Family In The Bluest Eye

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In the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Morrison begins the novel by illustrating what an ideal family looks like. The ideal family has a cute and pretty house with two happy and loving parents with a happy daughter who plays all day. As the novel progresses we learn that the Breedlove’s, a black family living in 1941, do not have the characteristics of an ideal family. The father is an abusive alcoholic, the mother is an optimist trying to keep her family together, and Pecola is a confused and self conscious little girl. In addition to them falling apart, they are also low on money. Toni Morrison conveys Pecola’s struggle with self-image and self-worth by showing her poor relationships with others and how they influence the way she sees herself.
Pecola’s issues come from society. Society influences us in …show more content…
Unlike children, adults are hard to influence because their canvas has a lot of paint (ideals and opinions) on it. Because of this, children are even bigger slaves to society than adults. “Frieda and she had a long conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley.” (1.1.35). Shirley temple was the perfect, cute, and pretty kid that even adults loved. Pecola hates Shirley because she set the standards of child perfection that she can not achieve. Since people love Shirley and Shirley is “perfect”, Pecola thinks that one have to be perfect to be loved, and since she is not loved, she feels imperfect. When someone is continuously told something like “Shirley temple is perfect”, they begin to subconsciously believe it without trying to. Just like when one is continuously praised, they feel good, the same applies for when one is continuously treated poorly. When a child treats another child poorly, the child being treated poorly immediately begins to feel like they are

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