The Theme of Beauty in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

Beauty is a subjective concept; every individual maintains a different perspective on what is beautiful. Wait a minute. Does everyone, in fact, maintain a different perspective? Would the result of a survey asking "Who is more beautiful: Julia Roberts or Rosie O'Donnell?" be decided on the last ballot? Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye examines the effect of the media on popular thinking. Using the white, middle-to-upper-class society as a backdrop for the black community of Loraine, Ohio, Morrison asserts that the concept of beauty is affected by mainstream culture.

Morrison uses popular figures from the 1940's to show the acceptance of African Americans towards the "white beauty." This is first seen when Mr. Henry arrives at the MacTeer's house, greeting Claudia and Frieda with: "Hello there. You must be Greta Garbo, and you must be Ginger Rogers." [16]. Rogers, a dancer, and Garbo, a mysterious movie star, were both white, leading the reader to assume that white women were used to describe pretty girls of any race. Pecola Breedlove, who comes to live at the MacTeer household as well, stares at the picture of Shirley Temple etched on one of their glasses, and, in the process, drains the home of milk. "'Three quarts of milk. That's what was in that icebox yesterday. ... Now they're ain't none.' ...We knew she was fond of the Shirley Temple cup and took every opportunity to drink milk out of it just to handle and see sweet Shirley's face." [23]. When Pecola buys three Mary Jane candies from Mr. Yacobowski, she notices the wrappers, the picture of the smiling, blonde, blue-eyed, white girl. "To eat the candy is to somehow eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane." This important line in the book is directly preceded by a realization from Pecola that her blackness makes her unimportant. "Dandelions. ... She thinks, 'They are ugly. They are weeds.'" [50].

Films play an important role in the self-degradation of black people. As Frieda, Claudia, Pecola and a white girl named Maureen Peal walk past a theatre, they stand in awe at Betty Grable smiling down on them and discuss Hedy Lamarr's haircut [69]. Pauline Breedlove, Pecola's mother, recounts her visits to the "picture shows," the "education" that ended her ability to "look at a face and not assign it some category in the scale of beauty..." [122]. On one particular occasion, when Pauline goes to see Jean Harlow, she fixes her hair up like the celebrity. While chewing on candy, she breaks her tooth. Morrison uses this as a reminder of Breedlove's blackness. "'There I was, five months pregnant, trying to look like Jean Harlow, and a front tooth gone.'" [123].

The only character in The Bluest Eye that seems to be unaffected by mainstream culture is Claudia MacTeer. As Frieda and Pecola converse about how cute Shirley Temple is, Claudia becomes disgusted. She hates Shirley because she feels that instead of "one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heels," she should be the little girl dancing with Mr. Bonjangles [19]. Claudia reminisces about the Christmas she was given a white baby doll. With no interest in a white baby doll, and feeling let down that her parents didn't even ask her what she wanted, she destroyed it. Her feelings towards the doll transferred over to actual white girls. "What made people look at them and say, 'Awwwww,' but not for me?" [22]. Yet, Claudia understands what the future holds. "Younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her." [19]. Although she rejects the idea now, Claudia will recognize that whiteness is the standard of beauty at some point.

Morrison layers another dimension into the story in the form of Maureen Peal, "a high-yellow dream child." The rich, white child immediately becomes the hub of the entire school's admiration, and the MacTeer children's jealousy. They search for fault in her features, and find one: a dog tooth, which they utilize to secretly call Maureen names [62-63]. Peal's verbal attacks toward Pecola and the MacTeer's ("I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute!") lead Claudia to wondering, "What did we lack?" She concludes that, "The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful and not us." [73-74].

The reader can deduce that the "Thing" that made people look at Maureen with "eyes genuflected under sliding lids" [62] was the same thing that caused Pauline Breedlove to style her hair like Jean Harlow, or Pecola to drink three quarts of milk, or Mr. Henry to refer to Frieda and Claudia by the names of famous celebrities. The "Thing" was the same thing that drove Pecola Breedlove to visit Soaphead Church and ask for blue eyes.

The "Thing" was the beauty yardstick, the model of what was attractive: the Shirley Temples, the Greta Garbos, the Ginger Rogers, the Mary Janes, the Jean Harlows, the Betty Grables and Hedy Lamarrs. The figures that were plastered on theatre marquees, drinking glasses, candy wrappers and movie screens were at the top of the yardstick. Their influence filtered down into every aspect of society until mainstream culture had molded the concept of beauty for everyone in Loraine, Ohio.

Works Cited

All quotes from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, published by First Plume Printing in 1994