In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye three young African American girl (among other members of their society) fight against a cultural that labels them as ugly, or even invisible. They are frequently compared to whiteness symbols and icons like Shirley Temple (a white movie star), Mary Jane’s face on candy packages, and the baby dolls that they are given and are expected love. By praising the white girls they see in the media and their local community, mothers contribute to a culture of self-hatred. The mothers of these girls are promoting a cycle of self-hatred and conformity to white standards of beauty by admiring the young white girls in their community and the media instead finding beauty in their black children. Pecola Breedlove is one character who tragically succumbs in this oppressive system, resulting in her losing her identity. Pecola sees beauty as a way to get the things she has always wanted: attention and love. She also hopes that it will help her achieve whiteness. Pecola believes that being white will solve her many problems.
Pecola’s quest for beauty is the story of her life. Her four-season experiences, which include a difficult environment at her school, home, and in the neighborhood, are documented. Her mother focuses all of her energies on her housekeeping job for a wealthy white family. Her father, an alcoholic, abuses her several times. Teachers do not pay attention to Pecola, but instead focus on Maureen Peal. Maureen Peal is described as a “high yellow dream child” with “long brown hair” (Morrison 48, 49). Pecola is also made fun of by her classmates, who are all black. Pecola is marginalized in a society that views whiteness as attractive and desirable. Pecola searches for beauty as she tries to find an answer to the question of “how can I make somebody love me?” She concludes that she must have blue-eyed eyes, and therefore, be white.
Pecola is unhappy because she believes that skin color and eye colour are linked directly to the ideal of beauty. Pecola can choose to reject the American culture’s emphasis on white beauty or to accept it. Pecola is forced to conform to this white ideal and try to attain it because of her harsh living conditions. She gives herself hope by wishing for blue-eyed eyes every day.
Pecola’s choice of symbols for beauty is not something she can achieve and will never be. Shirley Temple will always have yellow hair and a smile because she’s an actress. The dolls won’t change their skin or eyes because they aren’t people. Pecola is so self-conscious because she constantly compares herself to unreal things. Pecola cannot transform her life to the extent she wants to. Pecola will never achieve her goals because she is always trying to fit in with other people’s notions of beauty. She is convinced that blue eyed women are beautiful simply because society finds them attractive. Pecola wants to be accepted and loved by the world because of society’s acceptance. Pecola’s conformity to these ideals of society does not bring her true happiness, as the blue-eyed she thinks she is doesn’t exist.
At the beginning of the book, the passage taken from Dick and Jane Reader reveals the disparity between Pecola’s real world and white utopia. The passage is presented three more times. Each time the sentences get shorter, the spacing gets smaller, and finally, any sense of organization is gone. The boundaries are gone by the third paragraph. Pecola’s life is also ruined by the novel’s end.
Reader is most likely Pecola’s mother, the Breedloves. Mrs. Breedlove knocks Pecola to the ground in the kitchen when Pecola spills the cobbler. Then she turns and tries to pacify Polly, a white girl. The white girl who is not Mrs. Breedlove’s child is treated with compassion, while the black child is ignored. Pecola’s inverted reality is what makes her efforts to conform to the idealized white world of the book fail.
Pecola has a desire to have blue-eyed eyes. This would make her feel beautiful and help her overcome her ugliness. Maybe even change her parent’s behavior. Pecola idolizes all the white women of the 1940s. At the MacTeers, she drinks three quarts just to get a Shirley Temple, she buys Mary Janes for the blue-eyed girl in the wrapper picture, and at Soaphead Church she goes hoping he makes her eyes bright blue. Pecola’s misapprehension at the end of her novel shows that she truly believes she is blue-eyed.