Seeing Vs Being Seen

      The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison. The novel is set in Lorain, Ohio, and the protagonist of the novel is Pecola, a young African-American girl who was suffering because of her dark skin. The narrator of the novel is Claudia MacTeer. 

      The protagonist, Pecola Breedlove, an African American girl, lived in an abusive house. Pecola, who is eleven years old, associates beauty and social acceptance with whiteness, and wishes to have "the bluest eye.". The race and gender are the main ideas of the novel. The Bluest Eye is about how white beauty ideals affect the lives of black women and girls. The white baby doll Claudia is given and Pauline Breedlove's preference of the little white girl she works for over her daughter are both messages that whiteness was superior at the time. 

        Implicit messages that demonstrate the superiority of whiteness were found everywhere at that time, starting from the cinema that lacked the representation of black beauty and promoted whiteness as the ideal beauty standard. Using Shirley Temple as an example, Morrison is telling us how white women always set trends of beauty, causing black women to hate their blackness and act their hatred out on their kids and their own people. 

         Mrs. Breedlove believed that Pecola is ugly because she is black, but Geraldine’s light skin curses Pecola’s blackness. Women at that time learnt to hate their black skin and natural appearances, hence Pecola’s desire was having blue eyes because they symbolize the beauty and happiness that she associated with the white world. She thinks that she would be loved and respected if she was a white girl because it was all her society was about. 

         The Bluest Eye is now acknowledged as an American classic and a significance of the African American experiences after the Great Depression, despite being completely ignored when it was first published. 

         During the Depression, black people's suffering was doubled, as they suffered from discrimination alongside extreme poverty. 

         Many black people were dismissed from their job for the sake of hiring white men instead. The deteriorated economic status of blacks was evident in the miserable state of Cholly Breedlove, expelling Pecola's family from their house, and also the drafty and dark house of the MacTeer. Morrison is implying that the whole society has taken a share in causing this miserable life to the black community. 

         In conclusion, the Bluest Eye is a novel about the racial oppression of black women and racism which is faced by the African American women in society which accepts the white culture only.