Beauty Is in The Eyes of The Beholder
Throughout the history of the United States, racism has been an ongoing atrocity that wreaks havoc on the lives of colored people, mainly African Americans. Racism deprives colored people of feeling beautiful in their own skin. Colored people were and felt inferior to whites in the 1950’s, leaving them to long for a different skin to live in. Not only was there racism coming from whites, but from the colored people themselves. Some felt as if they were in a higher status according to their job, associations, or etiquette. The novel that encompasses the racism mentioned is, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. The novel, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, takes place in a time of racism and discrimination in the South. Racism was not only from white Anglo-Saxons; there was internalized racism present between the colored people themselves. Morrison digs out the negative impact that mainstream white culture exerts on colored people, through the Breedlove family. Morrison makes a statement about the damage that internalized racism can do to a young developing girl like Pecola. The Freudian concepts that are presented within the story are displacement, suppression, and dissociation. Toni Morrison conveys her critique of society and its standards of beauty and family in the novel through the characters of Pecola, Pauline, and Geraldine.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, in, The Bluest Eye, that beholder is Pecola. She’s an adolescent female that is going through puberty and struggling with her self image. Pecola is repeatedly raped by her perverted father and neglected from her distant mother. These types of traumatic events that happen in her life can lead to psychological problems that will affect her adulthood. Pecola believes that her family, including herself, are ugly due to their skin’s complexion and facial features such as eyes. During, the 1950’s beauty standards for young girls were to look like Shirley Temple. This meant having light skin, light hair, and blue eyes. Throughout the novel, blue eyes are a prominent symbol that signifies beauty and happiness, especially to Pecola. Pecola, forms an obsession with having blue eyes. The beauty standards of the time, during gaining these blue eyes was a main focus, that would make her happy and feel beautiful.
“’My eyes.’
“What about your eyes?”
‘I want them blue.’ Soaphead pursed his lips, and let his tongue stroke a gold inlay. He thought it was at once the most fantastic and the most logical petition he had ever received. Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty.” (Morrison 167).
Evidently, Pecola wanted blue eyes so desperately that she went to Mr. Soaphead, a sort-of priest, to ask him to give her blue eyes. According to Freuds Lectures in Psycho-Analysis, “In the first place, it must be emphasized that Breuer’s patient, in almost all her pathogenic situations, was obliged to suppress a powerful emotion instead of allowing its discharge in the appropriate signs of emotion, words or actions” (2201). Pecola knew that her obsession of having blue eyes was not normal. Pecola did not allow her obsession with blue eyes to be known explicitly, she intentionally hid this desire within herself in hopes of not being judged or chastised for having such a thought. Eventually, Pecola “gains” her blue eyes and in having done so she develops an imaginary friend. In developing this friend, she feels the need to have validation of her blue eyes being beautiful and being the bluest. The creation of this imaginary friend can be considered what Freud would call dissociation. In his second lecture, Freud describes dissociation as one not being able to handle events in their life, and instead they disconnect from reality and form illusions (2210). This directly connects to Pecola’s situation because of her release from reality when talking to this imaginary friend as if it were real. All in all, Morrison uses Pecola’s character to portray the effects of racism and societies beauty standards on a young girl.
Pauline Breedlove is Pecola’s aforementioned distant and negligent mother. Pauline’s character allows us to see how beauty and familial standards affect more than just Pecola. When Pauline was pregnant, she longed to look like a white actress. “’I don’t believe I ever did get over that. There I was, five months pregnant, trying to look like Jean Harlow, and a front tooth gone. Everything went then. Look like I just didn’t care no more after that. I let my hair go back, plaited it up, and settled down to just being ugly.’” (Morrison 123). This portrays the very fact that Pauline desired to have the same beauty as Jean Harlow who happened to be a white actress. Still, the motif of white women being the symbol of beauty of the time, encompasses how racism degraded colored women into feeling they were not beautiful unless they were white. Ultimately, depicting Toni Morrison’s critique of how society affects colored people. Pauline can be seen suppressing her negative emotions she holds because of her family. Pauline can even be seen as displacing her hatred onto Cholly or Pecola, having nowhere else to put it. Pauline is not content with her family and longs for a family like the white one she takes care of. Societies standards of beauty and family at the time caused Pauline to long for more than she had. Pauline would never be content with the life she was given unless she looked like Harlow or had a white family.
“Why does shame and self-loathing become cruelty to the innocent?” a quote by Anne Rice, Merrick can be directly applied to Geraldine’s character. Geraldine is a middle-class African American woman who is a prime example in the novel of internalized racism and colorism. According to the article Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: A Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism, “ If the ultimate ‘enemy’ that shames and traumatizes African Americans is the racist white society, there are also more immediate and intimate enemies within the African American community and family” (1999, [End Page 158] 217; cf. Guerrero 1997, 29). This fortifies the very idea that there is a form of colorism and racism within African Americans themselves. As previously mentioned, there was an aspect of racism within colored people themselves. “White kids; his mother did not like him to play with niggers. She had explained to him the difference between colored people and niggers. They were easily identifiable. Colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud.” (Morrison 87). This example from the text depicts opinion on colored people, even though she is a colored person herself she believes that she is better than others. Geraldine is indeed racist to people who have the same complexion as her; she separates and isolates her family from anyone she deems to act or be a, “nigger”. It is clear that Geraldine also hates her own skin, she exemplifies self-hate, by having hate towards people with the same skin color as herself. According to, “Internalization of Negative Images: Self-Loathing as Portrayed in Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye.” Geraldine’s Case Study”, “Instead, by being an organic part of the culture that detests her, she learns to hate her dark skin, her poverty, otherness and funkiness. Therefore, Geraldine disparages, doubts and discredits the epitomes of her blackness and bitterly endeavors to eradicate it.” (Czajkowska 28).
In its entirety, The Bluest Eye, encompasses racism and discrimination during the 1950’s. There was internalized racism present between the colored people themselves. Morrison digs out the negative impact that mainstream white culture exerted on colored people, through the Breedlove family. Morrison makes a statement about the damage that internalized racism can do to the black community. The Freudian concepts that are presented within the story are displacement, suppression, and dissociation. Overall, Toni Morrison effectively conveys her critique of society and its standards of beauty and family in the novel through the characters of Pecola, Pauline, and Geraldine.
