Pecola's View Of Herself
Toni Morrison uses stereotyping in "The Bluest Eye" to represent control of the black community, and to indicate how the black community often views itself. Pecola's wish for blue eyes is the deepest form of stereotyping, because she believes blue eyes (which white people have) will make her beautiful, and that without them, she is ugly. She believes people will like her if she has blue eyes, as well. She cannot see the beauty inside herself with her own eyes; she believes she needs the eyes of others in order to appear beautiful. Ultimately, Morrison is saying that Pecola believes while is beautiful and black is not because of white American stereotypes about beauty, looks, and the color of skin.
The beautiful white doll with blonde hair and blue eyes that Claudia destroys is also stereotypical of white American beauty standards. These stereotypes do not fit black children, and so, they begin to hate themselves because they can never measure up to these white stereotypes. The author uses this stereotyping to show how harmful it can be - black or white, or any other color for that matter. She shows that any stereotype is just a generalization and is not the truth, but people take stereotypes to be the truth, which gives the stereotype control over them. Pecola's idea that having blue eyes will make her beautiful eventually consumes her and ruins her life. Morrison writes of Pecola's mother, who instill the stereotypes of white American beauty in her daughter, "She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of absolute beauty, and the scale was one she absorbed in full from the silver screen" (Morrison 95). Morrison seems to be saying that "buying in" to any stereotype and giving it control can ruin a life, and create discontent and unhappiness.
References
Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Jazz. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1998.
