her own black self by
internalising the values that dictate standards of beauty (20).
Morrison’s allusion to the story of Dick and Jane in a sort of preface to the book,
Morrison has written three versions of “Dick and Jane”, which was at that time nationally
recognized as a children’s primary-reader story.
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. 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 Hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisveryprettyhereisthe
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Md. Minhazul Islam
familymotherfaherdickandjaneliveinthegreenandwhitehousetheyareveryhappy.
(Morrison 2).
Morrison uses this to “juxtapose the fiction of the white educational process with the
realities of life for many black children” (Klotman 123). The first version is clear, straight,
rendered in standard English — correct and white. It represents the seemingly ideal, rich,
white family, which impinges upon the lives of the black children and their families while at
the same time excluding them. The second version, while it repeats the message exactly, is
less clear, yet still comprehensible although written without proper capitals or punctuation.
The third, in which the letters completely run together, seems to signify nothing, yet it
represents the home of Pecola, where her mother and her father curse and fight, her brother
runs away and this black girl herself wishes with all her soul for blue eyes. Just as the Dickand-
Jane primer teaches children how to read, it also guides the children’s interpretation of
the world. Pecola learns to recognize “what is beauty” and “I am ugly and miserable, or at
least my family is” (Morrison 5) through the reading of the story of Dick and Jane, because
home for her is not the green and white picture-perfect house of white myth. It is worth
noticing that through this public education, the local culture is being oppressed and a
seemingly innocent national ideal is being given the highest status.
Knowledge of American history is an important factor in understanding The Bluest
Eye. The novel was written during the 60s and 70s, but is set during the 40s. Despite the
setting, her novel reflects the happenings of the late 60s and early 70s in which African
American culture was becoming well defined and recognized as a part of the once dominantly
white American culture. However, racism was and still is quite common in American society
and in fact, racism was taking new forms in 1940s America. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison
took a different approach to the traditional white-versus-black racism. She acknowledged that
most people are unaware of the racism that exists within a culture and often the racism that
exists within themselves.
A fertile tradition of research in sociology and related fields has studied the
relationship between status and beauty. These studies have demonstrated that attractive
people are more successful both socially and economically. This is generally attributed to a
“halo effect”: attractiveness produces positive expectations, and this becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy. This paradigm makes a strong case for the social importance of attractiveness.
However, it does not account for variations in beauty standards, and it assumes an overly
simple unilinear causal relation between beauty and status. The relation between beauty and
status may also work the other way: signs of status often come to be regarded as attractive.
Such effects are also visible in beauty standards. The process by which status characteristics
are imbued with aesthetic value leads to downward diffusion of standards. This “trickle
down” mechanism is central to historical analyses of beauty ideals.
The public education has imposed a certain kind of image of a happy life on the children of a
local culture. The novel then switches to the influence of popular culture on the African-
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Md. Minhazul Islam
American community, and an icon of the good, of the true, and of the beautiful— Shirley
Temple— jumps out.
In gender studies and feminist theory, beauty standards are also interpreted as socially
constructed rather than given. In this perspective, such standards are a form of control. The
“beauty myth” reproduces gender inequalities by propagating unrealistic beauty ideals for
women (Wolf 95). Gender scholars – like popular discourse – generally point to the media as
the main culprit in the dissemination of beauty standards. This has produced a wealth of
studies analyzing gender representations in various media outlets.
This perspective enables us to re-conceptualise and refine the relation between beauty
and social inequality, by pointing at the ways in which inequalities are connected with the
human body. It predicts that gender is the main factor in the shaping of taste variations, and
that beauty standards are highly morally charged – more so than other aesthetic standards.
Race also is an important factor in the relation between beauty, the body, and social
inequality. Racial hierarchies influence beauty standards, both globally and within nations
(Hunter 2002; Jones 2008). However, ethnic groups typically develop beauty standards
particular to their own ethnic group.
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison demonstrates the connection between capitalism
and the construction of desire in the community when she points out the basic components of
the society and media like commercials, literary works, kid's toys etc. Capitalism in a
postmodern society typically hinges on manufacturing new utilities and desires to function
within a racist domain. In this domain, the racist idealization of whiteness has intense sexual
and economic associations.
If we closely review the adoration of whiteness in the society portrayed in The
Bluest Eye, we notice the bond between capitalism and racism. The Bluest Eye
reveals just how the patterns of internalized racism utilize the authority of
postmodern capitalism, its power and methods of representation like kids
gadgets, advertisements etc. to create unconscious desires and fears; and
illustrates this interconnection between beauty, racism, and capitalism in
numerous incidents narrated in the novel.(Khan)
A good example is Claudia's splitting up the Raggedy Ann doll. She actually attempts
to dissect the core of the framework of racism through ripping it apart: “I had only one desire:
to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the
desirability that had escaped only me” (Morrison 20). Claudia defies the adoration of white
beauty that has been put into practice by commercials, a tool of postmodern capitalism, to
produce desire for it. But she fails to understand the politics of socially engineered
idealization, and wrongly locates it inside the material object, that is, the doll.
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Beauty standard is always built upon socially fabricated values. Claudia’s perplexity
concerning the representation of beauty refers to that politics. This also is associated with
Freud’s idea of the unconscious treatment of words as real things (Freud 147). This is why
Claudia tries to transform symbolic representation of the doll’s beauty into the real and
cannot accept it as a form of external representation. When it comes to cinema, according to
Jean Louis Baudry, we see a similar transformation of the symbolic codes into real properties.
Such representations are often incorrectly recognized as perceptions in the postmodern
consumer community (315). In The Bluest Eye, television and movie both play a crucial role
in modifying the framework of internalized racism using such make-believe representations
as genuine impressions. Pauline is governed by the idea of beauty and ideal love when she
finds them as perceptions from movies. Morrison here shows how the notion of ‘beauty’ can
be manipulated by popular media and film to produce racist self-hatred by compelling
females feel insecure and awful about their figure and color. The ideology of all the
characters in The Bluest Eye is influenced pretty much by such idealization of whiteness as
beauty in a consumer community. In Pauline’s case, “she was never able, after her education
in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute
beauty” (Morrison 122). In another context, the female-to-female relationship turns out to be
further complicated when the heterosexual desire is mediated by it. Inside this politics of
‘beauty industry’, women are entirely commoditized and considered as mere objects of
desire. Blackness ends up being a form of economic incapacity. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison
repeatedly demonstrates, and draws our attention to the prevailing idea that the poverty and
blackness of the Breedlove family is related to their economic incapacity, and Pecola is the
fundamental embodiment of ugliness related to this economic incapacity.
A girl child is described as a female child between infancy and early adulthood.
During this period of the development of the girl child, she is under the custody and
supervision of adults who may be her parents or guardians and siblings who are older and
more mature than she is. The girl child is easily influenced by her experiences as she
develops. She models her behaviour during this development process though observations
and imitations of those she depends on, and her physical, mental and emotional development
start and reach their peak within this stage.
In attempting to establish the relationship between the society and the girl child, it is
important to know how she child is received and related with in her contemporary society.
What are the struggles, challenges and oppression faced by the girl child? What are the
factors that foist on the girl child such challenges and oppression? From the family circle to
the public sphere, the girl child has suffered much hardship and has been greatly
dehumanized. This is due to the fact that she is regarded as inferior to her brother. She is
devalued and as Buchi Emecheta portrays her, she is a second class citizen in a society ruled
by male chauvinism. In especially most African societies, the girl child has been consigned to
an inferior status for which she constantly wears a daunted image. This inferiority is as a
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result of the patriarchal ideology in the society which bestows undue self-importance on the
male child. The result of this is that, men do everything to undermine the women in order to
arbitrarily institute value and ideologies in the society. The African society and the diaspora
is a society with a tradition that bestows importance to the male folk, neglecting the female
folks. This patriarchal ideology has influenced the way the girl characters are projected by
male writers in their literary texts. In most literary works, female characters always wear one
of these images: prostitute, girlfriend, courtesans, and workers. They construct the girl
character as a passive and inconsequential object. The male writers communicated a picture
of the girl child as one whose destiny is subject to the whims of her male folk.
Klotman comments that “whether one learns acceptability from the formal
educational experience or from cultural symbols, the effect is the same: self-hatred” (124).
Very early in the novel, Pecola shows excessive enthusiasm for Shirley Temple, which can be
seen from her fascination with Frieda’s blue-and-white Shirley Temple mug and unstoppable
milk-drinking from that mug — three quarts of milk a day. This can be interpreted as a part
of her desire to internalize the values of white culture, a symbolic moment that foreshadows
her desire to possess blue eyes. In yearning to be Shirley Temple, Pecola denies her own
identity, “A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the
heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment” (Morrison 34). Pecola
connects beauty with being loved and believes that if she possesses blue eyes, the cruelty in
her life will be replaced by affection and respect. Surely, Pecola suffers most from white
beauty standards and this hopeless desire leads ultimately to her madness.
“As these black people do not possess a place in the domain of white beauty, they derive a
complicated impression of beauty from humiliating people of their own community” (Khan
2).
In this way Pecola and her family turn out to be the focal point of the whole
community's self-hatred. Moreover, by indicating that Pecola’s ugliness help everyone else
feel beautiful, and her weakness make others feel potent, Morrison tries to reveal how such
idealization predominantly depends on the degradation of an ‘Other’. Throughout The Bluest
Eye, Pecola Breedlove becomes a revalorized entity not just for the whites but also for the
blacks. She turns out to be the embodiment of failure both racially and economically when
she tries to buy a candy from a white American male. He looks at her:
Somewhere between retina and object, vision and view, his eyes draw back,
hesitate, and hover. At some fixed point in time and space he senses the need
not to waste the effort of a glance. He does not see her, because for him there
is nothing to see (Morrison 48).
Thus, her ego lacks any sort of validation in the eye of the ‘Other’ as her existence is
totally unrecognized; she is crushed into an instance of self-defiance, a vacuum signifying
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nothing, a total absence of acknowledgment as a human being. Pecola knows very well how
this failure of her ego is related to her blackness: “All things in her are in flux and
anticipation. But her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for,
that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes”. (Morrison 49).
Not only she is despised for being black, but her blackness also results in being the
fixed object of a perpetual gaze of the white men which forces her presence into the position
of an object of cultural desire detrimentally. Under this constant gaze the ego of the black girl
is completely shattered, and she is forced to feel awful for her color, her body, even for her
whole existence. She knows that the whole community has its eye on her even when she is
alone. She creates a new, imaginary concept of ‘self’ which she finds in the eyes of the other
people, and she begins to believe that image, as in a mirror, to be her true self. When she
becomes pregnant, this image gets associated with a sense of perverse sexism and guilt. This
guilt is directly related to the blackness of Pecola and her family. In fact, she turns out to be a
symbol of ‘guilt’ and ‘ugliness’ in the eye of the community. In a complex way, “the
community needs this image of hers to feel better in comparison to her debased position.
Pecola’s blackness and pregnancy both serve this purpose” (Khan 3).
This further validates the idea of white beauty through self-defiance. This concentration on
the gaze of the white man shows how subjects are maneuvered not only on an imaginary level
but also on a visual level. Pecola desires to have a pair of blue eyes, because she has a
delusional belief that if she obtains blue eyes, she will be beautiful and can reverse the
relationship that reduced her to a hollow image in the eyes of the white ‘Other’. This
obsessive desire ends up in a psychotic attempt to a total denial of her existence: “Please
God,” she whispered into the palm of her hand. “Please make me disappear”. She squeezed
her eye shut. Little parts of her body faded away” (Morrison 45). This suggests an almost
psychotic withdrawal from the domain of representations through the denial of subjectivity
and body.
As mentioned by Freud in his book The Unconscious, the subject’s psychological
world is shattered and later re-created in an imaginary, unreal fantasy in the first phase of
psychosis (147). In Pecola’s instance, we notice the very same thing as she first makes an
effort to destroy her identity as a black subject, and then pose an obsessive attempt to obtain
blue eyes. This blackness and psychotic desire to obtain blue eyes have a relationship with
the socioeconomic incapacity of Pecola’s family, as their homelessness brings them down as
nonhuman objects. According to Lacan, “The-name of- the-father’ links the real order with
the symbolic order. But in psychosis, the subject can no longer deal with ‘the name-of-thefather”
(70). Once this relationship is torn apart, the subject is then manipulated by the
discourse of the ‘Other’. In Pecola’s case, her family’s economic condition together with her
blackness both eliminates her from the central symbolic order of white consumer culture.
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In the framework of racism, the middle class African-Americans accept the
represented associations between blackness and excessive sexuality. According to Davis
Charles, one of the primary manifestations of developing ‘obsessive neurosis’ is the desire to
repress the irrepressible sexuality through sophistication and differentiation (Slave’s
Narrative 1985). Such a form of ‘obsessive neurosis’ is exposed by Toni Morrison in the
character of Geraldine. This stems forward from an obsessive effort to stay in line with the
predominant social ‘Other’. Thus, Morrison gives a psychoanalytic layout of the internalized
racism of Geraldine's class. The racist mindset of Geraldine’s class, the accepted
interconnection between blackness and over sexuality, and a strong urge to stay separated
from any sense of sullied blackness is associated with an obsessive fear which turns them into
‘obsessive stereotypes’ whose only thought is to renounce blackness by any means. But when
this obsessive desire falters, it does not destroy the racist mindset; rather further tones up into
a dejection resulting in deeper obsessive delusions. We find it in Geraldine’s obsessive
attempt to turn the skin of her son white:
In the winter his mother put Jergens Lotion on his face to keep the skin from
becoming ashen. Even though he was light-skinned, it was possible to ash.
The line between color and nigger was not always clear; subtle and telltale
