The final chapter of The Bluest Eye opens with Pecola talking to her imaginary friend, she cannot stop herself from looking in the mirror at and at the blue eyes she believes she has. She accuses her imaginary friend and Mrs. Breedlove of being jealous of her eyes. Pecola also believes her ostracizement from the community is a result of them being prejudiced against her eyes, which are bluer then theirs. In reality, Pecola’s obsession with white beauty standards and the trauma she has experienced caused a psychotic break. Pecola is isolated from the community, not because of her blue eyes but instead because they hate what she reveals about them.
Through the rest of the conversation we can see how Pecola perceives her rape. Although, she can’t seem to fully understand what happened, trying to figure out if Cholly loved Mrs. Breedlove or forced her into sex. The imaginary friend continued to pry about the rape, showing its power over her mind and thoughts. She wants to distract herself and provide relief from it by talking about her eyes. However, now she becomes insecure about whether or not they are blue enough. Perhaps, showing her realization that her obsession to achieve blue eyes and white beauty is fruitless due to her natural blackness.
Her isolation from the community becomes more literal when she moves to the outskirts of town. The town now uses Pecola as a reference to compare themselves to in which they always come out on top. Claudia, who is narrating this part of the book, knows that this is only to cover the townspeople’s own self-hatred and insecurity.
Saying the idea of love at the end of The Bluest Eye is complicated would be under selling it. Throughout the book the black characters love of idealized white beauty deforms the black characters. (I need to say I do not, in any way, think love and rape can ever be connected. Rape is about power, lust, and hate. Rape is never about love. That being said, in this novel they wanted to connect love with rape.) Cholly’s love combined with anger allows him to rape his daughter. However, Claudia, who is not as exposed to racism, loves both Pecola and her baby, wanting them both to live, she tells Pecola’s story with compassion that the other characters lack. She uses a metaphor about the earth and flowers to say that fault of these outcomes to due to the racist world they live in and the issue of racism is a huge issue that needs to be dealt and cannot be destroyed by pointing out on racist at a time.

In “Not So Fast, Dick and Jane: Reimagining Childhood and Nation in the Bluest Eye,” Werrlein references Berlant’s idea of “surplus corporeality,” which is essentially the idea that a highly visible aspect of a subject’s body makes them vulnerable to rejection by others. Werrlein then goes on to argue that Pecola’s body embodies this “surplus.” I was especially intrigued by this idea in relation to our previous discussions of invisibility. The Invisible Man, for example, is invisible in the sense that many people he interacts with fail to see beyond his identity as fulfillment of their racial tropes. One might say that only his black body is visible to those who use him, who fail to see the thinking and feeling person within.

Similarly, Werrlein argues that Pecola has a highly visible body, so her internal struggles fail to be recognized by her community. She points to Pecola’s interaction with white immigrant grocer Mr. Yacobowski, who displays a “total absence of human recognition” (48). When he asks her what she would like to buy, he sees through her rather than looking at her. Pecola believes it is “the [her] blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes” (49). Her blackness is her surplus, it is associated with ugliness, and it is represented by her dark eyes. These eyes stand in opposition to the blue eyes of a white little girl that she longs for.

Other characters in The Bluest Eye also long to eliminate their surpluses: namely, as Werrlein notes, Geraldine, Maureen, and Soaphead. Both Geraldine and Maureen insult Pecola, perhaps because she represents the black part of themselves that they try to suppress. Morrison describes the “funk” that Geraldine and some other black bourgeoisie women try to hide as “the dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide nature of human emotions” (83). This description implies that the “surplus” is not actually a problem at all; it is simply a full expression of emotion that should be accepted and even celebrated. This characterization is reminiscent of Zora Neale Hurston’s praise of her blackness as something that allows her to fully experience music, whereas her white companion does not possess this privilege.

Soaphead also wishes to eliminate his black “surplus,” as he comes from a long familial tradition of assimilation. His characterization as a ruthless and destructive pedophile who not only rapes little girls, but also forces one (Pecola) to murder a dog, paints him as the enemy. Not only is the attempt to suppress “surplus” useless, it also breeds resentment and internal deterioration. Even the innocent Pecola cannot cope with the white beauty ideals suffocating her, and descends into psychosis.

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye focuses on how young black girls were affected by white-dominated culture in the 1940s, and how it eventually altered their mentalities in unchangeable ways. Most significantly, is that of Pecola Breedlove. Cultural icons such as Shirley Temple and the many blue-eyed, blonde dolls and actresses of the 1940s do not only define her perception of beauty but guide the way in which she views herself and the world around her. Even at the close of the novel, after years of emotional and physical abuse have truly taken their toll, that blue-eyed fantasy still remains with her. As a reader, this raises one significant question, would Pecola’s life had been happier if everything around her hadn’t been constantly making her feel ugly? If there had been a black Shirley Temple to look up to?

