Why does Pecola want The Bluest Eyes?
Pecola believes that having blue eyes is the key to being beautiful and finding social acceptance. Pecola prays for "the bluest eyes" because it represents "the answer" to the mystery of her life.
How does Soaphead react to Pecola's request for blue eyes?
Soaphead buys poison to kill the dog but is too repulsed to go near it. At this point, Pecola comes to ask him to give her blue eyes. He is touched by this request—his own attraction to whiteness makes it easily comprehensible.
Why does Pecola think she is beautiful?
Pecola has internalized white society's ideal of what it means to be beautiful. And part of that ideal is the possession of blue eyes. Blue eyes, along with blond hair, is widely considered by white society to be the epitome of physical beauty. Throughout the whole of her short life, Pecola has never felt beautiful.
What does Pecola wish earnestly that she could have?
Pecola wishes earnestly that she could have blue eyes so that she could seem more beautiful; this desire derives from the idea of beauty that she has internalized by being given blonde haired, blue eyed dolls throughout her life.
What does Pecola ask him to give her?
At this point, Pecola comes to ask him to give her blue eyes. He is touched by this request—his own attraction to whiteness makes it easily comprehensible. He knows he cannot help her, but he tells her to give meat—which he has secretly poisoned—to the dog. He tells her that if the dog reacts, her wish will be granted.
How does Pecola get blue eyes?
When Pecola is finally granted her wish for blue eyes, she receives it in a perverse and darkly ironic form. She is able to obtain blue eyes only by losing her mind. Rather than granting Pecola insight into the world around her and providing a redeeming connection with other people, these eyes are a form of blindness.
Why does Pecola want blue eyes in The Bluest Eye?
The blue eye symbolizes the characteristic of white people. In other words, Pecola wants to become a girl with blue eyes so that she can be accepted and loved by the surrounding people and society. Influenced by the mass culture which means the culture of white people, Pecola follows it blindly.
Why does Pecola choose to go to Soaphead?
Pecola's deep desire for blue eyes—driven by her own self-hatred, which has only increased after her father raped her—drives her to accept Soaphead Church's dubious solution without question.
What mental illness does Pecola have?
schizophreniaAs a result, Pecola suffers from schizophrenia, and spend the rest of her life in her own world. She is influenced by perceptual distortion, rational disorganization, emotional instability and loss of control.
What happens to Pecola at the end of novel?
After the dog eats the meat, gags, and dies, Pecola believes her wish has been granted. Thus begins her sharp descent into madness. The fourth and final section (“Summer”) takes place after Pecola loses her mind. In the beginning, Claudia and Frieda learn that Pecola has been impregnated by her father.
Who wants to have blue eyes in The Bluest Eye?
In the novel The Bluest Eye, one girl desires to have blue eyes. Pecola Breedlove sees importance in having blue eyes. She grows up in a town where in most cases she is not accepted for what she looks like. Her town is full of race and people judging others by the way they look.
What page did Pecola wish for blue eyes?
These lines, which introduce Pecola's desire for blue eyes, are found in Chapter 3 of the “Autumn” section of the novel.
What is the message of The Bluest Eye?
The Bluest Eye provides an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards deform the lives of black girls and women.
Did Soaphead give Pecola blue eyes?
One day, Pecola visits and asks Soaphead to give her blue eyes. Soaphead is sympathetic. He knows he can't do such a thing, but he tells her to give some meat to the dog. If the dog reacts to the meat, he tells Pecola, she will get her blue eyes.
How old is Pecola in The Bluest Eye?
eleven years oldLike all the principal characters in “The Bluest Eye,” Pecola lives in Lorain, Ohio, where Morrison, who died last August, was born in 1931. When we meet Pecola, she is eleven years old but already ancient with sorrow. Her only escape from the emotional abuse that her family and her classmates heap on her is to dream.
What is the significance of Pecola?
Pecola is also a symbol of the black community's self-hatred and belief in its own ugliness. Others in the community, including her mother, father, and Geraldine, act out their own self-hatred by expressing hatred toward her.
How did Pecola get pregnant?
Claudia and Frieda learn that Pecola has been impregnated by her father.
Who is responsible for Pecola's downfall?
The narrator explains that the community is ultimately responsible for Pecola's fate because it has chosen to ignore its own warped values, distorted aesthetics, and obvious shortcomings and to scapegoat her instead.
What is the purpose of The Bluest Eye?
In the afterword to The Bluest Eye, Morrison explains her goal in writing the novel. She wants to make a statement about the damage that internalized racism can do to the most vulnerable member of a community—a young girl.
How is Pecola described in The Bluest Eye?