signs threatened to erode it, and the watch had to be constant. (Morrison 87)
In the long run, this obsessive fear of any indication of blackness isolates Geraldine
from her own community. Thus, the psychological hierarchy of the middle class blacks is fed
by racist behavior producing from their obsessive fear of discovering themselves in the realm
of the terrifying real. This obsessive fear compels them to surrender to the racist discourse
established by the ‘Other’. Now black people are dominated by the whiteness.
In her article “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernisation of Patriarchal Power”,
Sandra Lee Bartky examines the construction of Western femininity by applying Michel
Foucault’s theories about the production of subjectivity in modern societies. Foucault argues
that “discipline produces subjected and practiced bodies, docile bodies” (Bartky 62).
However, Bartky recognises that Foucault does not consider gender differences and “is blind
to [the] disciplines that produce a modality of embodiment that is peculiarly feminine” (63-
64). She further argues that analysing disciplinary practices that produce feminine bodies
reveals sexism operating in Western patriarchal society (64). However, in doing so, Bartky
does not consider racial differences. She argues that –
the larger disciplines that construct a ‘feminine’ body out of a female one are
by no means race- or class-specific. There is little evidence that women of
color or working class women are in general less committed to the incarnation
of an ideal femininity than their more privileged sisters. (Bartky 72)
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It may be true that beauty is a central focus of many women, and according to Naomi
Wolf, this is a very powerful myth (49). Yet, since the ideal of beauty is and has been largely
depicted as a woman with light skin and blue eyes, it is even less possible for women of
colour than for white women to achieve this ideal. As Paul C. Taylor argues, “a white
dominated culture has racialised beauty, in that it has defined beauty per se in terms of white
beauty, in terms of the physical features that the people we consider white people are more
likely to have” (17). Therefore, in the process of trying to achieve beauty, as Taylor further
argues, “the experience of a black woman … differs from the experiences of … Jewish and
Irish women” (20). This can clearly be seen in the ways that the black women characters in
Morrison’s novel suffer in trying to conform to Western standards of beauty.
The Bluest Eye concentrates on the black African-Americans’ desire to leave their
own value system and start adopting Eurocentric values materialism, capitalist success and
beauty and how those all desires remain ‘unrealistic’, ‘destructive’ and ‘un-necessary’
(Kohler 40). The black community in the novel is continually devalued by the Eurocentric
values, the popular culture presents. The Blacks remain to have the wrong color for success
in life, uneducated, poor, and void of emotions; therefore, when they try to adopt the
Eurocentric values, it means they do nothing because they are never the same (Kohler 42). By
following the white concept of beauty, Pecola thinks that her parents, schoolmates, and also
the teachers will treat her better. As it is stated in the novel, “Why, look at pretty-eyed
Pecola. We must not do bad things in front of those pretty eyes” (Morrison 29). However,
regardless these stuffs, Pecola still is unaware that though (in case) her eyes were changed
into blue she would still be regarded as a black, poor, and ugly. Nothing would change,
obviously. “No one else will see her blue eyes. But she will. And she will live happily ever
after” (Morrison 155). It means that she still considered as ugly and black, the blue eyes she
already has do not change her identity that she is black and ugly. Again, Pecola still becomes
the object of the mockery by the White society, of course because of her all tragic life;
including, the sexual abuse done by her own father, her poverty, her blackness, and some
other aspects. Morrison presents Pecola with her weaknesses. She accepts her position as a
victim in the community around her. She does not defend herself against her abusive
schoolmates. She stays quite when Junior lies to his mother that Pecola has injured
Geraldine’s precious cat. She remains so weak in the novel (Kohler 40).
The racial stratification is also presented clearly throughout the novel. Pecola’s and
some other black characters’ humanity are rejected by the society. It is in accordance with
Yancy (2005) who states that the society is divided along two racial lines or two societies,
one Black and one white. Black children cannot escape the pervasive presence of the
dominant society’s cultural icons of female beauty, for instance Shirley Temple. The
inculcation of blackness as a “negative signifier” in the minds of the black community causes
the destruction and madness of Pecola (Tally 14). More importantly, Pecola is positioned in
the space between the black and white humiliating communities which whom she is
unaccepted and alienated from both. Sincerely, the Whites beauty standard plays a significant
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role to make Pecola and Claudia, perceive that a black is ugly; and this beauty perception
undeniably cannot be separated from the colonialism effects. In perceiving the idea of beauty,
Pecola and Claudia have different perceptions. Pecola is the young black character who
concerns more about her physical beauty, especially her eyes; while Claudia is not too
concern on.
As long as Pecola looked the way she did, as long as she was ugly, she would
have to stay with these people. Somehow, she belonged to them. Long hours
she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the
ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and
classmates alike. She was the only member of her class who sat alone at a
double desk. (Morrison 38)
Therefore, Pecola believes that if she successfully has the blue eyes, their classmates
and teachers will treat her better. However, she believes that “to have something as wonderful
as that happen would take a long, long time… 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”
(Morrison 39).
The novel is divided into three sections: Spring, winter and summer, detailing the
development of the girl child through experiences during these periods. It begins in the fall of
1941 after the depression in Lorain Ohio. In the autumn, the Macteers take in a boarder Mr.
Henry Washington. Also, they take in Pecola Breedlove; a teenage girl who experiences
hardship and her parents (Cholly and Pauline Breedlove) fight each other consistently. As a
result of her father’s drunken state, he burns their house, this putting his family outdoors -
Breedlove had burned up his house, gone upside down his wife’s head, and
everybody, as a result, was outdoors. Mrs. Breedlove was staying with the
woman she worked for; the boy, Sammy was with other family; and Pecola
was to stay with us. Cholly was in Jail. (Morrison 17)
The main black characters are depicted as various and very different characters
located in three hierarchical families: “first Geraldine’s (a counterfeit of the idealised white
family), … then the MacTeers and at the bottom [of the social order], the Breedloves”
(Ogunyemi 113). The novel shows how these black characters respond to the dominant
culture differently and this refutes easy binary social distinctions.
The narrator lets us know that Pecola’s life at home in difficult. The narrator describes
the Breedloves as poor, black and ugly. Her parents engaged themselves in constant fight
disregarding their children’s presence. Sammy, Pecola’s brother reacts to this by running
away from home. It is stated that Sammy “was known, by the time he was fourteen, to have
run away from home no less than twenty seven times.” (43) Pecola, unlike Sammy, stays at
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home. She is unable to run of her lacking consciousness. She reacts by attempting to
disappear, but she can’t. She later begins to think that if she had blue eyes, her parents would
be nice to her, would respect her presence and not fight each other.
It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held
the pictures, and knew the rights-if those eyes would be different... if she
looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs.
Breedlove too maybe they’d say “why, look at pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn’t
do bad things in front of those pretty eyes”. (Morrison 47)
She constantly prayed for blue eyes. Pecola is constantly reminded about her ugliness.
“She is ignored or despised at school by teachers and classmates alike” (45). Also, at Mr.
Yacobowski’s store, when she goes to get Mary Jane’s candy, Mr. Yacobowski acts as if she
wasn’t there. She is taunted by boys at school. They taunt her saying “Black emo. Black emo.
Yadadd-sleepsnekked. Black emo black emoyadadd sleeps nekked. Black emo. Black e mo”
(65).
While Pecola, Claudia and Frieda, and Maureen Peal were heading home after the
encounter with the boys, Maureen Peal begins to make fun of Pecola, and this vexes Claudia
and she attempts punching Maureen but misses and hit Pecola. Maureen Peal, a light skinned
girl says “I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly emos. I am cute!” (66). Also, Junior,
Geraldine’s son, lures Pecola into his home and attacks her with a cat. When he kills the cat,
he blames it on Pecola causing his mother to yell at her, “Get out, she said, her voice quiet.
You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my home” (92).
Through flashback, the narrator reveals that even Pecola’s parents had a life full of
hardship and tormenting experiences. Pauline, Pecola’s mother felt like an outcast as a result
of her deformed foot. This is evident when she states that “Her general feeling of
separateness and unworthiness she blamed on her foot.” (111). In order not to feel the
rejection, she begins to emulate white celebrities such as Jean Harcow. Cholly was
abandoned at infant by his mother. He was saved and catered for by his aunt, Aunty Jimmy
till her death. During Aunty Jimmy’s funeral, he engages himself in sex, with a local girl
Darlene. They are caught by two white men who force them to continue while they watch. He
later goes in search of his father who does not want to have anything to do with him. He
meets Pauline and they get married.
The narrator returns to the present. While Pecola was busy washing dishes in the
kitchen, Cholly comes home drunk and rapes her on the kitchen floor not sure of what he felt.
Pauline returns home and finds Pecola on the floor. She does not believe Pecola’s story that
Cholly raped her. Cholly rapes her for the second time and flees, leaving her pregnant. She
visits Soaphead church; a quack psychic and healer, and requests for blue eyes. He deceives
her by making her believe that her desire will be granted. Pecola’s baby dies, contrary to
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Claudia and Frieda’s wish. Pauline and Pecola move to the edge of the town and she is seen
picking and talking to herself.
Morrison provides a vivid insight into the psychical process in response to direct
racial discrimination, by depicting the character of the smaller girl child Claudia. Not
influenced by the white culture yet, little Claudia has not arrived at the turning point in the
development of her psyche, which would allow her to love these “blue-eyed, yellow-haired,
pink-skinned dolls” (Morrison 5). What Claudia feels at that time is “unconscious hatred,
which ranges from white dolls to all the white girls” (Cheng 195). The black children start
with a healthy, direct hatred of white superiority. However, when they get hurt as a result of
that hatred (e.g. Claudia gets scolded after taking apart the doll) and receive the
reinforcement of the message that whiteness is beautiful and blackness is ugly (e. g. the lightskin
black girl Maureen’s popularity at school), they begin to look for refuge. “The best
hiding place was love. Thus, the conversion from pristine sadism to fabricated hatred, to
fraudulent love” (Morrison 16). The adult Claudia confesses that, “I learn much later to
worship Shirley Temple, just as I learn to delight in cleanliness, knowing, even as I learn, that
the change is adjustment, without improvement. (16)
The adult Claudia diagnoses the black community’s worship of white images (as well
as cleanliness and denial of the body’s desire) as a complicated kind of self-hatred, but they
transform hatred into a false love to compensate. Popular culture can sometimes quicken this
silent transformation, because the atmosphere it creates, and racist messages are so prevalent
that they are difficult to ignore. The standard of beauty that her peers subscribe to is
represented by the white child actress, Shirley Temple, who has the desired blue eyes.
Claudia revolts against the tyranny of Shirley Temple and white beauty -
I hated Shirley. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with
Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have
been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing,
giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks
never slid down under their heels. (Morrison 35)
Therefore, African- Americans are especially vulnerable to the messages conveyed by
popular culture that white beauty will inevitably dominate people’s life. Things never turn out
that simple. If these cultural ideals, which function as tools of racial oppression, are only
forced upon the African-Americans, Pecola would never turn to tragedy. It is not to say that
external forces, such as racism and sexism, are unimportant, but “the ontological structures
and mythological thought systems that blacks develop to define and reinforce their definitions
of self and existence” (Samuels & Clenora 78) have a more harmful effect on them.
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison points out sharply that African-Americans’ worship of
white culture, along with their hopelessness, like Pecola’s ugliness, is a state of being that is
both forced upon and chosen by them. This is why much criticism of Morrison’s works
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places her in an “integrated” literary tradition but does not identify her with the tradition that
has characterized much African-American literature, a tradition that “portrays racism as a
definite evil” (Eichelberger 59). To Morrison, only when people choose and accept these
white-defined values, do they begin to internalize them and view the world through the eyes
of white culture.
Before Pecola’s shopping experience to Mr. Yacobowski’s grocery store, there are
some moments when Pecola temporarily succeeds in breaking the destructive connection
between what she sees and how people see her. When she considers that dandelions are pretty
(which are viewed as weeds by other people), she implicitly recognizes that beauty can be
created by seeing rather than by being seen. By the same logic, she could redefine herself as
beautiful even without blue eyes. However, Miner has noted that the “effect of popular
American culture’s specular construction of beauty is that it bestows presence or absence”
(93). One’s visibility depends upon one’s beauty, which is much worse than mere judgment
of beautiful and ugly. Pecola’s shopping experience well serves as an outward reflection of
the process of internalization of white values. When Pecola walks to the grocery store to buy
candy, she encounters “the total absence of human recognition— the glazed separateness”
(Morrison 36). Mr. Yacobowski cannot acknowledge Pecola’s presence as a subject because
he simply cannot look at her, “How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper…
see a little black girl?” (Morrison 36).
These are only reinforcements of the influence of the white-beauty standard; Pecola’s
response to Yacobowski, however, is of crucial importance. After she leaves the grocery
store, she briefly experiences a healthy anger, but it gives way to shame. Morrison comments
that “anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness
of worth. It is a lovely surging” (37-38). But rather than continue this creative act, Pecola
acquiesces and “the anger will not hold; it sleeps. The shame wells up again.” (Morrison 38)
Pecola interprets poor treatment and abuse as her own fault. She believes that the way people
observe her is more reliable than what she herself observes. Then she considers dandelions
are ugly. She takes solace in eating the candy, but, more importantly, in symbolically
digesting the smiling picture of the blue-eyed, blond-haired little girl on the wrapper, “She
eats the candy, and its sweetness is good. To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat
Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane” (Morrison 38).
Pauline Breedlove, Geraldine, Maureen Peal, and Pecola are black characters who try
to conform to an imposed ideal of femininity. They are absorbed and marginalised by the
“cultural icons portraying physical beauty: movies, billboards, magazines, books,
newspapers, window signs, dolls, and drinking cups” (Gibson 20). Pauline Breedlove, for
example, learns about physical beauty from the movies. In Morrison’s words,
along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another – physical
beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought.
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Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion
(Morrison 95).
Consequently, in trying to conform to the ideal of white femininity, the black women
characters despise their blackness which in turn leads to self-hatred. They see themselves
through the eyes of white people and their worship of white beauty also has destructive
effects on their own community. This is because, as Taylor argues:
one of the cornerstones of the modern West has been the hierarchical valuation
of human types along racial lines. … The most prominent type of racialised
ranking represents blackness as a condition to be despised, and most tokens of

