Bluest Eye

Morrison's the Bluest Eye seems to represent more then exposing the unfortunate dissatisfaction Pecola experiences due to her race, but additionally forces us to confront the societal perceptions of beauty and who is considered beautiful. The connotation of "whiteness," as "beautiful," has been a common theme throughout many of our readings, seemingly something that obviously widely affects the self-perception of youth for races and ethnicities that are "non-white." While I agree that the emphasis needs to be on influencing individuals of all races to embrace their own beauty and that each person regardless of societal categorization is beautiful, the disfunction of what society recognizes as beautiful widely needs to be addressed. Pecola is only child amongst thousands who cannot perceive herself as beautiful without the features of someone who is white -- Morrison challenges this notion by allowing us to really process and question what this tells us about familial and societal models of all races. Though I understand, Ms. Education's post about the novel exacerbating elements of the black community, I am not sure if I agree with it entirely mainly because I believe that the novel rather confronts us with issues that are most often difficult to deal with and expose. The Bluest Eye appears to be a critique of multiple societal structures that seem to be silenced and ignored, such as familial structures, gender disparity, and perceptions of beauty. What do these models show us? and how can this novel further be used to illuminate issues that face our society today in relation to race and gender?