1) 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.

https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/Vestnik/article/view/7635/7266

Burcar argues that The Bluest Eye exposes the devices manipulated to contrive the Western beauty myth, which whether racialized or gendered, targets African Americans through objectification and disempowerment while sustaining whiteness. She analyzes various examples in the novel where the characters experience this culturally on a regular basis, allowing for the naturalization and perpetuation of these ideologies within American society.

2) Koch, E. “Hollywood’s Terror Industry: Idealized Beauty and The Bluest Eye.” Sanglap 1.1 (2014): 147-57. Web.

http://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/37/27

Koch analyzes the role of Hollywood as a social institution and as an agent of cultural normalization which defines beauty standards. Koch also emphasizes how these standards function in the novel in order to not only expose their harmful effects towards the black community, but to reveal their illusory sense of attainability.

3) Yancy, George. What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. London: Routledge, 2004. Web.

In chapter 5 of his novel, Yancy analyzes the construction of whiteness through a genealogical framework, as well as emphasizes how whiteness is constructed to oppose blackness while claiming “universality.” He then reveals how this ideology drives Pecola’s descent into self-hatred and acceptance of her perceived “ugliness.”

4) Pal, Payel and Neelakantan, Gurumurthy. “Morrison’s Prostitutes in The Bluest Eye.” Notes on Contemporary Literature. Volume 44. Pages 4-7. www.researchgate.net/publication/261527825_Morrison’s_Prostitutes_in_The_Bluest_Eye

These authors argue that China, Poland, and Marie resist capitalist culture through prostitution while also transforming their impoverishment into a form of empowerment which grants them freedom. They also argue that Morrison critiques the black community’s skewed sense of justice in capitalist America by condemning the prostitutes while respecting pedophilic white men.  

5) Jha, Meeta. The global beauty industry: Colorism, racism, and the national body. Routledge, 2015.

In her novel, Jha examines the role beauty plays in creating structural and individual privilege, as well as contributing to discrimination and inequality. She takes an intersectional approach by taking gender, nation, race, color, ethnicity, sexuality, and class hierarchies into consideration when focusing on women’s everyday experiences and practices of beauty.

Lilijana Burcar. “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.

https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/Vestnik/article/view/7635/7266

Koch, E. “Hollywood’s Terror Industry: Idealized Beauty and The Bluest Eye.” Sanglap 1.1 (2014): 147-57. Web.

http://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/37/27

Kuenz, Jane. “‘The Bluest Eye’: Notes on History, Community, and Black Female Subjectivity.” African American Review 27.3 (1993): 421. Web.

https://www-jstor-org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/stable/3041932?origin=crossref&sid=primo&seq=4#metadata_info_tab_contents

Yancy, George. What White Looks Like : African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. London: Routledge, 2004. Web.

“Out of Sight: Toni Morrison’s Revision of Beauty.” Black American Literature Forum 24.4 (1990): 775. Web.

https://www-jstor-org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/stable/3041802?origin=crossref&sid=primo&seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents

I began looking for my sources through onesearch on the hunter college library by first entering the title of the novel and keywords such as “beauty” since I am focusing on how capitalism functions to define beauty. I also remembered that I wanted to include the chapter we read for class by George Yancy because he also mentions how the conceptions of American beauty relate to whiteness which allow for the dominance of these conceptions. I struggled to find articles which focused on the role of China, Poland, and Miss Marie although they are mentioned in a few of the articles.

How are perceptions of beauty and ugliness defined through a capitalist framework in The Bluest Eye? How do these perceptions manifest within the characters in order to continuously uphold themselves?

In The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison alters between varying perspectives held by Claudia in order to speak to different types of readers. Rather than blaming the continuous presence of racial inequality entirely on white people, Morrison exposes how everyone can be complicit in perpetuating the concepts that allow for inequality to exist. By the end of the novel, Claudia’s reflection on Pecola’s situation seems to mirror Morrison’s own voice as she addresses the reader while claiming responsibility for being complicit herself. She refers to the community as “we” and “us,” emphasizing Claudia’s realization of her own role in marginalizing Pecola which has led her to madness. Yet, it seems that Morrison is not only trying to emphasize Claudia’s role in this particular situation and instead is implying that everyone plays a role in the manifestation of racial inequality within American society. This becomes especially clear since Morrison is constantly reminding the reader of how obscurely and discreetly each individual becomes conditioned by society from an early age to enact racial standards and ultimately preserve their existence within society.

Since most of the story is told through Claudia’s perspective during her childhood years, Morrison emphasizes that racialized identities are indeed constructed and the ability to recognize or assign a racialized identity to an individual is not natural and instead are learned behaviors from childhood. Morrison decides to tell most of the novel through the perspective of a child that has not yet been made aware of how these behaviors and identities are constructed to force the reader themselves to try to understand the ways in which this occurs just as Claudia does.

Once Morrison tells the story of Pecola, she is able to provide the reader with the perspective of an insightful Claudia who is most likely much older and now understands and is able to explain to the reader why the community would choose to reject Pecola. By doing so in only the last few pages, Morrison shows the reader how the existence of racialized identities are able to create inequality between whites and blacks, but also within the black community as Pecola, who is still a child, is sacrificed so that other members of her community can feel superior to her and their family. Morrison does not desire to blame anyone in particular and instead hopes that the reader can recognize the ways in which race is enacted within their everyday lives and take individual responsibility for being complicit in this enactment. Once Morrison educates the reader by revealing this cycle that occurs to uphold race, she also reminds the reader to consider their own position in this cycle. 

Throughout the novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison creates the illusion that there is indeed some sort of answer, solution, or correct approach to racism in America. The narrator provides the reader with many approaches to race demonstrated by different characters throughout the novel such as those of his grandfather, Bledsoe, Mr. Norton, Brother Jack, Ras– yet as the novel progresses the invisible man is able to uncover flaws within each approach. Right as the narrator seems to be finding his place in the world, it is taken away from him and he is lead astray once again. It seems as though the reader is being prepared to ultimately judge the final approach the narrator himself has found to be truly the most efficient, only to realize that as Ellison puts it, “the end was in the beginning.”

The narrator himself decides that what is best for him after being led in various directions was to temporarily hibernate. Although he acknowledges that living in hibernation is not an efficient approach to life and there is a time when he will emerge, he has proven his ability to finally lead his own path. While it may have seemed that Ellison was attempting to lead his reader down a particular path, it becomes evident that he hopes for the reader to find the courage within themself to create their own, as the invisible man learns to do.

While Ellison has the reader believing that he will lead the reader down the correct path, he actually shows the reader through the telling of the invisible man’s own experiences why one should not expect another to guide them. Rather than following a path that may be deemed socially admirable or appear to be favorable, Ellison hopes to encourage the reader to rid themselves of societal expectations and limitations in order to discover themselves as individuals. He wishes to demonstrate that only then will one be able to lead their own path.

Although it becomes apparent that Ellison advocates for diversity and individuality which develop apart from society, he does not deny how challenging it is to neglect societal expectations. The majority of the novel showcases the narrator’s struggles and actually emphasize how challenging it can be, but the reader is always aware that the narrator will end up in a relatively good state because of its retrospective narrative. By utilizing this technique, Ellison emphasizes the importance of the process that is essential to discovering oneself and assures the reader that it is attainable regardless of its many diversions.