this type extend this attitude to cover the physical features that are central to
the description of black identity. (Taylor 16)
Geraldine, for example, represses her black characteristics which are not ‘fitted’ to
white femininity as she strives “to get rid of the funkiness” (Morrison 64). She also rejects
Pecola when she sees her in her house as Pecola seems to embody all the negative aspects of
her views of black girls:
She looked at Pecola. Saw the dirty torn dress, the plaits sticking out on her
head, hair matted where the plaits had come undone, the muddy shoes with the
wad of gum peeping out from between the cheap soles, the soiled socks, one
of which had been walked down into the heel on the shoe. … She had seen
this little girl all of her life. Hanging out of windows over saloons in Mobile,
crawling over the porches of shotgun houses on the edges of town, sitting in
bus stations holding paper bags and crying to mothers who kept saying ‘Shut
up!’ (Morrison 71-72)
Being well educated and having adopted Western ways of life, Geraldine draws the
line between coloured and black. She deliberately teaches her son the differences between
coloured and black: “Coloured people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud”
Morrison 67). Maureen Peal, a light-skinned girl at school, also thinks that she is pretty and
Pecola is ugly and Morrison sets up a hierarchy of skin tone marking proximity and distance
in relation to idealised physical attributes. As “a high-yellow dream child with long brown
hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back” (Morrison 47), Maureen is
treated well at school:
She enchanted the entire school. When teachers called on her, they smiled
encouragingly. 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
partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls’
toilets, and their eyes genuflected under sliding lids. (Morrison 47-48)
==================================================================
Md. Minhazul Islam
In this process, Pecola chooses and internalizes within herself the values of white
superiority values, thus consequently lives a life of self-hatred, and inevitable destruction.
Another supportive example is from Pauline’ mother, Mrs. Pauline Breedlove. Pecola’s own
mother reinforces the message the girls have been receiving about the superiority of whites.
For Mrs. Pauline Breedlove, movies are the primary vehicle for transmitting white images for
public consumption. She absorbs the set of values from the silver screen, then inflicts a
severe wound on her husband and children who fail by “the scale of absolute beauty”
(Matthews 188). Eventually, Pauline gives up on her own family and takes refuge in the soft
beauty surrounding the Fishers’ home. When she speaks to Pecola and her friends, her voice
is like “rotten pieces of apple, but when she speaks to the white girl, her voice is like honey”
(Morrison 78). Her desire to deny her daughter is proved when the white girl asks who the
black children are and Mrs. Breedlove avoids answering her. She has renounced her own
black family for the family of her white employer. It is no longer the direct oppression of
black by white, but oppression of a daughter by her mother who internalizes the white
standard of beauty and uses it as a tool to hurt her own daughter. Finally, having been treated
very badly by most people surrounding her, Pecola yearns to have blue eyes in the hope that
people will love her. Whiteness becomes thus superior and white beauty standard gets
legitimization. Finally, Pecola conforms to this social construction- white beauty standard.
Conclusion
For all races and for all individuals, it is essential to fully understand how mass
culture touches, influences and shapes our values and beliefs — only after fully
understanding that, people can strive to fight and grow to their fullest potential. Because of
Morrison’s vivid portrait of the subtle yet profound cultural influence, the book won great
success, though the plot of The Bluest Eye is not so fresh or different from those of other
African-American novels. Through her statement on the damage that internalized racism can
do to the most vulnerable member of a community- a young girl, Morrison jumps out of the
tradition of African-American literature that “portrays racism as a definite evil” (Eichelberger
59). By illustrating the influence of cultural ideals and approaching black people’s different
psychical responses, this paper shows how a new social construction like white beauty
standard forms replacing normalcy and explains its damaging effect on African-Americans as
well as on others within their families and the neighborhood
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Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby (Eds), Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance.
Boston: Northeastern University Press. 2001.
Baudry, J.L. “The Apparatus: Metaphysical Approaches to the Impression of Reality in
Cinema.” Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology. Columbia UP. 299–318. 1986.

