Josh Kloosterman
8:30am

The Bluest Eye literary analysis

Beauty is a perceptual scope that the reader looks through while reading the bluest eye in its entirety. It is the focus of ideals and issues within the book the Bluest eye. Beauty or lack of is the major motivator for decisions and/or consequences throughout the story. It can define who you are in terms of society and where you fit in, but does it have to?
Supposedly, in this country we call home, if you work hard enough you can have whatever your heart desires. In the Bluest eye All Pecola Breedlove wanted was to have blue eyes or in her mind, be beautiful. She believed because of what society had taught her that those whom are beautiful have blue eyes and blonde hair. This is a social institution which has been part of America’s culture since the beginning of the U.S. We must look a certain way, have a specific occupation, or live in a particular neighborhood if we are to fit into society. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison has captured these and other stigma's we place on ourselves and raise the question of, is these things the only way to be accepted and have some level of beauty in societies eyes?
We are raised in a society that tells us we are all equal, however that ideal is rarely practiced throughout our history. We only have to turn on the television or open a magazine to see who the adored people in our country are. Pecola believes that if she could have blue eyes then she would be accepted. "If she looked different, beautiful, maybe they'd say, 'why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes'" (46). Those eyes were the very definition of beauty and how if you have beauty society accepts you and treats you nicely. Pecola and her family represents those that strive to belong in a narrow minded society which one side of the story. Pauline is sort of the