The Bluest Eyes Essay -- essays research papers

A Search For A Self Finding a self-identity is often a sign of maturing and growing up. This becomes the main issue in Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eyes. Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, and Pauline Breedlove are such characters that search for their identity through others that has influenced them and by the lifestyles that they have. First, Pecola Breedlove struggles to get accepted into society due to the beauty factor that the norm has. Cholly Breedlove, her father, is a drunk who has problems that he takes out of Pecola sexually and Pauline physically. Pauline is Cholly’s wife that is never there for her daughters. Pacola is a little black girl has a hard time finding herself. Brought up as a poor unwanted girl, she desires the acceptance and love of society. The world has led her to believe that she is ugly and that the epitome of "beautiful" requires blue eyes. Every night before she goes to sleep, she prays that may she wake up with blue eyes. The image of "Shirley Temple beauty" surrounds her. In her mind, if she were to be beautiful, people would finally love and accept her. This idea of beauty has been imprinted on Pecola her whole entire life. Many people have inscribed this notion into her. Her classmates also have an effect on her. They seem to think that because she is not beautiful; she is not worth anything except as the focal point of their mockery. As if it were not bad enough being ridiculed by children her own age, adults also had to mock her. Mr. Yacowbski as a symbol for the rest of society's norm, treats her as if she were invisible. Geraldine, a colored w oman, who refused to tolerate "niggers", happened to walk in while Pecola was in her house. By having an adult point out to her that she really was a "nasty" little girl, it seems all the more true. At home she was put through the same thing, if not worse because her family members were the ones who were supposed to love her. It was obvious to Pecola that her mother preferred the little white girl of the family that she worked for over her. One day as Pecola was visiting her mother at the home where she is working, Pecola accidentally knocked over a blueberry pie. Obviously burned by the hot pastry, her mother completely ignored Pecola's feelings of pain and instead tended to the comforting of her white "daughter". For a ... ...es. The more time she spent with her own black family, the more time she realized how ugly, poor, and unworthy they were. In coming upon this realization, Pauline has a decision to make. She could have stuck with her biological family, continued to be unsatisfied but be accepted as an equal, or she could completely give up on her own family and devote all her time, energy, and love on her white charges. However she fails to realize that by committing herself to a servant's life that's all she will ever amount to be - a black servant in a white world. Pecola's search for identity was defined by her everlasting desire to be loved. Her purpose in life was to be beautiful and as a result of that to be loved. Her family and community made it impossible for her to ever be sanely content. Cholly's family (or lack thereof) and his community as a boy ultimately influenced the way he was as a man. Their effects on him molded his personality and as a result influenced his identity. Pauline’s confusion whether to love her family or the white family that she works for leads her to not caring that much at all. She realizes that whoever she ends up living with will not change who she really is.