Theme
Explanation
Girlhood
In
The Bluest Eye, girlhood is a common
theme throughout the book. The main characters, Pecola Breedlove, Freida MacTeer,
and Claudia MacTeer, all experience girlhood throughout “Autumn.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines girlhood
“as the state or time of being a girl.” Pecola Breedlove experiences a
transition from girlhood to womanhood. She starts her menstrual cycle. In a
woman’s life, when one starts their period, it means you have transitioned into
womanhood and puberty begins. It also means you can bear children. In the text
it states, ““That’s minstratin’.” “What’s that?” “You know.” “Am I going to
die?” “Noooo. You wont die. It just means you can have a baby!”” (Morrison 27,28) . In this scene, we
see that Pecola’s period has started because her dress is stained with blood.
This scene shows a very important piece of information. She has transitioned
from girlhood to woman hood. She can now have children.
~Alyssa
Beauty
Standards
A
beauty standard is the idea of having the socially constructed notion that
physical attractiveness is one of women's most important assets and something
all women should strive to achieve and maintain. The narrative element of
beauty standards in The Bluest Eye is
that if you live up to society’s idea of what being pretty and beautiful looks
like, then you get treated the right way. One of the main characters, Pecola
Breedlove, has trouble realizing her beauty and thinks that her appearance is
the root to all her problems including her family problems. “If she looked
different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too.
Maybe they’d say,” Why look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in
front of those pretty eyes.”” (Morrison Pg.46). Pecola feels that the reason
she gets treated the way she does is because of the way she looks. She feels
that people who are beautiful, don’t get treated the way she gets treated.
~A’Maya
Family
“Geraldine
did not allow her baby, Junior, to cry. As long as his needs were physical, she
could meet them—comfort and satiety. Geraldine did not talk to him, coo to him,
or indulge him in kissing bouts, but she saw that every other desire was
fulfilled” (Morrison 86).
The
theme of family is significant because it shows that growing up with a strong
or weak family dynamic effects how you treat people outside your household and
how you expect to be treated. For example, Geraldine raises Junior in a manner
that results in him being cruel to others. He shows no empathy to others’ pain
and lacks a sense of caring for certain relationships between people. His
family background not only affects him, but it also affects how Pecola is
treated when she visits his house. Pecola, comes from a weak family dynamic as
well, but unlike Junior she does not seek to hurt other people. She wishes to disappear.
~Yama
Symbol
Explanation
Dolls
“It
had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big,
the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue eyed Baby Doll. From the
clucking sounds of adults I knew that the doll represented what they thought
was my fondest wish. I was bemused with the thing itself, and the way it looked.
What was I supposed to do with it? Pretend I was its mother? I had no interest
in babies or the concept of motherhood. I was interested only in humans my own
age and size, and could not generate any enthusiasm at the prospect of being a
mother” (Morrison 20-21).
From
the time Claudia is very young, she notices a pattern. She often receives white
baby dolls as gifts. She does not like them and often destroys them. Her family
observes this behavior and admonishes her. Yet, Claudia’s behavior is quite
logical. She doesn’t like the doll, and she wants to know if there is anything
inside the doll that makes is loveable. For Claudia, the doll represents
socialization. It is meant to teach her how to behave in the future as a mother
and wife, but Claudia doesn’t want to do those things. She just wants to play.
Morrison is cleverly teaching the reader about socialization. How are children
taught to accept specific social roles in the community such as mother and
wife? What happens when children reject those roles?
~Dr.
H
Blue Eyes
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
focuses on its main character Pecola Breedlove who is a young girl living in
Lorain, Ohio. In Morrison’s preface, the reader seems to be thrown in medias
res -the middle of things- as Morrison starts Pecola’s story with her
pregnancy. Pecola’s pregnancy is the result of ongoing abuse and neglect from
her father Cholly and her mother Mrs. Breedlove. With this, Morrison seems to
be giving her readers a forewarning; daring them to either close the book or
keep reading. Due to her abuse and the level of racism and anti-blackness in
the period in which Pecola lives she is forced to come up with coping
mechanisms to help her get through the day.
One of these coping mechanisms that is vitally important to
central themes of the book is Pecola’s gravitation to blue eyes. Wanting blue
eyes is her response to the internalized racism within her family and her
community. At Pecola’s young age she sees the privileges and standards of
beauty that come with being white. “Each night, without fail, she prayed for
blue eyes.” (Morrison, 46). Although readers may think Pecola’s desire for blue
eyes may be a wish to be white, it is not. She knows that white people are
portrayed in the media as having perfect loving families and that they are the
standard for what is pretty.
Pecola’s wish for blue eyes can be equated to her same wish
for a “normal” family. The heartbreaking side to this wish is that “She [will]
only see what there [is] to see: the eyes of other people.” (Morrison, 47).
What Morrison is trying to teach her readers is that if a person focuses on other
people’s perceptions of them, they will never see themselves for who they are;
they will always have dreams of things that are unattainable.
~Zaria
Other
Themes to Consider
Ugliness,
Self-Hatred, Love, Race, The Great Migration, Poverty
Other
Symbols to Consider
Gardens,
Flowers (Marigolds and Dandelions), Nu Nile hair oil, Mary Jane (candy), Mr.
Bojangles, Shirley Temple vs. Jane Withers (old Hollywood stars), Greta Garbo
and Ginger Rogers (old Hollywood stars), outdoors
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