Although the story is based in a different time period than where we are now, it is relevant to the times we live in now. The novel is based strongly around skin color (which could be considered in this time and day but not as strong) but if you broaden the subject to visual beauty, even our generation struggles with that. Yearning for blue eyes like Pecola makes me think of Fat Shame. There are so many visual aspects of the body that people want. There are so many images that are worked into our mind that mean "beauty", it is no wonder Pecola could not find the beauty within herself without thinking she had blue eyes. People in our society do not feel beautiful without being the size 2 of the models we see and some are constantly working towards that, even if it is unrealistic. It seems like the hopelessness that Pecola had through the book. Outward beauty advances you, no matter how much people deny it. It is not wrong in my eyes, to wish for that so you can advance yourself and it is never wrong in anyone's eyes to make yourself more beautiful. No matter how happy or healthy you are, if you keep molding yourself to the picture of perfection in your society, you will get complimented and praised for your hard work towards perfection.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Beauty is in the EYE of the Beholder
The world is full of different meanings of beauty. Most people do not recognize the beauty in the world, nor do they recognize the beauty in the mirror. In Toni Morrison's, The Bluest Eye, Pecola is a main character that does not realize the beauty within her. She dreams of being beautiful and her recognition of beauty is through blue eyes. She knows the white girl look is a beautiful look and she constantly yearns for it. You see the world through only your own eyes. No matter what their color, the way you see the world is personal because your eyes are the only eyes that see the world the way you do. Maybe Pecola believes that if your eyes are beautiful your thoughts are beautiful. Pecola struggles with her beauty because she feels if she is not beautiful she is not worth anything. She is not worth happiness, she is not worth health and she is certainly not worth anyone's time. The eyes are also symbolic in the way that you look into someone's eyes when you speak to them. If you are at all intimate with something, the most intimate thing you could do is look into someone's eyes when you are making love to them. If your eyes are "ugly", who will ever love you? If someone cannot stare into your eyes and fall deep within your soul, nothing will never amount to anything more than a sexual relationship. In the beginning of the novel, Pecola asks how you make a man love you and the child around her cannot give her a straight or realistic answer. Maybe Pecola believes that if her eyes were beautiful, men could fall deeper within her soul, and then truly love her.
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I think you have a lot of great ideas surrounding the importance of eyes in your first paragraph. "Maybe Pecola believes that if your eyes are beautiful your thoughts are beautiful. " -- this really stuck out to me. I imagine "thoughts" to encompass perception and daydream. Perhaps the eyes, if beautiful, better filter the material being perceived. They could alter the input, which for Pecola is very grim. Because of the conditions of her home life and the ways in which others treat her, she is surrounded by images of hate. Beautiful eyes could twist these things into more favorable images for Pecola. Still, this is a pretty abstract interpretation. Maybe in some subconscious way Pecola knows that her appearance as a poor Black girl from a chastised family influences the way she is treated. New eyes could lift her from this position.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that there is no emphasis on "inner beauty" in the book. Most of the characters are hard working and have potential to be great people, but their outward ugliness influences their capacity to hold onto inner beauty. They only care about being accepted for their physical features, but I suppose this comes from the time setting when segregation ran rampant. I'm sure they know that their reaches for traditional beauty are irrational, they can't change their skin color or eyes, but they still try. It's sad that they are miserable just because they are trying to reach a goal that is impossible.
ReplyDeleteI would like to add that maybe Pecola was not able to see her inner beauty because of how people bashed her outer beauty both physically and emotionally. She witnessed her parents beat each other and she herself was beat. With a young girl seeing and being through as much as she had been, she may have been unable to realize that everyone has an inner beauty.
ReplyDeleteLike you said, Pecola may have felt that since her eyes were "ugly" that she would never find someone to love her. I think this is emphasized in the last portion of the book where she continuously questions someone about her eyes being the most beautiful and that they love her eyes and won't leave. This last section of the book has really stuck with me and I have found myself re-reading it about 4 times to really try to understand if her whole outlook on beauty had been changed or just her view on beautiful eyes.
I definitely agree that Morrison paints beauty, especially as it relates to Pecola, as a fantastic ideal. In the novel, beauty is something that results in alienation, rape and death. Rarely are there ever 'beautiful' scenarios that are precipitated by beauty, because achieving beauty is inconceivable.
ReplyDeleteAnd in some ways, it is that notion of beauty which drives Pecola towards the brink of insanity. There is nothing left in the real world around her, and she is forced to inhabit her own mind because she has been so encompassed by the destructive and ugly world that has surrounded her for her entire life.
And yes, I absolutely agree that Morrison's comments on beauty in her novel have contemporary relevance. Outward beauty is something that we all treasure, regardless of the internal or external ramifications. It is something that many people in America will try to achieve at all costs. But obviously, it's rarely ever worth it.