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Bouson, J. Brooks. Quiet as It’s Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni
Morrison. Albany, State University of New York Press. 2000.
Charles, Davis. Slave Narratives. New York: Oxford University Press. 1985.
Cheng, Anne Anlin. Wounded beauty: An exploratory paper on race, feminism, and the
aesthetic question. Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. Vol. 19(2). 2000.
Eichelberger, J. Prophets of recognition: Ideology and the individual in novels by Ralph
Ellison, Toni Morrison, Saul Bellow, and Eudora Welty. USA: Louisiana State University
Press. 2009.
Freud, S. “The Unconscious”. The Essentials of Psychoanalysis. Germany: Vintage. 1963.
Gibson, Donald B. “Text and Countertext in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, LIT:
Literature, Interpretation, Theory, Vol. 1, No. 1-2, pp. 19-32. 1989.
Grewal, Gurleen. Circles of Sorrow, Lines of Struggle: The Novels of Toni Morrison. Boston:
Louisiana State University Press. 1998.
Khan, Reza Hasan. The Framework of Racism in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye: A
Psychosocial Interpretation. Australian International Academic Centre Journal. Vol.5, no.2.
April 2014.
Klotman, R. P. Dick-and-Jane and the Shirley Temple sensibility in The Bluest Eye. Black
American Literature Forum, 13(4), 123-125. 1979.
Kohler, P. Realization of Black Aesthetic in The Bluest Eye. Tampere: Tampere University
Press. 2006.
Lacan, J., Miller, J. A. E., & Grigg, R. T. The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 3: The
psychoses 1955–1956. In Translation of the seminar that Lacan delivered to the Société
Française de Psychoanalyse over the course of the academic year 1955–1956. Norton & Co.
1993.
Matthews, H. D. Response: The cultural aesthetic of blackness. Journal of the American
Academy of Religion: 65(1), 187- 188. 1997.
Matus, Jill. “Shame and Anger in The Bluest Eye”. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
1998.
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Miner, M. M. Lady no longer sings the blues: Rape, madness, and silence in The Bluest Eye.
Bloomington: Indiana UP. 1985.
Morrison, Toni. (1999). The Bluest Eye. Great Britain: Vintage.
Ogunyemi, Chikwenye. “Order and Disorder in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, Critique:
Studies in Modern Fiction, Vol. 19. 112-120. 1977.
Samuels, W. & Clenora. H. W. Twayne’s United States. New York: G. K. Hall & Co. 1999.
Tally, J. The Cambridge Companion to Toni Morrison. New York: Cambridge University
Press. 2007.
Taylor, Paul C. “Malcolm’s Conk and Danto’s Colours; or Four Logical Petitions Concerning
Race, Beauty, and Aesthetics”, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism: Vol. 57, No. 1.
1999.
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. London: Chatto and Windus. 1990.
Yancy, G. (Ed). White on White/Black on Black. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
2005
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Bluest Eye
The issue of accepting ones inner beauty in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
November 3, 2020 by Essay Writer
Pecola was an eleven year old black girl who feels as if being white is the true meaning of beauty
to society and to herself. The Title of this novel is ‘The Bluest Eye’ written by Toni Morrison in
the African American Literature. The novel’s focus, however, was on a young girl named Pecola
Breedlove. And Pecola, as we are told in Chapter 11, will be raped by her father around the
novel’s end.
The beginning states the story so that the reader can know about Pecola’s story ending tragic.
The Breedloves were unhappy, and poor. Their story had seemed in many ways to be settled, as
they were often the victims of events of which they have no control over. Their situation was a
huge contrast to the MacTeers, who were of the slender means but had a really strong family
force, The MacTeers were never really passive victims as in the way that the Breedloves were in
this novel.
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The use of descriptive imagery in this story is used in a way such as Pecola describing on how
both the media and the public were looking up to women with “Blue eyes, Yellow hair and
White skin” for being the most beautiful and that being the only way that beauty was to be seen
as. Other than Women of color being used to promote beauty in the media like a white
woman/girl could have been at the time, Shirley Temple was an example of the way that beauty
was being represented through her time and it made Pecola feel as if she was not seen as
beautiful.
Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye was not at all any different from other little
girls. She wanted to be beautiful, And though America had already set the standards for being
beautiful a woman that must have ” blue eyes, blonde hair, and white skin” lead Pecola to
nothing but insanity because just when society couldn’t accept an ugly little black girl neither
could both she and those around her do so. Pecola wasn’t like the other children, she did not
involve herself in any of the teasing, She was so used to all of the criticism she got because she is
not only black but “ugly” too. And on Second thought, there was also Maureen Peal. Who also is
not white but light- skinned which lead to her being accepted by everyone like the black boys
wouldn’t trip her, the white girls didn’t suck their teeth at her as they did to Pecola, the white
boys would stone her,and the black girls would step aside for her whenever she wanted to use the
sink.
None of the treatment that Maureen had gotten from people was ever given to Pecola and this is
part of what Pecola was explaining because of Maureen have lighter skin, she was seen as
beautiful, she was given what Pecola wished she could have ever had and happiness…
Happiness, Is what she wanted that so is the reason why She believed that being white could
have given her, the Privilege of her having the slightest of Possibility to not having to go through
what she has. She seen them smiling and she wanted that, Pecola wanted the beauty and the
happiness. The Physical appearance of one lead to an alter in another’s psychological condition.
“It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes…were different,that it is to
say,beautiful,she herself would be different.” Voiced by Claudia MacTeer and she was showing
how Pecola felt strongly towards the fact that she was physically seen was “ugly” and she didn’t
accept her for any of it whether she or others criticized her over how she was and This connects
really strongly towards my thesis on how Pecola felt as if she were only seen as an “ugly” little
black girl to the society around her who believed being white was the only beauty.
American culture had promoted the idea of whiteness that should be desired, and Pecola is along
with society that being white was having beauty, she quoted that “Adults, older girls, shops,
magazines, newspapers window signs—all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired,
pink-skinned doll was what every child treasured.” This supports the claim being Beautiful,
Happy and Accepted in society was about being white. To be happy was to know happy, Pecola
did not know how to be happy, she didn’t know to accept that to be black is to be “ugly” in the
society, and as Maureen pointed out to Pecola for being like a character who “hates her mother
because she is black and ugly” and Maureen had been different because she has accepted the
American Standards and Pecola didn’t not know how to accept it because all she has ever known
about beauty was for being white and having blue eyes was always the right thing in American
culture.
A person cannot be happy without knowing happiness, Pecola could have never been happy
because she has never known happiness, From the beginning when her own mother wouldn’t see
her as anything but “ugly” the person who is supposed to love her regardless the appearance she
had, Pecola wanted to be happy, she wanted to be like the blue eyed white girls, the society that
made blue eyed white girls the meaning of beauty was not able to become something that Pecola
could have done, and without Accepting Ones Inner Beauty was to face the American Standards
in her Society.
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Abstract
The dilemma of the African American woman is based on
racial and sexist oppression that constantly marginalizes
her where she is confined in a pitiful state of nothingness.
This double oppression is best featured in Toni Morrison’s
novel The Bluest Eye. The present article purports to
investigate how African American women have tragically
fallen under the destructive spell of sexism and racism
and, consequently, marginality and alienation. My
argument runs within the main lines of both feminist and
cultural theoretical approaches.
The Bluest Eye addresses three important issues:
sexism, racism and alienation. This triangle relationship
exposes the African American women’s intricate situation.
Morrison criticizes both the oppressing forces in her
(black) culture and white racism, whereas the whites take
advantage of history to justify their own right to rule on
the basis of the inferiority of a race and the superiority of
another. This view of the justification of history conforms
to Althusser’s concept of falsified ideology exploited
to hegemonize others, where the black man justifies his
sexism against his fellow women. Thus, the idea of the
justification of history and the falsified ideology establish
cultural and ideological oppression leading to the