Pecola Breedlove The protagonist of the novel, an eleven-year-old black girl who believes that she is ugly and that having blue eyes would make her beautiful. Sensitive and delicate, she passively suffers the abuse of her mother, father, and classmates. She is lonely and imaginative.
What does the narrator say about Pecola?
As the narrator describes how each Breedlove feels about and uses his or her perceived ugliness, she explains that Pecola uses hers as a shield from others. Just like the owner of the grocery store, no one truly sees Pecola, and she seems to be a mystery even to readers. Throughout the novel, she continues turning into herself, living in a fantasy world where she has blue eyes and looks beautiful.
What did Pecola struggle with?
Though the methods varied, the pain was as consistent as it was deep. She struggled between an overwhelming desire that one would kill the other, and a profound wish that she herself could die.
What does Pecola ask Soaphead to do?
When Pecola goes to see Soaphead Church, she asks him to turn her eyes blue. Pecola is old enough that she should know the impossibility in such a request, but she prays every night that her eyes will turn blue and then asks Soaphead for help anyway. Even though Pecola has experienced a good deal of misery, her desperate wish for blue eyes shows that, at this point in the story, she still possesses some innocence.
Who is Pecola's brother?
Here, the narrator describes how Pecola and her brother, Sammy, each deal with the blowout fights between their parents. While Sammy has the option to leave the house for a few days, Pecola remains too young to go off on her own. Rather, she simply wishes the fights away.
How does Pecola behave after being raped?
Here, Claudia describes how Pecola behaves after being raped by her father and losing her baby. In addition to talking to an imaginary friend, Pecola makes bird-like motions, making her damaged mental state obvious to anyone she sees. Claudia notes that Pecola looks like she is trying to fly, which perhaps indicates that Pecola wants to escape from inside her own mind.
Why does Pecola want blue eyes?
This fact leads to Pecola's desires for blue eyes, as she believes blue eyes would change the way others see her, allowing her to transcend her horrible situation at home and in the community . Likewise, she thinks that blue eyes would give her the ability to perceive what she sees in a different way.
Why is Pecola's eye blue?
Pecola's attainment of blue eyes comes at the expense of her sanity, and only causes the community to "see" her in a more damaging way. In this sense, the "bluest" eye could also take on the association of blue with sadness and symbolize Pecola's sadness, defining her as the saddest character in the novel, or in a larger sense, ...
What would happen if Pecola's eyes were different?
It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights —if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.
What does the blue eye mean in The Bluest Eye?
Blue Eyes. To the characters of The Bluest Eye, Blue eyes stand as the definitive symbol of whiteness and beauty. Characters who possess whiteness and beauty are privileged, empowered, and secure. This fact leads to Pecola's desires for blue eyes, as she believes blue eyes would change the way others see her, allowing her to transcend her horrible ...
Summary
The narrator tells the history of Soaphead Church, a self-declared “Reader, Adviser, and Interpreter of Dreams” in Lorain’s black community. A light-skinned West Indian, he was raised in a family proud of its mixed blood. His family has always been academically and politically ambitious, and always corrupt.
Analysis
Like Geraldine and Pauline, Soaphead Church is another example of how the worship of whiteness and cleanliness can deform a black life. His mixed blood gives him a false sense of superiority, which he maintains with delusions of grandeur. Indeed, he half-convinces himself that he can work miracles and that he has a direct line to God.
Who does Pecola love?
Pecola has a deep affection for the prostitutes China, Poland, and Miss Marie. The text says, "Pecola looked and...
Who is Pecola's father?
In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Cholly Breedlove is Pecola's father. We are first introduced to his character at the very beginning of the novel, when the narrator tells us that Pecola's father... Latest answer posted October 9, 2018 6:37 pm UTC. 2 educator answers.
Who is Mr. Henry in The Bluest Eye?
Mr. Henry is a boarder who rents a room in the MacTeer family household . He has a reputation for being soft-spoken and hard-working, although he has a secret, promiscuous side and a desire for...
What is the candy in The Bluest Eye called?
What is Morrison saying with these... In The Bluest Eye, the candy that Pecola eats is called a Mary Jane and has a wrapper with an illustration of a pretty white girl with blond hair and blue eyes on it.
What is the narrative strategy used in The Bluest Eye?
One of the key narrative strategies Toni Morrison deploys in The Bluest Eye is the inclusion of the "Dick and Jane" prologue. Dick and Jane was a series of books for children learning to read,...
What is the bluest eye about?
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is a serious scrutiny of color consciousness at the time. Elaborate. The Bluest Eye is set during a time before the black pride movement took shape. As such, it's a time when most African Americans feel unable to express their racial identity in the fullest possible...
How old is Claudia in The Bluest Eye?
In Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, the story's narrator, nine-year-old Claudia, is possessed of a rebellious streak that sets her apart from other little girls who inhabit her world,...
