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”.
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