Appearance and Racism in The Bluest Eye

As we continue to read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, I have begun to see more and more how appearances completely shape our lives. Like many adolescents, Pauline is introduced to “physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought” (Morrison 122). Girls in our culture are taught from a young age to thrive to be attractive. They play with Barbies—dolls that have long legs, tiny waists, and long blonde hair. The key accessories to these toys include clothing, hairbrushes, and fancy cars. Unfortunately, the importance of attractiveness only gets more ingrained in our heads as we age. Girls begin putting on make-up as early as middle school and many show more of an interest in fashion and nice belongings than in learning or getting to know other people.

I have also noticed that first impressions seem to fall heavily on appearance. I’ve often heard (and even done so myself) people referred to as things like “that girl who dresses really cute” or something similar. And while these are helpful hints when referring to someone we do not know personally, these hints also affect our impressions on them before we have even met them. I can’t lie, I have often felt the urge or desire to start up a conversation with someone because I liked something they were wearing or a certain hairstyle. So, I have to completely agree with Professor Bump: the “Thing that made her beautiful” (Morrison 74) would be “judging by appearance” (Anthology 332).

Ultimately, we will find examples about our society’s reliance on appearance to make judgments in many literary works and movies. For example, Maysie and I went to see The Phantom of the Opera this past Friday. The plot of the story revolves around a man who was born with a horribly disfigured face and, for this reason, he wears a mask as his “first unfeeling scrap of clothing.” In one of the songs, Christine (the woman the Phantom is in love with) states, “those who have seen your face draw back in fear.” The Phantom is shunned throughout his entire life for his disfigurement and many fail to see the true beauty inside him. He is a musical genius and writes beautiful operas. His voice is haunting and lovely, but entrances very few merely because of how he looks. Thus, this is yet another example of how we fail to note aspects of personality and talent in a person.

Additionally, amidst the judgments we make based on appearance, there are “racial hierarchies of skin color” as well (Anthology 332). The girls in The Bluest Eye suffer not only from the standards of beauty set by the society around them, but also from racial discrimination. The people in the novel are constantly bashing each other based on appearance and race to the point where it would seem that Pecola actually believes that she is a “’mistake, fault, error’” (Anthology 333). And from these emotions, I think we also begin to see the beginnings of fear and shame, two extremely important emotions in this novel. Not only is it fear of being abandoned, but maybe also just a fear of not being loved at all. Pecola is sad throughout much of the “Autumn” section of the novel because she wishes she could be more attractive and that this might suddenly fix all her problems of not being wanted or loved.

This fear of not being as good-looking or attractive as others also leads Claudia and Frieda in their emotions toward Maureen. Claudia strikes out because she is so furious at just how perfect Maureen is. They are so frustrated with this perfection that they cover it up by trying as hard as they can to think of things to make her less attractive, such as "uglying up her name," etc. (Morrison 63). Maureen meets the standards of their society and is admired almost wherever she goes. This is obviously a hard concept for a child to grasp because while they strive to do well and win affection just as hard, they fail time and time again because of merely how they look. The anger that Claudia directs at Maureen is clearly a combination of her frustration with the standards set by society and also her fear at never being as good as she strives to be. I have to once again agree with Professor Bump when he says “we find a related complex of fears that explains the emotional impact of the novel for a wide variety of readers” (Anthology 333).