Constantly bombarded by images of white American beauty, it isn’t hard to imagine the way in which this deepened Pecola’s insecurities. However, even in today’s contemporary society many young girls are still affected by pop culture’s ideals in similar yet very different ways. One need only walk through a grocery store aisle or log onto Instagram and they’re sure to find some sort of photoshopped, idealized bombshell to compare themselves to. However, our society has certainly improved since the 1940s in the fact that young black girls have a plethora of beautiful black woman to look up to. Pecola, on the other hand, from a young age is told that she is unattractive since she looks nothing like cute white girls like “Jane”. Pecola can’t help but believe what she is told, as not only are there no beautiful young black girls in the media, but even her own mother deems her ugly.

In reference to Pecola’s treasured Mary Jane candies Morrison states, “Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking out of a world of clean comfort…To Pecola they are simply pretty” (50). Pecola’s love for this candy is multilayered, it is not only about her yearning for blue eyes or this romanticization of white life, but an obsession with whiteness that she can’t seem to shake. Throughout the novel we’re introduced to various characters who grapple with similar struggles, Claudia comes to love Shirley Temple despite her initial hatred, and Pecola’s mother dedicates her life to working in a white home as if she is playing a part in a fantasy dollhouse. However, Pecola is affected by white culture in ways that are deeper and more harmful than the rest of the novel’s characters. She seems to be a character who is born with an inherent sense of insecurity, not only due to the way she is mentally beaten down by her parents but from what seems to be a simple characteristic of hers. It isn’t uncommon for one to be insecure or unsure about themselves. However, her innate sense of insecurity combined with a lack of any representation of black beauty to hold onto makes for a deadly combination. Throughout the novel we see Pecola’s blue-eyed obsession affect her psychologically in ways that obstruct her from living a truly happy life.

Pecola’s constant yearning to look different has its clear negative repercussions, however, it also strangely serves as a way to uplift her mood in certain situations. Each chapter that concerns Pecola or one of the Breedloves begins with a rambled phrase such as “SEEFATHERHEISBIGANDSTRONG” in reference to the seemingly perfect Dick and Jane lifestyle. These inclusions in the novel can be interpreted in various ways, however in multiple parts of the novels they appear as some sort of coping mechanism of Pecola’s, Similar to the way in which her mom garners her happiness from the white household she serves, no matter how dismal Pecola’s situation may be, she always has her white idealizations to fill her mind with. In her journal article “Not so Fast, Dick and Jane: Reimagining Childhood and Nation in the Bluest Eye” Werrlein states, “The Dick and Jane books in particular exist almost entirely outside of history…They therefore treat American childhood as an abstraction that excludes all but white middle-class children” (58).  Werrlein touches on the ways in which the Dick and Jane books, which were highly popular in the 1940s, created a romanticized sense of white life in American culture while simultaneously dismissing the experiences of non-white families. Young black girls such as Pecola who flipped through these books in school unknowingly find their minds shaped by these images, by the shiny and colorful children that appear as the ideal group of society. If there had been a black variation of Dick and Jane, there is the lingering chance that Pecola’s view of herself and her family may have been different.

One can blame Pecola’s upbringing, her lack of friends, her inherent insecurity, or multiple other factors for the tragic way in which her childhood ends at the conclusion of the novel. However, it is truly possible that growing up as a young insecure girl without seeing happy black households on TV or black female icons, on top of being told every day at school that “black is ugly”, can take a true emotional toll on a young girl. If Pecola had grown up in our current decade, with someone who looks like her to look up in the media, it likely would’ve transformed her view on beauty and her obsession with “blue eyes”.

How Self-Worth is Determined

Tony Morrison’s “Bluest Eye “ highlights yet again how society view little black girls and their family.Beauty and self worth is a concept which one gain from within.Pecola who struggles with finding  acceptance and self -worth sees herself as one of the ugliest black girl in the community .In this novel it’s arguable that Morrison as shown that black young girls in society are forced to accept that worthiness is given to only girls who look like white doll , with blue eyes, have light skin and have blond hair.According to Morrison the world is teaching little black girls about themselves in that of which it places and an image in their minds that for them to live up to expectations of society they must be this angelic picture of a perfect child wit the color of  a shirley temple .The world has done this because it has constantly place black girls as outcast due the color of their skin thus implying the racist traits and ecnomic privelges .

Furthermore Morison argues that little black girls are drawn to the ideas that society place on them they are victimized and in desperate need to find self-correction wanting acceptance and love given to little white girls with yellow haired and blue eyes. Pecola wants to be white as she believes whitness brings physical beauty and worthy of love . For example , “ Three quarts of milk .Thats what was in that ice box yesterday “(38).Pecola drinks milk because she wants to be white and feel a sense of whiteness .Black to Pecola is being ugly as blackness was taught to hr by her mother of unworthy of love , her desire of Shirley Temple is a way in which she wants to be beautiful  .