alienation of black women.
Key words: Alienation; Hatred; Oppression; Racism;
Sexism; Marginalization
Mahdi, M. A. (2015). Triangle of Hatred: Sexism, Racism
a n d A l i e n a t i o n i n To n i M o r r i s o n ’s T h e B l u e s t E y e .
Canadian Social Science, 11 (9), 45-51. Available from: http://
www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/7481
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/7481
INTRODUCTION
Since Ibsen’s Nora in A Doll’s House has slammed the
door behind her and walked out in the street, the sparkle
started to enlarge and become a huge fire, asking for
women’s liberation, justice, and equality. Hundreds of
voices have volunteered for the rights of white women,
and a very few number of voices have done the same
for black women. This may be due to political and
societal compromises: one may be tempted to ask if the
American Declaration of Independence has dropped
the condemnation of Negro slavery from its pages, do
we expect any printed pages to effect drastic changes
in black women’s fate? Hennessy and Ingram (1997)
contend, “Women, irrespective of nationality and class
position, were seen to comprise a homogenous group

bound together by one characteristic covered mental
breakdowns, discrimination in jobs and education,
sexuality, dependence on men, sex role stereotyping, and
so on” (p.83).
If the quote above describes types of oppression
practiced against white women, then what about
oppression of black women? Women, both white and
black, equally suffer patriarchal oppression. Nevertheless,
black women in particular suffer an additional oppression
which can be termed as racial oppression, too. This way,
the dilemma of the black woman is mainly based on
racial and sexist oppression that constantly marginalizes
her and keeps her in a pitiful state of nothingness. This
double oppression of black women is best featured and
explained in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye in
which Morrison, Nobel prize winner in 1993, tackles
the double oppression of black women that triggers
problems hindering their social, cultural, and human roles
in society. According to Smith (1985), “The Bluest Eye
examines the complex economic, historical, cultural and
geographic factors that problematize relations within
the black community and the world beyond” (p.721).
Thus, the problems facing black women and hindering

Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture
Triangle of Hatred: Sexism, Racism and
Alienation in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
46
their development in society are what Morrison attempts
to highlight in this novel. The present article proposes
to investigate how black women are tragically falling
under the destructive spell of sexism and racism, and,
consequently, marginality and alienation in The Bluest
Eye. The argument runs within the main lines of both
feminist and cultural theoretical approaches.
Morrison does not only blame the white society
for oppression against the black woman, but she also
criticizes the sexism practiced by black men against their
women. The tragedy of black women is, therefore, caused
by white racism and black sexism as well. In other words,
black women suffer from a dual oppression: on one hand,
they are kept marginalized from sharing positively in
their society and, on the other hand, they are neglected
by both whites and blacks. The fact that black man is
stereotypically weak and emasculated intensifies the
plight. A significant part of black woman’s tragedy lies on
the shoulders of black men who, in terms of racism, are

viewed as weak and emasculated. In order to provide an
outlet for part of their suppression, black men project their
own anger and repressed feelings of their fellow women,
thus completing the full circle of injustice.
Black women are represented in The Bluest Eye as
beset with sexism, racism and alienation. These three
issues, which are termed in the very title of the article
as the sides of the hatred triangle, negatively work hand
in hand to efface and undermine the corners of black
woman’s life and structure. And this is what Morrison
attempts to stress through the main characters of the
Breedlove family and some other minor characters.
1. SEXISM
Sexism is the first side of the triangle of hatred that
contributes to the effacement of black womanhood in the
novel. In her book Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and
Feminism, Hooks (1981) argues that sexism is temporarily
disregarded and postponed by women activists, compared
to racism: “When the women’s movement raised the
issue of sexist oppression, we argued that sexism was
insignificant in light of the harsher more brutal reality of
racism” (p.1). Hooks confesses that this was a big mistake
made by black feminists at that time as it worsened the

problem of sexism and led up to more devaluation of
black womanhood. He further quotes S. Truth’s warning
that “If colored men get their rights, and not colored
women theirs...the colored men will be masters over the
women, and it will be just as bad as it was before” (qtd. in
Hooks, 1981, p. 4).
In The Bluest Eye, sexist oppression is seen through
the actions of the character of Cholly Breedlove who is
depicted as a sexist person. Having the feeling of selfdefeat in a white-dominated society, Cholly
compensates
this feeling by violently beating and mistreating both
his wife and daughter. Once, he is seen making love
and ordered by two white men to continue his act: “Go
on,” they said. “Go on and finish. And, nigger, make
it good, make it good”. (Morrison, 1982, p.320). Here,
women are generally viewed as sexual objects. Cholly,
an alcoholic, unemployed black man is viewed as just a
sexual entertainer by a group of whites. Stripped of all the
privacy a person needs while having sex, he is diminished
to the state of a forest animal who is copulating in the
wilderness. The image of diminishing might extend to
show how Cholly, behaving like a patriarch monkey
toward one of his harem females as he, “poured out on her

