In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, there is a conceptualized ideal of beauty that, throughout the novel, is used to illustrate the impact this concept has on the protagonists. With each of his characters, Morrison takes innocent elements of childhood and taints them through the misuse, both blatantly aggressive and disarmingly passive, of his African American characters starting in their early years. Here, beauty is light hair, light skin, light eyes, on a picket fence in a respectable neighborhood, supported by the earnings of an upper-middle class job to support a lifestyle of the same description. So beauty is, here, what the story's black protagonists will find unattainable. They do not have the status they desire and cannot obtain it because their position in society is fixed. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The best example of this concept would be Dick and Jane, the once popular children's books so famous for their colorful pictures and simplistic yet thoroughly educational grammar – a pun in itself on the way most people speak part of Morrison's characters (i.e. lacking correct grammar and pronunciation). The stories take their titles from the names of the characters, the brother-sister duo Dick and Jane. In the little picture books, Dick does decidedly boyish things like running, jumping, and playing ball while his sister, Jane, takes part in particularly feminine behaviors that mostly consist of pulling her wagon or playing with her doll or watching the activity . surrounding her and emphasizing her interest in them. Despite being in the same age group, the same family, and sharing similar resources of perceived beauty, children are separated by gender. Jane, who is a rich white girl, is also oppressed by her gender at an early age. These positions make the characters the antipodes of the dark, poor miscreants protagonists the novel talks about. Morrison's characters, unlike the wealthy whites he alludes to, belong to an inferior race in the eyes of society, and therefore to an inferior class. An almost mirror opposite of Dick and Jane are Claudia and Frieda and their family. Claudia, who narrates some parts of the novel, and her older sister, Frieda, do not live in an exceptionally wealthy area, but they have a home and two parents who appear to provide a stable living environment, making them a sort of control group in amidst the chaos of the other characters in the novel. However, the girls are cautious and even defensive about their height, and a classic example of unsatisfied childhood jealousy is deployed to demonstrate their discontent with their social roles with the small mixed girl, Maureen Peal. Claudia describes her as “…rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest white girl, wrapped in comfort and care (62).” Completely ignoring the fact that Claudia herself and Frieda have a home and some security and are not unloved, Claudia fixates on childhood jealousies and Maureen's elation that seems to be wrapped around her coffee-colored skin and his spring eyes. Claudia's malevolence towards Maureen, of course, has a lot to do with that white part of her – which is revealing in early descriptions of what Claudia does with her little white dolls. Even though toys are made to be held, loved and cuddled, Claudia manages to love them. She has “…only one desire: to dismember him. Seeing what it was made of, discovering its affection, finding the beauty, the desirability that had eluded me… (20)”. The little doll is completelyrepresentative of a state of life that Claudia does not welcome and fully resists – the prospect of motherhood. In this way she opposes her place in society, where women are raised to have children and look after the home. By hating her for her whiteness and directly linking the doll to Shirley Temple, who Claudia hates to be so perfect, she puts herself in the position of hating all things related to the white upper-middle class status she cannot achieve. Subsequently, protagonist Pecola Breedlove possesses an unhealthy admiration for her misunderstood ideal of beauty, personified by her blue eyes. “. . . if those eyes of hers were different, that is, beautiful, she herself would be different” (Morrison 46). Throughout the novel, Pecola's hatred of her self-identified ugliness stagnates, devaluing her worth to herself and radiating out to those around her, encouraging disgust, loathing, and in some cases the slightest pang of pity. During her visit to the small grocery store where she buys candy, she is almost ignored by the store owner, Mr. Yacobowski, who "feels that she need not waste the effort of a glance (48)." Pecola, upon entering the store, closed in on herself, indicating her choices on the display, opening her hand to present the money, and shaking her head to communicate without words because she senses his detachment. She assumes it's based entirely on her blackness, which she's sure builds her ugliness, and so she acts as unobtrusively as possible. She does not speak and wishes to make herself small and poor while receiving her Mary Janes. The pale yellow paper that highlights the blonde hair of the idyllic white girl depicted on the package, and her little eyes painted blue, are what Pecola likes because “Eating the candy is somehow eating the eyes, eating Mary Jane. I love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane (50).” Playing to the idolatry of upper-middle white society of which Pecola, with her violent and loveless family, is perpetually envious, are her visits to the prostitutes who live above her family's store . The prostitutes, whom she admires for their kindness to her in gifts and sweet company, are at a level of despicability comparable to that of Pecola, although she does not realize it. She calls the “ruined” woman Miss Marie, everyone else despises her as “Maginot Line”. He finds her sociable and loving while others, like Frieda and Claudia, see her as repulsive. Ruined and ugly, the symmetry between the whore and the loveless girl is clear. This relationship with the whore may also give Pecola a sense of fearlessness towards her own sex, as whores maintain a sense of freedom that structured women who cook, clean, and raise children do not. And indeed, the paternal rape she suffers may be punishment for that fearlessness – the consequences of reckless actions by a woman in a dominant male society. Indulging the class and gender oppressions of the time, Pauline – the young Mrs. Breedlove – stayed home to cook and clean her family's home while her father worked as a laborer and her mother took care of the household of a white preacher during the day. After meeting Cholly, who sweeps away the lame girl, he marries young, which is a common practice for the time period. Knowing only how to do women's work, she depends entirely on her husband to provide for her. Young, naive and in love, she has no idea of ​​the dangers that await their relationship. Social caste, including lack of education, sets Pauline apart from other women after she and Cholly move to Lorain and she, still just a girl, understands the restrictions of her race, her gender, and her place in society . ranking - which can be..