Throughout her book, the Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison chooses to construct the characters and social settings around the abstract ideas of beauty and ugliness. According to the characters, Pecola in particular, the idea of beauty lies in the physical eyes, or with the eyes being blue. This, even as I’m writing it, makes sense, as I almost keep wanting to write in the old cliché: “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (and now I guess I have written it!)It makes perfect sense that beauty and being beautiful revolve around the eye, because it is physically what allows us to view the world. We’ve talked in class about how the eye, literally, is only an organ with nerves that connect to the brain. However, when we move beyond the literal and into the metaphorical, it is our eyes that allow us to see and understand everyone and everything outside of our own thoughts and bodies. Our eyes, in short, act as the bridge between ourselves and the rest of the world and what we see/believe/take in from that outside world.
Pecola’s obsession with attaining blue eyes makes perfect sense (although it is sad) in the book. Pecola, believing she is ugly, internalizes her pain and ugliness. The ugliness that Pecola recognizes is, in a sense, trapped behind her eyes. Pecola’s idea of beauty, on the other hand, is always on the other side of her eyes, always just beyond her reach. Essentially, Pecola’s eyes, being the bridge between herself and the rest of the world, represent a barrier between ugliness (herself) and beauty (the rest of the world, in particular, blue eyes.) It is her eyes that keep her from being beautiful and from seeing beauty. It is her eyes that force her to see ugliness and to be ugly.
Though she is described by others, and believes herself, as having many ugly features, these other features aren’t what’s keeping Pecola ugly. Her hair can’t open up a world of beauty to her, her nose can’t feel, her eyebrows and chin can’t make her parents stop fighting. Although it is absurd to think that having blue eyes will make everything better, it makes sense. If Pecola had blue (beautiful eyes) she believes that people will be too smitten by their beauty to ever commit an ugly act or to speak any ugly words. Perhaps, even more than beauty of the actual eyes, she believes that they will have to see the beauty that is within her own self, trapped from the everyday, outside world.
I agree with many of your points about blue eyes throughout The Bluest Eye. I agree that Pecola feels that with blue eyes, people will be so infactuated by them and will be less likely to commit various ugly acts. I also agree that with blue eyes shes believes she will see the beauty that lies within herself. To add on to your interpreation of blue eyes, I also feel that Pecola knows that with blue eyes comes acceptance. Acceptance: a feeling of worth that has never been accessible to Pecola Breedlove.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment about how the eye acts as bridge between ourselves and the rest of the world. Pecola has witness how blue eyed people are treated and wishes that treatment for herself. She associates happiness with a physical feature and deeply internalizes it, which causes her insanity at the end of the novel. Pecola refuses to see beauty in anything but physical features. Does this make Pecola her own worst enemy? Or can we blame the cultural constructions of beauty? Personally, I don’t think it is fair to blame Pecola because she is a victim of her society’s negative and hateful view of her race and class.
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