[his wife] the sum of all his inarticulate fury and aborted
desires” (Ibid., p.230). Cholly, like a patriarch monkey,
again, comes later to rape his eleven-year-old daughter in
a fit of drunkenness, exactly as it normally happens in the
animal world.
On the other hand, part of Cholly’s sexism can be
partly traced to his childhood. Even when he was a baby,
he was rejected by his mother. As Morrison puts it, “When
Cholly was four years old, his mother wrapped him in
two blankets and one newspaper and placed him on a
junk heap by the railroad” (p.240). Likewise, when he
was a teenager, he was rejected again by his father who
refused to admit him as a son. As a result of the rejection
of his family and the racism of the dominant society,
Cholly turns into both a victim and a victimizer. As a
victimizer, he projects his furious antagonism against
the dominant society by exercising oppression against
his wife and daughter. Culturally, he is treated like an
outcast. Ironically enough, he has been rejected by his
black community, the arena where he is supposed to feel
secured and sheltered. At the same time, he cannot secure
a place in a white-dominated society. In such a morbid
life, he, as a black outcast, loses any sense of affiliation,

which Said (1986) terms as the “belong[ing] exclusively
to culture and society” (p.605). Therefore, we do not
expect such a person as this to belong to anywhere else.
As his life has been determined earlier by the rejection
of both his society and the white one, Cholly, in terms
of animality, merely exists in a state of “filiation”, or
better to say, where his biological needs are to be fulfilled
(eating, drinking, reproducing). According to Said,
“filiation” is the biological ties that link people together
(eating, drinking, reproducing... etc). If people normally
advance from “filiative” to “affiliative relationships” in
order to achieve cultural and ideological homogeneity,
Cholly’s heavy burden of inherited rejection inevitably
hinders his advance. In other words, Cholly simply loses
his “affiliation” towards his culture and the dominant
white society and only keeps “filiation” as a means of
animalistic survival. As Ghosh (2014) writes, “Black
American males were in general considered to be sexually
impotent; from the political point of view they nurtured
deep-rooted rage and unlimited agony. The black slaves
were doomed to an ill-fated life of enslavement” (p. 24).
47 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture
Maher A. Mahdi (2015).

Canadian Social Science, 11(9), 45-51
2. RACISM
If Cholly is relentlessly subjected to a double-edged
rejection by his black tribe as well as the white society,
the cultural status and identity of his wife Pauline is
not dissimilar from her husband’s. Pauline is destined
to be isolated and unworthy from the time she has a
deformed, crooked, archless foot. As a black woman, she
is “the other”, as an image of not belonging created to
“emphasize the significance of belonging” (Collins, 2008,
p.70). She is equally subjected both to sexist and racial
oppression. Unlike her husband, who falls an easy prey to
his oppressors, Pauline struggles, however faintly. In her
book Sexual Politics, Millet (1977) explains how racism
affects blacks:
The study of racism has convinced us that a truly political state
of affairs operates between the races to perpetuate a series of
oppressive circumstances. The subordinate group has inadequate
redress through existing political institutions, and is deterred
thereby from organizing into conventional political struggle and
opposition. (pp. 44-45)
Millet’s commentary on racism helps understand the
situation of Pauline. As a black female, she does not

possess the sufficient power to change her lot and keeps in
her mind how she is treated. As Morrison puts it,
Everybody in the world was in a position to give them the black
females orders. White women said, “Do this.” White children
said, “Give me that.” White men said, “come here.” Black men
said, “Lay down.” The only people they need not take orders
from were black children and each other. (p.381)
Thus, black women are structured in the hegemonic
society just to serve both the white race and the black male
gender. Their identities are oppressed and demolished. It
is no wonder that the role assigned to Pauline as a black
female is that of a servant. Her work as a servant in the
Fischer family highlights the bad economic situation of
black women. In this regard, H. Carby discusses in her
article “White Woman Listen! Black Feminism and the
Boundaries of Sisterhood,” the situation of black women
as working labor:
What does the concept of “reproduction mean in a situation
where black women have done domestic labor outside of their
own homes in the servicing of white families? In this example
they lie outside of the industrial wage relation but in a situation
where they are providing for the reproduction of black labor in
their own domestic sphere. (qtd. in Hennessy and Ingraham,

1997, p.115)
Carby’s words are suggestive of the economic status
of Pauline. What worsens her living condition is the
economic oppression based on racism which she has to
tolerate in her society. One of her sad memories of racism
is when her white employer compels her to choose either
between her work and her husband: “She said she would
let me stay if I left him. I thought about that. But later
on it didn’t seem none too bright for a black woman to
leave a black man for a white woman. She didn’t give me
the eleven dollars she owed me, neither. That hurt bad”
(Morrison, 1982, p.369). Here, Pauline is economically
exploited on the basis of her subordinate race and
oppressed gender. The fact that she is compelled to choose
between her husband and her work represents a state in
which the black woman is seen as an economic slave by
the dominant white society. Therefore, the black woman
can never attain respectability as she is often financially
unable to be a stay-at-home mother and her ability to
nurture her children and her husband has been mystified
as “bad” motherhood and wifehood, which makes it
impossible for her to embody the definition of good
womanhood that Jordan-Zachery (2009) describes. The

black woman is the binary opposite to what is considered
to be the “good woman”, which is usually Euro-American.
The stereotypical images of the black woman are the
opposite of “good womanhood”. Jordan-Zachary explains
that the image of “good” womanhood is connected to the
image of the good wife and the good mother, who stay
at the “woman’s natural sphere of activity” which is her
home (2009, p.27).
The sexist oppression of Pauline by her husband takes
the form of beatings and use of violence:
Cholly picked her up and knocked her down with the back of
his hand. She fell in a sitting position...He put his foot on her
chest...He struck her several times in the face...Mrs. Breedlove
took advantage of this momentary suspension of blows and
slipped out of his reach. (Morrison, p. 321)
Thus, Pauline suffers from a series of sexist and
racial oppression. In this consideration, Carby refuses
to separate racism from sexism: “racism and sexism are
similar. Ideologically for example, they both construct
common sense through reference to ‘natural’ and
‘biological’ differences” (Hennessy & Ingraham, 1997,
p.116). Carby’s words are significant enough right here
as they shed much light on how racism and sexism are

intertwined. The two reasons explain how black males
take advantage of their biological strength to oppress their
women, very much like the way the whites get privilege
over blacks by their white skin. Thus, taking advantage
of natural and biological differences as two of the major
components of the falsely-based ideology leads to sexism
and racism. This state of double oppression against
Pauline leaves its tragic influence on her daughter Pecola.
Similar to her mother, Pecola Breedlove has low selfesteem and lacks self-love. This is the
reason why she
searches for approval and acceptance in both the black
and white communities. She is victimized by patriarchal
oppression represented by her own father, Cholly who
rapes her and leads to her madness, and by the racial
oppression incarnated in the society in which she lives. As
a black girl, Pecola is scolded by other black schoolboys
as being inferior because she is dark black. She is made
to believe that she is ugly and inferior. Consequently,
she hates her black skin and aspires to attain some of the
48
white physical features, believing that this might give her
the badly-needed pass into the real world. In this respect,
Cormier-Hamilton (1994) points out,
Many African-Americans still suffer from a dangerously low
sense of self-esteem originating from their internalization of
the prejudices of white culture... Morrison’s novel reflects this
dangerous internalization of racist values and the cycle of selfhatred passed on from parents to
children. (p. 22)
Similarly, Pecola’s concept of beauty and a better life
takes the dream of having blue eyes. Morrison writes,
It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those
eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights-if those eyes of
hers were different, that is to say beautiful, she herself would
be different...If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly
would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they would
say, why look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things
in front of those pretty eyes. (p. 323)
The reader is told that Pauline is obsessed with
categorizing faces according to conventional beauty,
which she learns from the movies. Regarding Pauline’s
fascination with the movies, Kuenz (1993) states that it is
the absence of alternative portrayals of beauty and a social
network “whose own lives would provide a differing

model and the context in which to erect her own,” (p.426)
that drives Pecola to the movies.
This is Pecola’s tragedy: It is a tragedy that is based
on skin-hatred and a dream to be beautiful. Her fantasy of
having “the blue eyes”—so that she will be loved in her
family and respected in the society—strongly indicates
the influence of racism. The standard of the ideal of
beauty and family life is whiteness, while ugliness is
associated with black skin. In addition, ugliness is a state
of inferiority and skin hatred that intensifies the tragedy
of Pecola, who sees everything related to her life and
her family as ugly: “The Breedloves did not live in a
storefront.... They lived there because they were poor and
black, and they stayed there because they believed they
were ugly” (Morrison, 1982, p.317).
As it is evidently clear, Pecola’s dilemma is that she
is poor, black and ugly. Racism breeds up ugliness in
the minds of both the white and the black races. In one
situation, Pecola is completely ignored by the white
storekeeper who does not even bother to look at her:
“How can a fifty-two- year old white immigrant...see a
little black girl?” (Ibid. p.234). This situation is ultimately
significant in portraying how racism works in the

