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No matter who we are – our skin color, race, or religion – we are all beautiful. However, society fails to accept that and only portrays white beauty. There is an image of how to be beautiful to fit into society’s norms and their category of beauty. Society teaches that beauty is racist, valuing white beauty; white beauty will always be at the top of the social hierarchy. It sets standards for women to look a certain way; if you are black, lighter skin would be better, thinner, and blue-eyed for you to achieve the beauty that society portrays. In ‘The Bluest Eye’ by Morrison, a little girl named Pecola tries so hard to be accepted by society. One thing she desires most is blue eyes; she believes that having blue eyes will solve all her problems. ‘The Bluest Eye’ by Morrison conveys the theme of idealized white beauty through the symbols of the Shirley Temple cup, baby dolls, the Fisher’s home, and blue eyes.
Shirley Temple is a white girl who is a blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl, and Pecola looks up to her because she wants to be as beautiful as her. This was someone whom she believed had a perfect life, and she longed for a life like hers. For example, Morrison states, ‘We knew she was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirley’s face’ (23). Pecola drinks out of the Shirley Temple cup because she believes if she drinks out of the cup, somehow she will become beautiful. The milk is white, and by drinking white milk, she believes her skin color will change. By drinking through this cup, she somehow believes she will achieve blue eyes and will be pretty. Pecola looked up to Shirley Temple because her face was on the cup, and she was beautiful enough to have her face on a cup. But for Pecola, that was hard to achieve because society only valued white culture. Another key point is when Claudia receives a white doll with blue eyes and blonde hair for Christmas but is not happy with what she has and she ripped it apart. As stated in ‘The Bluest Eye,’ ‘This is beautiful, and if you are on this day worthy you may have it’ (21). Claudia acts this way because she knows that she could never look like the doll or look like the white children who are considered beautiful. Both the doll and Shirley Temple cup play a huge role in Claudia’s and Pecola’s lives because they portray to them that they can only be beautiful if they are white. Claudia feels that a black doll just wouldn’t be equivalent to children wanting a white baby doll.
Pauline deals with a lot of internalized hatred, and that hatred is directly connected to her skin color and features. The Fisher’s Home symbolized the life and beauty she would never have. Pauline found beauty in the Fisher’s home that she never did in her own house. She saw a family who loved one another, unlike her own. Pauline’s family was ‘ugly, poor,’ and black, while the Fishers were seen as beautiful, rich, and, most importantly, they were white. Morrison states, ‘the dark edges that made the daily life with the Fishers lighter, more delicate, more lovely. Here she could arrange things, clean things. Here she found beauty, order, cleanliness, and praise’ (127). Morrison describes the beauty Pauline found while working for the Fishers. The Fishers had everything that Pauline had been looking for; here, she found everything she had been trying to find in her own home but couldn’t. Even Pauline’s insecurities, like her foot, became something that she felt proud of. She felt more confident about her flaws. Furthermore, working for the Fishers, Pauline found a sense of power and being respected by the community. As seen in ‘The Bluest Eye,’ ‘The creditors and service people who humiliated her when she went to them on her behalf respected her, were even intimidated by her when she spoke for the Fishers. Power, praise, and luxury were hers in the household’ (128). Pauline doesn’t get respected when she orders food if it is for her family because she’s poor and black, but since she is ordering the food for the Fishers, she is respected because the Fishers are white and rich. The symbol of the Fisher’s home helps develop the theme of idealized white beauty because the Fisher’s home gives her power, respect, and beauty that she never found in her home. Thus, Fisher’s being white and her working with a white family gives her the treatment a white person would receive. Pauline began to idealize white beauty.
Pecola tries to obtain the beauty of society, but it’s difficult when society sets standards on what beauty is. Pecola wants to fit in society and wants to be known as beautiful. She wants people to look at her and see her as beautiful so that she can believe she is beautiful. Growing up in a society that admires blue eyes allows people to crave blue eyes so people will see her as beautiful, and she will feel beautiful. As an illustration, ‘Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl treasured.’ Pecola has to deal with the standards of society to achieve being beautiful. Society portrays beauty as being white and having blue eyes. Another example, ‘Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty… Anger that he was powerless to help her. Of all the wishes people had brought him – money, love, revenge – this seemed to him the most poignant and the most deserving fulfillment. A little black girl who wanted to rise out of the pity of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes’ (174). Pecola went to Soaphead Church and demanded that he grant her the blue eyes she always wanted. However, this is impossible to get because during that time you could not change one eye’s color. To emphasize how Pecola internalizes white beauty by wanting blue eyes and if she has blue eyes like the white girls, she will be just like them and be beautiful. Pecola wants to fit in society because she longs for blue eyes. If she had blue eyes, all the problems she faces will go away. She believes that her family will become perfect just like the Dick and Jane storybooks. People will begin to see her as beautiful and will love her. She is affected by the standards of society by white culture.
White beauty plays a huge role in society when that’s the only thing that society considers as beautiful. The symbols of s Shirley Temple’s cup, baby dolls, the Fisher’s home, and blue eyes help convey the theme of idealized white beauty. These African American girls try to achieve beauty, but because they are black, they face many expectations to be considered beautiful. They feel pressured, and some even tend to hate themselves because the color of their skin isn’t the same as those whom they look up to. Our desires are shaped by what we see; our environment impacts what we want. In the same way, Pecola wants what she sees others have, those with perfect lives to her. The reality is that some of these expectations that are upheld are unrealistic.
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