Preview

The Bluest Eye Self-Hatred

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
515 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Bluest Eye Self-Hatred
Self-hatred in the Bluest Eye After reading the Bluest Eye, the readers will be impressed by the atmosphere of depression and anxiety. One main reason for that is the self-hatred in the story, which is the black people's common psychological condition. Almost each black people in the story have the feeling of self-hatred. And the self-hatred deep inside their heart usually revealed in different indirect ways. For instance, Claudia could not help dismembering and destroying the doll with blue eyes and blonde hair because she thought herself was ugly and don't have the beautiful things the doll have. Pecola felt guilty that it's her ugly appearance, in her opinion, that made her brother not take her when he ran away when their parents were fighting. …show more content…
When the black people are experiencing the direct oppression, they are internally influence by white people. As Pauline, influenced by the Hollywood movies, accepted the Hollywood idealized representations of absolute beauty and then began to judge beauty based on these standards. Overwhelmed by the strong influence of white people, black people was gradually effected by white people's values till they totally unwarily accepted them. Then they judge everything including things about black people themselves by the white people's standards. But according to white people's values, many things in black people didn't conform. Then the problem is caused. From the white people's point of view, black people regard themselves abnormal. They considered them self ugly, evil. Self-hatred is finally caused. This is how Claudia hated herself and released it on the toll after comparing herself and the white beauty

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Angry Eye- Essay

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Discrimination occurs when a person is treated less favourably because of their racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. Jane Elliott decided to use role-play a situation portraying the discrimination that a person of different colour would be constantly exposed to in day-to-day life.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Implicit messages that being white (meaning trying to fit with whites), is everywhere, leaning that white supremacy is good. First, the way it is demonstrated is that when Claudia got a white baby as a gift, she was comparing it to herself. She didn’t like it because, she looked down at her skin color. She was taught that white is better than black skin. Now with the idealization of Shirley Temple, the consensus that light-skinned Maureen is better looking than other black girls, the ideal of white beauty in movies that she’s sees, ands Pauline Breedlove’s preference for the little white girl she works for her daughter. Adult women have learned to not like their own bodies, and teach this hatred to their children. Mrs. Breedlove shares that the conviction that Pecola is ugly, and lighter-skinned Geraldine curses Pecola’s dark skin tome. So Claudia remains free from this worship of whiteness, and she imagines Pecola’s unborn baby as in its blackness. The hint is that once Claudia reaches adolescence, she will learn to hate herself…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    To begin, "The Bluest Eye" is Toni Morrison's first novel. This novel tells a story of an African American girl's desire for the bluest eyes, which is the symbol for her of what it means to feel beautiful and accepted in society (American). In the novel, women suffer from the racial oppression, but they also suffer from violation and harsh actions brought to them by men (LitCharts). Male oppression is told all throughout the story, but the theme of women and feminity with the actions of male oppression over the women reaches its horrible climax when one…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Being black, which led to prejudice was a main theme in this entire book. There was not only a prejudice between whites and blacks, but between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned blacks. Lighter-skinned blacks tried to act as if they were higher class to the darker skinned blacks.…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A three-hundred-year history of slavery in America led to a psychological oppression of black people in America, which still exists today. Toni Morrison decides not to delineate how white dominance has affected African-Americans culturally yet she challenges American standards of white beauty and how that beauty is socially constructed within our culture. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison uses society’s image of beauty to demonstrate how the value of black beauty is diminished by racial prejudices and dilemmas through the lives of Pecola Breedlove, Claudia and Freida MacTeer, whose young minds were affected by this internalized idea that the color of your skin determined how perfect or worthy you were seen, not to yourself and on the inside, but…

    • 125 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Revolutionary War Summary

    • 592 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Much more than a revolt against British taxes and trade regulations, the American Revolution was the first modern revolution. It marked the first time in history that a people fought for their independence in the name of certain universal principles such as rule of law, constitutional rights, and popular sovereignty.…

    • 592 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Blacker the Berry

    • 3046 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Thoughts of her skin and family consume Emma Lou, even at her high school graduation. She is the only "Negro pupil in the entire school,"[1] and this fact is made even more obvious by the white graduation robes the graduates wear, to the dismay of Emma Lou. The only thing Emma Lou can concern herself with is the color of her skin. Her graduation ceremony takes a back seat to thoughts about her skin.…