dominant society and the way that blacks are viewed by
some whites. G. Joseph states that “Racial prejudices have
become so ingrained in white U.S. society that a typical
racist anti-Black mentality has developed, with emotion
and ignorance ruling over the intellect” (qtd. in Hennessy
and Ingraham, 1997, p.108). In Joseph’s words, the
storekeeper represents the “racist anti-black mentality”
(p.108).
It is racism that compels Pecola to try to beautify her
race, which she sees as ugly and inferior. This character
is reminiscent of N. Larsen’s Clare Kendry in her novel
Passing (1929). Though Kendry is light-skinned, she
has a black side in her family, a fact she hides from
her husband. Here, the representation of the black race
as inferior to the white race might find an answer in
the argument of Althusser (1986) about ideology, who
believes that the power usually obscure ideology in order
to repressively control the masses. In his opinion, the
powerful “base their domination and exploitation of the
‘people’ on a falsified representation of the world which
they have imagined in order to control other minds by
dominating their imagination” (1986, p.240). Althusser’s
words help identify the essence of racism which is based

on “a falsified representation of the world”: The black
race is inferior to the white race.
In her short play The First One: A Play in One Act, Z.
N. Hurston (2008) dramatizes the inconceivable biblical
essence of difference and conflict between the whites and
blacks. After accusing Ham, whose “skin shall be black …
He shall serve his brothers and they shall rule over him”,
the minion of his father Noah, of setting his father stark
naked. Noah, out of hasty rage, asks God to blacken the
one who has stripped him, completely unaware that it is an
intrigue done by the elder brothers against their younger
brother, Ham. Blackened after his father’s prayers, all
the family members, including the mother, get detached
from their black brother. The play significantly ends with
a prayer that invokes God to interfere: “O Jehovah, we
all belong to Thee” (Hurston, 2008, p.33). Accordingly, if
Althusser (1986) sees “the Repressive State Apparatus”
with its Commanding Unity” as possessing the State
Power, the concept itself taken the other way around,
could too. To put it another way, the relationship between
races in a capitalist country like the U.S, The whites,
either explicitly or implicitly, are the representation of
the Repressive State Apparatus, and the other races,

especially the blacks, are a representation [not even of the
proletarian class] but to the dregs of society, the nobodies,
those whom the train of equality always overlooks and
whose backs are kicked until they are numbed.
In support of my argument and in terms of Althusser’s
concept of the Repressive State Apparatus, which is
embodied in the whites, Ehrenreich (1976) argues that
the class conflict might include within its entrails the
“ethnic divisions, especially the black/white division” the
thing which creates “isolation” instead of “collectivity”
and “dependency” on the powerful class, instead of
“self-reliance.” Ehrenreich (1976) furthers her concept
believing that the “forces which have atomized working
class life” and the blacks by implication are the “same
forces which have served to perpetuate the subjugation of
women in a capitalist society”. Of course, the subjugation
of women strips them of both their domestic and nondomestic identities. If this has been the case
for women in
general, how could the case be for women who happened
to be black?

For Pecola, the little black girl, passing the inferiority
of her race to the superiority of the white race takes the
dream of the blue eyes. She believes that a pair of blue
eyes would be the end of her troubles. She, for example,
believes that the blue eyes would furnish her with the
required credentials of acceptance in this society: to be
loved, to be virtuous and attractive both to friends and
teachers. She even believes that her parents might stop
fighting due to her attainment of the blue eyes. In fact,
her relentlessly tragic yet futile quest for a pair of blue
eyes leads her to envision the white world as a perfect
image of the Garden of Eden. This white Eden includes
the angelic Maureen Peel, “a high yellow dream child,”
who is treated with respect mainly because of her light
skin, brown hair and green eyes: “Here was an ugly
little girl asking for beauty” (Morrison, 1982, p.405).
Here, the standard of beauty as determined by the white
race dominates the ideology of people. This standard is
based on white complexion and beautiful eyes. Pecola’s
identification with the black cat and the blue eyes is a
strong argument of her need for the blue eyes:
The cat rubbed up against her knee. He was black all over, deep
silky black, and his eyes, pointing down toward his nose, were
bluish green. The light made them shine like blue ice. Pecola
rubbed the cat’s head; he whined, his tongue flicking with
pleasure. The blue eyes in the black face held her. (Ibid., p.
351)
The above lines indicate that Pecola is possessed with
the cat’s blue eyes. The strong association with the blue
eyes of the cat suggests her obsession with the blue eyes,
which are seen as her passport to a superior world. The
black cat’s blue eyes, as Fulton (1997) points out, “signify
the realization of the beauty myth” that Geraldine, Polly
and many others in the black community aspire (p.47).
Likewise, obsession with the blue eyes intensifies Pecola’s
real tragedy when she goes to Soaphead Church to make
her eyes blue:
“What can I do for you, my child?”
“Maybe, maybe you can do it for me.”
“Do what for you?”
“I can’t go to school no more. And I thought maybe
you could help me.”
“Help you how? Tell me. Don’t be frightened.”
“My eyes.”
“What about your eyes?”
“I want them blue.” (Morrison, 1982, p.405)

This dialogue between Pecola and Church indirectly
condemns the impact of racism and “the destructive power
of white cultural values such as beauty and family, and
how they breed self-hatred” (Abdallah, 2014, p.30).
Despite Morrison’s presentation of the sorrows of
the blacks encounter, she does not save her people from
bearing a big sense of the responsibility. For her, as much
as we, the black community, blame the oppressor, the
whites, we have to blame the oppressed as well. For her,
the blacks have to get rid of some of the falsities afflicting
them:
We were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely
licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good,
but well-behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves
brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good
grammar for intellect; we switched habits to stimulate maturity;
we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern
of an old idea of the Revelation and the Word. (p.424)
This strong critique of the self expresses Morrison’s
dissatisfaction with some defects in the black culture.
This self-critique of the black culture by a black writer is
one of the strengths in The Bluest Eye as Morrison looks
at the black culture as the oppressor and the oppressed

as well: the oppressor of black women and the oppressed
by racism of a white-dominated society. In this respect,
contrary to Morison’s, Das (2015) adapts R. McGill’s
point of view that “the human condition always has had
three yearnings: to be treated as a human being, to have
an equal, fair chance to win respect and advancement and
freely to seek spiritual and cultural happiness” (p.230).
Denied these three basic human yearnings, Das argues,
the blacks have almost forgotten to live with dignity and
self-respect: “Such a social anathema left indelible scars
on Black psyche that simply refused to heal” (p.257)
Claudia’s critique of the black community is narratively
equaled by Soaphead’s critique of the white one. Of
course, Soaphead is more powerful, aged and experienced
than Claudia. Besides, his role is highly significant simply
as he represents the church—the religious institution
which, one way or another, intensifies the heavy burden
of racism by magnifying the whites sense of superiority,
and by relating this superiority to biblical bases. In this
regard, Church’s letter to his God emanates from his own
realization that no power on earth could put an end to the
racial impasse: it is only the Supreme Power, God, who
can do that. However, one cannot claim that Church’s

letter is an expression of his own sense of guilt towards
Pecola, whom he deceives by falsely telling her about the
possibility of attaining “blue eyes.” In his letter to God,
Church criticizes the racial ideology in American society:
In retaining the identity of our race, we held fast to those
characteristics most gratifying to sustain and are least
troublesome to maintain. Consequently we were not royal but
snobbish, not aristocratic but class-conscious; we believed
authority was cruelty to our inferior…we mistook violence
for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness
was freedom...our manhood was defined by acquisitions. Our
womanhood by acquiescence. (Morrison, 1982, p.407)
In his letter, he lists some of the points which racism
draws on. The bare truth in Claudia and Church’s critiques
might lead to an awareness of the nature of racism in the
American society. Through the two critiques, the cultural
discourse of the novel attempts to enlarge our own
perspective of the racial question. Elaborating more on the
link between racism and sexism, Morrison, on Church’s
50
tongue, clarifies this fact: “Our manhood [power and
patriarchy] was defined by acquisitions. Our womanhood
by acquiescence.”
3. ALIENATION:
Racism and sexism inevitably lead to alienation. This
is what Morrison presents through Pauline and Pecola,
who represent a state of complete subjugation, since
they are oppressed either in the black or in the white
culture. In their black culture, they are confined by the
patriarchal figure Cholly who practices the most terrible
kind of sexist oppression against them. They are violently
beaten, mistreated, and later Pecola is raped by her sexist
patriarchal father. In the white culture, they don’t belong,
too, because of their black skin. This way, they are
inhumanly treated by both the blacks and whites. Hence,
these two female figures are seen suffering the dreadful
repercussions of being female and black.
Pauline and Pecola are also alienated in a society
where sexist and racial oppressions are daily practices.
Pecola’s feeling of alienation starts in her family where
she is neglected by her mother and badly treated by her
father. The feeling of alienation grows inside her when
she decides not to go to school after she is scolded as

