“Each night Pecola prayed for
blue eyes.
In her eleven years, no one had
ever noticed Pecola. But with blue
eyes, she thought, everything
would be different. She would be
so pretty that her parents would
stop fighting. Her father
would stop drinking. Her brother
would stop running away. If
only she could be beautiful.
If only people would look at her.”
In the Bluest Eye Toni Morrison attempts to demonstrate the isolation a black child faces growing up in a white society. In the novel, eleven year old Pecola, wants to be beautiful and dreams of eventually acquiring blue eyes. She drinks out of a cup with Shirley Temple’s picture in the hope that her eyes will turn blue. She eventually goes insane because she cannot be white, she cannot have blue eyes so she cannot be beautiful.
Unlike Pecola today’s woman is faced with “possibilities”. This article here suggests that over the last couple of years, statistics show that more women of color are taking to the knife so that they can look more like their “fairer” sisters.
Women are not just bleaching anymore, but they are taking more drastic measures: eyelid surgery, leg lengthening, calf narrowing and nose narrowing.
We really cannot change who we are physically, and if we do, it is only an attempt, a brief change. As the world gets smaller the positive self image for young girls and women around the world will continue to be challenged as beauty is standardized.
Growing up, my mother never once told me that I was beautiful, or not. Because it did not matter. What mattered were virtues, whether I was good or bad. And this is how we should bring up our daughters. And here a last quote from Toni Morrison on beauty:
Of the virtues, it [beauty] is not one. The virtues are not the accidents of birth. The virtues are things you work for. To be forthright. To be educated. To be in control. To be diplomatic. To be healthy. To be graceful. These are the things you can work for. You can get them. They are available to you.”
2 Comments
October 29, 2007 at 1:45 pm
pretty much wishful thinking, because beauty does play a role in life. Statistically, beautiful people are treated better in all arenas of life. It may just be some “luck of the draw” but so is being born with a name like “Hilton” and being a rich socialite from birth. Life is all about the luck of the draw.
http://socialitedreams.wordpress.com
November 23, 2007 at 5:01 pm
It is easy to relate to the fictional character of Pecola because her insecurities about beauty stem deep into the society we have been raised. We are told that white is more beautiful and blondes are prettier. Sad yes! But you see … This is an issue that has been part of us for such a long time that it might need more than just one writer to speak about it in a work of literature to make a difference. It takes people like Oprah, Maya Angelou among others of their stature to stand up against such significant oppressive beliefs that society has let blind its people. It will take a lot but it’s always one little step, one little action, one little change by one person that makes a difference. It takes Oprah giving South African children black dolls to make them appreciate the beauty there is in colored women. Isn’t that why they said that black is beauty. Call me naive but I am one who believes for fighting for the minority and my life sadly is beyond just being an African woman. Society has put me in so many minor categories that I would lose count, but I for one choose not to allow that define me. Okay I know this was meant to be just a comment but when something touches your soul and life as the things that society has allowed to influence its poeple then I have more than enough I could say about it.