Destructive Force in Beauty (the Bluest Eye)

The Destructive Force in Beauty

Beauty is dangerous, especially when you lack it. In the book "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, we witness the effects that beauty brings. Specifically the collapse of Pecola Breedlove, due to her belief that she did not hold beauty. The media in the 1940's as well as today imposes standards in which beauty is measured up to; but in reality beauty dwells within us all whether it's visible or not there's beauty in all; that beauty is unworthy if society brands you with the label of being ugly.

In the 1940's as well as present day, the media pushed on society an image of perfection and beauty. This image is many times fake, but the naive cannot deceive, and it can become an icon of beauty. If you do not fall within the image then you are ugly. In the book "The Bluest Eye," we witness the power that the media has on specific characters: Pecola Breedlove, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer. The icon of beauty at that point in time is Shirley Temple, a white girl with blond hair and blue eyes. She is also the first reference to beauty in the book. Claudia explains her feelings towards Shirley Temple by saying, "...I had felt a stranger, more frightening thing than hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world" (19). Claudia is relating the hatred that she felt towards Shirley Temple to the envy she has towards girls who are beautiful like Shirley. Claudia herself knows that the media is trying to imply this image she says, "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs--all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured" (20). This idea is repeated repetitively throughout the story, the idea that blue-eyed is beautiful. Frieda and Pecola love Shirley Temple while Claudia despises her with envy. Pecola once goes to purchase some candies called Mary Janes, she is very intrigued by the blue-eyed, blond girl in the wrapper. The narrator tells us that Pecola feels Mary Jane's eyes are pretty and that by eating the candy she feels the love that she has for the girl on the wrapper and she finds herself closer to her (50). The idea pushed by the media that blue eyes are beautiful builds up a strong destructive desire in Pecola. Pecola longs for blue eyes, she thinks, ".if those eyes of her were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different "(46). Pecola has fallen into a misconception that blue eyes can make someone beautiful and be liked more. She is constantly praying to be endowed blue eyes. We can relate to the feelings that Pecola is encountered today by looking at all the icons of beauty. Celebrities push the general public to get surgeries, loose weight and other trends so that they can achieve that picture of perfection planted into heads. The media has long built a misconception of beauty, which in the end emotionally rips apart victims like Pecola that do not fall into that image.

No one is truly ugly, we all posses a beauty whether it be virtual or visual. In the book we learn that the Breedloves were not ugly, "they believed that they were ugly" (38). Their belief that they were ugly made them ugly. Sometimes when one is attached to an idea after awhile that idea becomes a reality even if it is not true, that is what occurred to the Breedloves. The Breedloves were at the bottom of the social ladder. With them being at the bottom it was a simple task for others to boost up their self-esteem by comparing themselves to the Breedloves. The way they portrayed themselves as ugly was painted by the fabricated idea that they were ugly, and the people surrounding them enforcing the idea. We learn how Mrs. Breedlove acquires this ugliness when she is at the movies and she looses a tooth, from that moment on her whole life turns upside down and she no longer tries to exhibit her