being a certain kind of black in at school. Then, her
obsession with blue eyes and her going to church to make
her eyes blue further indicates her feelings of alienation
and estrangement within the two communities. Her state
of alienation and estrangement might find an answer
in J. Kristeva’s concept of “foreignness”. According to
Kristeva, the term “foreigners” reflects ages of inequality
and injustice:
In the fascinated rejection that the foreigner arouses in
us, there is a share of uncanny strangeness in the sense of
depersonalization that Freud discovered in it, and which takes
up again our infantile desires and fears of the other-the other
of death, the other of women, the other of uncontrollable drive.
The foreign is within us. (qtd. in Moi, 1986, p.191)
In the light of Kristeva’s argument, one could say that
Pecola is seen as “the other” in the society, and because
“the other” is always foreign, so Pecola is a “foreigner.”
The fact that Pecola’s rape by her father conveys the same
meaning that she is seen as a “foreigner” even by her
family. Because she is a “foreigner”, her baby is the same.
The baby never turns to ‘he’ or ‘she’ but remains ‘it’:
I thought about the baby that everybody wanted dead, and saw
it very clearly. It was in a dark, wet place, its head covered...I

felt a need for someone to want the black baby to live-just
to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley
Temples, and Maureen Peals. (Morrison, 1982, p.414)
The arrival of the baby fails to make any change in
Pecola’s condition, since an alienated mother can never
bring a belonging son. Alienation takes the form of
inheritance that is transmitted automatically from parents
to children. Also, the fact that Pecola ends tragically
as an insane person is not surprising at all. She has
tried to change her lot, but how she can change her life
in a society that looks upon as her ugly and inferior.
Moreover, her tragedy worsens when her father rapes her.
Her dream of having blue eyes is shattered because how
can an ugly black girl have blue eyes? Her dream seems
like a nightmare: “A little black girl yearns for the blue
eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her
yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment” (Ibid.,
p.423).
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Morison’s The Bluest Eye discusses three
important issues or sides of a triangle: sexism, racism and
marginality. This triangle relationship deeply portrays
the dilemma of black women at large and exposes their

intricate situation. Sexism includes patriarchal oppression
represented in black males who, under the stereotype
of weakness and emasculation, practice the most sexist
oppression against their fellow women. For instance,
Cholly is the father figure who tragically shares in the
plight of his family. His feeling of inferiority and rejection
by his family makes him a sexist person.
At the racial level, Morrison deals with racism as
impacting black womanhood more than black manhood.
Morrison conveys this through the victimization of the
characters of Pecola and Pauline. Though Morrison
strongly criticizes white racism, she also criticizes the
oppressing forces in her culture. On the other hand,
Church’s letter to God is significant enough as it clarifies
the nature of the institution of racism. It is a strong
critique against the social ills that produce racism in the
American society. Within racism, the author shows the
relationship between racism and economic exploitation.
The economic situation of black women is miserable as
they are only offered chances to work in domestic labor
in the white families’ houses or become prostitutes. The
industrial prosperity does not reflect on them because
they are still doing domestic labor. The novel shows how
Pauline is economically exploited and used. This bad
economic situation explains the dilemma of black women
as domestic workers. What worsens the economic status
of black women is the way they are dealt with by their
white ladies: Pauline is compelled to choose between her
work or her husband, and she is denied her wage.
As for alienation, it is explored through the oppression
of cultural and ideological discourses of black women.
Both Pauline and Pecola are oppressed by both sexism
and racism. These two women figures are alienated and
represented as “foreign” in both the black and white
cultures. In terms of the theory of Benjamin (1986), the
ruling class takes advantage of history to justify their
own right to rule, so this could be the justification made
by white people about the inferiority of a race and the
superiority of another to establish a ruling based on
racism. Benjamin (1986) further extends his view that
the oppressed live in a permanent “state of emergency”
(p.679). This view of the justification of history conforms
to the concept of falsified ideology adopted by Althusser

(1986), which is exploited to hegemonize others. This is
applicable to the novel where the black man justifies his
sexism against his fellow women on basis of a historical
superiority of the female gender. Similarly, the white man
historically justifies racism on the basis of superiority
to the black race. Thus, the idea of the justification of
history and the falsified ideology establishes cultural and
ideological oppression leading to the alienation of the
African American women.
REFERENCES
Abdalla, F. (2014, Spring). Resistance of female stereotypes
in the bluest eye: Destroying images of black womanhood
and motherhood. Södertörns University, the institution for
Culture & Learning, the Department of English. Retrieved
from:http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:746603/
FULLTEXT01.pdf
Althusser, L. (1986). Ideology and ideological state apparatus.
Critical Theory Since 1965 (pp. 239-50). In H. Adams & L.
Searle (Eds.). Tallahassee: Florida UP.
Benjamin, W. (1986). Theses on the philosophy of history.
Critical Theory Since 1965 (pp. 9-85). In H. Adams & L.
Searle (Eds.). Tallahassee: Florida UP.
Cole, J. L. & Charles, M. (Eds). (2008). Zora Neale Hurston:

Collected Plays. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP.
Collins, P. H. (2008). Black feminist thought: Knowledge,
consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York:
Routledge.
Cormier-Hamilton, P. (1994). Black naturalism and Toni
Morrison: The journey away from self-love in the bluest
eye. Melus, 19(4), 109-127.
Das, K. (2015). Problematic of racism and sexism: A dialogue
in Toni Morrison’s the bluest eye. International Journal of
Research, 2(6), 556-560.
Ehrenreich, B. (1976). What is Socialist Feminism? WIN
Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.marxists.org/.../
ehrenreich-barbara/socialist-feminism.htm
Fulton, L. (1997). An unblinking gaze: Readerly responsibility
and racial reconstructions in Toni Morrison’s the bluest eye
and beloved (MA thesis). Wilfrid Laurier University.
Ghosh, A. K. (2014). Multi componential African American
fiction. West Bengal, India: Avenel Press.
Jordan-Zachery, J. (2009). Black women, cultural images, and
social policy. New York: Routledge.
Kuenz, J. (1993). The bluest eye: Notes on history, community,
and black female subjectivity. African American Review,
27(3), 421-431.
Hennessy, R., & Ingraham, C. (Eds.). (1997). Materialist
feminism. New York: Routledge.
Hooks, B. (1981). Ain’t I a woman: Black women and feminism.
Boston: South End.
Hurston, Z. N. (2008). Zora Neale Hurston: Collected plays.
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers.
Millet, K. (1977). Sexual politics. New York: Avon.
Moi, T. (Ed.). (1986). The Kristeva reader. New York: Columbia
UP.
Morrison, T. (1982). The bluest eye: Seven contemporary short
novels. In C. Clerk & L. Leiter (Eds). New York: Harper
Collins.
Said, E. (1986). Secular criticism. Critical theory since 1965
(pp.604-621). In H. Adams & L. Searle (Eds.) Tallahassee:
Florida, UP.
Smith, V. (1985). The quest for and discovery of identity in Toni
Morrison’s song of Solomon. The Southern Review, 21(3),
721-732

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Contents.

Chapter 1 European existentialism and Afro-American existentialism in literature.

 Sartre specially the concept of the second look

A short vocabulary of the concepts used

Chapter 1 European existentialism and Afro-American existentialism in literature.

 Sartre specially the concept of the second look

 Black-existentialism and its representatives

 Afro-American writer and Black existentialism

o Ralph Ellison ( a short biography and his writing career)

 Element of black exitentialism and black pesimism in the invisible man,

 Toni Morrison ( a short biography and her writing career, )

 Element of black exitentialism and black pesimism in the invisible man,

It should be stressed that an existentialist can be either a religious moralist, agnostic, or an

Existentialism is presented as "human philosophy", as a humanitarian philosophy. The starting

(l) Darwinism and

(2) nationalism and racism.

Zhan Pol Sartri

Jean-Paul Sartri (1905-1980), was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter,

The name of Sarthritis is identified with existentialism, its vpras are:

Who can no longer influence you with his singing.

This principle theme of existentialism is the idea that

Md. Minhazul Islam

White Beauty Standard in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye 189

authoritative continuous follow of signification, domination and legitimization can lead to a

results in discursive formation of a social construction. Social construction is not structured

finally gets legitimized over discursive practices.

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Md. Minhazul Islam

White Beauty Standard in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye 190

counters the dominant ideals.

the overpowering standards of beauty in Western culture: rejection, alienation, self-hatred,

color and physical features function as tools of racial oppression.

power structure[s]” (Grewal 24). As Donald B. Gibson also argues,

internalising the values that dictate standards of beauty (20).

recognized as a children’s primary-reader story.

are very happy Hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisveryprettyhereisthe

Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 19:9 September 2019

Md. Minhazul Islam

White Beauty Standard in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye 191

seemingly innocent national ideal is being given the highest status.

Knowledge of American history is an important factor in understanding The Bluest

exists within themselves.

down” mechanism is central to historical analyses of beauty ideals.

Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 19:9 September 2019

Md. Minhazul Islam

White Beauty Standard in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye 192

Temple— jumps out.

studies analyzing gender representations in various media outlets.

particular to their own ethnic group.

and economic associations.

If we closely review the adoration of whiteness in the society portrayed in The

postmodern capitalism, its power and methods of representation like kids

gadgets, advertisements etc. to create unconscious desires and fears; and

illustrates this interconnection between beauty, racism, and capitalism in

numerous incidents narrated in the novel.(Khan)

Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 19:9 September 2019

Md. Minhazul Islam

White Beauty Standard in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye 193

cannot accept it as a form of external representation. When it comes to cinema, according to