Research Question: What role does beauty play in the oppression of black women in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye?

Burcar, Lilijana. “Imploding the Racialized and Patriarchal Beauty Myth through the Critical Lens of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” Vestnik za tuje jezike 9.1 (2017): 139–158. Web.

• In this article, the author brings up the racialized norms of gender and race during the time revolving around The Bluest Eye. This article also gives us a glimpse into how these societal norms affect the people around them.

Khan, Md Reza Hassan, and Md Shafiqur Rahman. “The Framework of Racism in Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”: A Psychosocial Interpretation.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies 5.2 (2014): 25-8. ProQuest. Web. 19. Nov. 2020.

• In this article i will focus on the discussion portion on the Beauty Industry and Ideology in the text. Here the article discusses how popular media can be used to bring about racist self-hatred in the black community, making them (characters such as Pecola in The Bluest Eye) feel insecure about the color of their skin or their figure compared to the likes of the white actors and actresses on mass media at the time.

Koch, E. C. “Hollywood’s Terror Industry: Idealized Beauty and the Bluest Eye.” Sanglap, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 147-157. ProQuest, http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/docview/1910805134?accountid=27495

• E. C. Koch goes into depth on the idealized way of looking at beauty and how it affected young black children during the time. The article covers the 1940s perception of the white standard of beauty with references to the characters, Claudia, Pauline, and Pecola from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Bump, Jerome. “Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: A Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism.” College Literature, vol. 37, no. 2, 2010, pp. 147–170. JSTOR,www.jstor.org/stable/20749587. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

• Jerome Bump explores the emotive qualities of racism and how it affects the black community. By exploring these qualities this makes it easier to explain the how the mass media places these standards of beauty on black girls in The Bluest Eye. 

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