self-loathing

=__Self-loathing__=

The collective voice of society in The Bluest Eye primarily discriminates against people based on appearance - the white ideal of beauty (light-colored eyes, skin, hair) is constantly pushed on the people of the black community not only by the white community, but by black community themselves and through various forms of media. For example, Claudia and Frieda’s mother pushes the ideal white vision of beauty upon them by giving them white baby dolls with curly blonde locks and perfect blue eyes. They are expected to love the doll for it represents the ultimate vision of beauty as proclaimed by society. Another prime example is Geraldine. She strives for the ideal “white” life, having the perfect, clean, religious home and the perfect, clean child, all along with a nice little cat. On top of that, she sees a divide between herself and her family and the rest of the black community, most likely because she sees herself as more like a member of the white community. A similar situation can be seen with the character of Maureen Peal. She is black, but she has light eyes and light skin. She is closer to the white vision of beauty, and is subsequently treated better by her peers. Just by looking at them, Maureen was able to get a group of rowdy boys from making fun of Pecola and fighting Frieda. All this discrimination leads to self-loathing by blacks in the novel. Pecola’s dearest wish is to have the “bluest eyes” – she detests her own appearance and longs to look more “white”. Even Claudia hint at developing self-loathing behavior later in life; she speaks in the past tense saying “that was when we were still in love with ourselves”, suggesting that as she matured, society also caused her to start hating herself. They long to fit into their distorted perception of beauty brought on by the collective voice of society, and learn to hate themselves because they will never be able to successfully change their appearance to fit into that narrow perception.