Pecola’s attempt to finding beauty and value in herself was once crushed by the clerk whom is a representation of society .For example , “ Then Pecola “ looks up at the clerk and sees the total absence of human recognition “(48).Dandelions , weeds/flowers are symbols used by society to determine beauty and elf worth . While flowers represents beauty society ses weeds/dandelions as ugly unworthy no value and that’s what the Clerk saw Pecola as less than human , this reflects how society sees Pecola .Pecola’s interaction with the white clerk dandelions are not human ,thus showing that Pecola and many other young black girls are forced to accept that they are ugly and not human , no values unworthy of love and recognition.Morrison suggest that self-esteem even in the absence of society or racial privilege is to stop believing in false things present to you acceptance is key acknowledging who you are that you are appreciated .Also the comfort of family allows little black girls to feel worthy of love even when the world say she is not.

Toni Morrison, in The Bluest Eye, spends far more time in the novel with those surrounding Pecola Breedlove, who we must take to be the book’s subject, than with the main character herself. For the most part, Morrison focuses on showing her audience how people react to and treat Pecola rather than giving her audience concrete insight into how Pecola reacts to the world. By the end of the novel, this proves to be an extremely effective method of characterization of Pecola herself.

Pecola is shown to be a pitiable character throughout The Bluest Eye. We are introduced to her when Claudia explains that “Mama had told us two days earlier that a “case” was coming—a girl who had no place to go” (16). Here, because Pecola has no place to go, she is less than a person. She is merely a case, something for Claudia’s mother not truly to take care of or help, but to deal with. Pecola is constantly being overlooked in this way, seen especially by the adults around her as a problem rather than a person, whose own problems are too insignificant for anyone else to bother with. When she encounters the boy Junior and ends up at his mercy, and his mother comes home, Geraldine too refuses to have any real consideration for Pecola’s plight. Instead, she lumps Pecola into the population of poor African Americans with which she is familiar and which she sees as deeply inferior to herself and calls her a black bitch before kicking her out. Through Geraldine’s eyes, we see why Pecola is a problem for the affluent members of society, who don’t truly have to concern themselves with her as Claudia and Frieda’s mother does but who let themselves be bothered by Pecola’s (and others in her community’s) mere existence. She ‘recognizes’ Pecola— “They were everywhere […] They sat in little rows on street curbs, crowded into pews at church, taking space from the nice, neat colored children; they clowned on the playground, broke things in dime stores, ran in front of you on the street, made ice slides on the sloped sidewalks in winter” (92).

Pecola’s own concerns, as they are presented, have a limited scope— she’s mostly worried about the fact that she’s ugly. Crucial to understanding Pecola’s character is that the fact of her ugliness is never questioned. As far as the audience should be concerned, Pecola is ugly. Morrison does not leave any room in the text for the possibility that the story might find its way to a place where someone sees Pecola and finds her to be beautiful. Her only experience in the world of the novel is that of everyone, even her peers, thinking that she is ugly. The first time in the novel when the story is told from Pecola’s perspective, we find her trying to make herself disappear so as not to have to deal with her family anymore. And she blames her ending up with an abusive family on the fact that she’s ugly. “As long as she looked the way she did, as long as she was ugly, she would have to stay with these people” (45). We start to understand the impact that everyone’s perception of Pecola has on Pecola’s mindset, that without validation from anyone in her life all she wants is to reduce herself to nothing.

Because she is constantly thinking about her physical appearance, Pecola, like the adults in her life, seems to delegitimize the more obvious struggles in her life. The women who gossip about Pecola after her father impregnates her have no sympathy for her; “They were disgusted, amused, shocked, outraged, or even excited by the story. But we listened for the one who would say, “Poor little girl” or, “Poor baby,” but there was only head-wagging where those words should have been” (190). And Pecola, in the novel’s final chapter, won’t even talk with her imaginary friend about the fact of her pregnancy. She’s only concerned with her eyes, which she is convinced have been turned blue. In this way, she refuses care even from herself, because she has been taught by those around her that she does not deserve consideration for her problems.

The Bluest Eye tells the story of a little girl who isn’t strong enough to overcome the negative perceptions of everyone in her life. Its audience must find itself begging for Pecola to find some strength within, some sense of self that will never come as naturally as her self-loathing because she lacks even the love of a mother to validate her existence. Because we largely hear Pecola’s story in the words of others, we learn that Pecola has not yet gathered the strength to face the task of ‘finding herself.’ The only one who apparently cares about Pecola is Soaphead Church, who gives her a pair of blue eyes only she can see. In a letter, he tells God about her: “I did what You did not, could not, would not do: I  looked at that ugly little black girl, and I loved her” (182). And it is as a result of this man, pedophile though he may be, that Pecola finds happiness within herself. Thus it becomes clear that for now, Pecola only has the ability to take on whatever characteristics those around her perceive her to have. She has been deprived of a sense of self.