Beauty and The Bluest Eye :: Bluest Eye Essays

Beauty and The Bluest pith   Toni Morrisons novel, The Bluest Eye contributes to the study of the American novel by bringing to motive slight an unflattering side of American history. The story of a young opprobrious girl named Pecola, growing up in Lorain, Ohio in 1941 clearly represents the point that the American Dream was not available to everyone. The world that Pecola inhabits adores blonde haired no-good eyed girls and boys. Black children are invisible in this world, not special, less than nothing. The theme that the color of your shinny somehow made you lesser was cultured by both whites and grims. White skin meant beauty and privilege and that head was not questioned at this time in history. The idea that the color of your skin somehow made you less of a person contaminated black the great unwasheds lives in many different ways. The taunts of schoolboys directed at Pecola clearly illustrate this fact It was their contempt for their own blackness t hat gave the first insult its teeth (65). This self hatred also possessed an undercurrent of anger and darkness that eventu all in ally led to the civil rights movement.   The characters in this book as come up as the time period mark a time in American history that played an important role in the ideas of equality and freedom. All of the elements on which this country were founded upon were twisted so they no longer applied to blacks and other minorities in this country. The life led by Pecola as well as others like her good or bad is a part of history that was experienced by many Americans in all parts of the country. While it is questionable whether total equality has been reached in this country, many ideas have changed for the better. This book is significant because it shows a different side to American literature as well as life. Morrison points out what has changed and what has stayed the same. While people are generally equal, there are still prejudice s in the idea of what is beautiful and who is worthy.