    • 3046 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bluest Eye is a complex novel written by Toni Morrison, an African American literary theorist. Morrison evokes a society still plagued by the premise of slavery and the exposes this mode of white inferiority through The Bluest Eye. “Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe”, Morrison endows these last couple of sentences with a lyrical quality that makes the readers truly understand the depth of Cholly’s character and the “freeness” he experiences. Morrison initially introduces Cholly Breedlove as the antagonist, a drunk and very abusive father; any man who would beat his wife, set his house on fire and rape his daughter couldn’t…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bibliography: elton, Danielle. "Fear and Self-Loathing in Black America." The Black Snob. Blogspot.com. 9 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2009. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Penguin Group, 1994. Print.…

    • 1434 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Bluest Eye

    • 755 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The characters in “The Bluest Eye” are exposed to social standards and norms. The book opens with an excerpt from the book “Dick and Jane”. This excerpt represents the perfect, ideal, suburban, white family. Each chapter in the book also begins with a quote from this book. This makes the lives of the black families in the book seem worse. The comparison of Dick and Jane’s family and life to that of the black families in the book demonstrates how the black families would compare themselves to the white families. The blacks in “The Bluest Eye” feel conflicted because their self-identity does not match up with society’s social norms. An example of this is when Geraldine does everything she can to be that same as white families. She straightens her hair, uses lotion so she does not become ashy, has a steady income, and keeps in house in exceptional shape. But no matter how similar her life style is to theirs, she still does not feel as if she fits in because she knows she is black. This theme can be seen in everyday life when comparing the first and second floor cafeterias at Osbourn Park. It is more usual for white people to sit on the second floor while more colored people sit on the first floor. No one said the setup had to be that way, but it is normal for the students and it is what they are used to.…

    • 755 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bye, Beautiful

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Firstly, Sandy’s perspective is used to represent the consequences of racism on Pat Read, with her tending to be isolated from the rest of the town. Secondly, characterisation is used to reveal the effect of racism on May Read, for example May’s sadness and sense of unworthiness. Finally, the physical effect of racism is shown on Billy Read through the symbol of his death. Considering these points, Julia Lawrinson depicts the effects of racism in Bye, Beautiful on the Read family through use of perspective, characterisation and…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Glass Castle

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages

    3. Erma always spoke negatively about black people whenever around the family, including children. When Erma upsets Jeannette with her racist talk, Jeannette lashes back by telling her that she shouldn’t refer to black people with the “N” word and that black people are just like white people. This irritates Erma. Some people in our society still stick to that traditional view about certain races. This blind prejudice sometimes leads to violence but is always…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Racial and gender prejudice are the main prejudices, and that is quite obvious and quickly evidenced by the way women and girls are treated. It portrays how women were beaten and raped in that society at that time by their own people in the community. There is also prejudice against what is considered to be ugly or beautiful. Celie had a bright wide, beautiful, smile,\; but was made to feel that it was ugly and that she was ugly. Celie and Netty were sisters and yet because of their looks, one was more accepted than the other by their father. The father considered that Celie was ugly, and so should therefore not be as highly regarded as Netty. The father thought nothing of giving up Celie to the first man that came calling even though the man was after Netty, the younger of the two sisters. Netty and Celie’s father told the man that Netty would never be available to him, yet he gave up Celie so readily.…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    She developed self-esteem problems because of her large frame and nappy hair and was not considered pretty; also, racism’s messages of southern black females being inferior and that they lacked control of their future.…

    • 1682 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    To start off, the characters of Stella, Stanley and Blanche are showing prejudices and discrimination by their actions, behaviour and the way they speak and act. The first clear example is the racial inequality shown, firstly by Blanche with Eunice. Although she lives in the same place as white people and she’s integrated, Blanche doesn’t treat her as an equal saying “What I meant was I’d like to be left alone”. From the beginning we can see that Eunice is serving and asking Blanche while she is answering rudely and not wanting to be helped, responding with monosyllables as “Yes”, “No”, “Thanks”. Blanche doesn’t want to be related or either talk with a black woman, showing the racism of the time.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays