The Bluest Eye Theme Essay

The Bluest Eye is a novel by Toni Morrison that takes place at the end of the Great Depression in Ohio. In the novel, the MacTeer family first takes in a young boarder named Pecola Breedlove after her father Cholly has attempted to burn down the family home, but she is soon reunited with her own family despite their hardships. The MacTeer family are essential to the novel because one of the young daughters, Frieda, seems to suffer from a much less severe racism than most other characters, going as far as to destroy a white doll she is given. Cholly drinks, and Cholly and Pecola’s mother Pauline are physically abusive towards each other, leading her brother Sammy to run away from the home. A main theme in the novel is that Pecola believes traditionally white features such as blue eyes are seen as more beautiful than her own black features and often longs for them, thinking it will make her life easier if she was prettier, and other characters in the book, like
boys in her neighborhood and her short-term friend Maureen, make fun of her due to her appearance. Pecola is raped by her father, and when she tries to tell this to her mother, Pauline thinks she has made it up and physically assaults her. Believing life would be better with blue eyes, she goes to Soaphead Church and asks him for blue eyes, but instead of granting her wish, she is forced to help him kill a dog he dislikes. The daughters of the MacTeer family, Frieda and Claudia, where Pecola was a boarder in the beginning of the book discover that Pecola has been impregnated by her father’s rape, and unlike most others who are aware of the situation, want Pecola’s baby to live. They give up money they have been saving to plant marigold seeds, believing that if the flowers live, then so will Pecola’s child. However, the marigolds don’t bloom, and when Pecola’s child is born prematurely, it dies at birth. Shortly after, Pecola is raped by her father for a second time and when he is found dead in a warehouse after running away, Pecola goes insane and believes her wish has been fulfilled and she now has the bluest eyes. I believe that Toni Morrison’s message in this novel is that whiteness should not be a standard of beauty.
The character Pecola idolizes the young actress Shirley Temple and believes that if she had blue eyes the hardships in her life will be ended and she will be respected and even showered with affection, and lighter-skinned Maureen is seen as cuter than the dark-skinned girls. The black mothers in this novel, such as Pauline Breedlove and Geraldine, understand the general consensus is that white is superior, and seem to take their hatred for this out on Pecola, with Geraldine blaming Pecola for killing her cat because she is a “nasty black bitch,” when it was actually her son Junior. The only character who appears to disagree with this racism is Claudia and Frieda MacTeer. Claudia believes that Pecola’s baby will be beautiful despite being black. However, several times, it is implied that racial self-loathing the characters face is brought on by maturation, and Claudia will soon face the issue
herself. As a young black girl, I was fascinated by this novel. Despite taking place during the Great Depression these are still issues that people of color face each day, myself included. If the longing for blue eyes was replaced with wishing for naturally straight hair, this novel could be about me. People longing for white features has not ended, with hair relaxers and skin lightening creams being advertised to young black girls every day. It seems insane to me that the issues in Toni Morrison’s historic novel are still relevant to people now, as most of the problems featured in the other books on the list have been solved.