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Abstract

The Bluest Eyes depicts the tragic condition of Blacks in racist America. It examines how 
the ideologies perpetuated by the dominant groups and adopted by the marginal groups 
influence the identity of the black people. Due to the colour of their skins, Blacks are 
always subject to different types of disrespect and insecurity in their society.  The 
intention of this work is to analyze how the concepts of identity and race are portrayed in 
the novel, and how they relate to issues of white beauty standards, self-loathing and racial 
pride. Du Bios created a kind of new trend of dealing with African-American culture by 
inventing the concept known as “double consciousness”, and arguing that these black 
people were trapped between dual personalities. Meanwhile, the concept of beauty is an 
example of cultural institution; hence, the standard of beauty is based on the dominant 
group, so there is the White beauty standard—light skinned, blue eyes, blonde, slim body 
image—as the hegemonic practice that is consciously alive in the African Americans 
society involved in the story. Anchoring on the theory of double consciousness proposed 
by W. E.B. DuBois, the study aims at the idea that the African American must navigate the 
voyages of life from within a form of “two-ness”, because he is both man, and black. 
Therefore, the implications are that White beauty standard hegemony has led to the 
emergence of intra-racial discrimination happening within the African American society 
as it is reflected in the literary work due to the characters' efforts to seek White's approval. 
The second is the emergence of the self-loathing upon the characters, and the third is they 
try to obliterate their heritage. Eventually like Pecola Breedlove, the child protagonist, 
who yearns for blue eyes, has no recourse except madness. 

Keywords: Hegemony, Marginalisation, Double Consciousness, Identity, Self-loathing 

Introduction 

Toni Morrison, the first black women Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner, in her first 
novel, The Bluest Eyes depicts the tragic condition of blacks in racist America. Morrison 
manages to portray the lives of black people, especially their life experiences in societies 
that still deal with racism issues. The Bluest Eye presents a more complicated portrait of 
racism. The chain reaction resulting from the American culture of the 1930s is what 
Morrison is trying to exploit. Internalized racism is found in this work and is loosely 
defined as the internalization by people of racist attitudes towards members of their own 
ethnic group, including themselves. This includes the belief in ethnic stereotypes relating 
to their own group. Internalized racist attitudes in individuals, present barriers towards 

SELF-WORTH AND THE EFFECTS OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS: 
TONI MORRISON'S THE BLUEST EYES

CHINYERE T. OJIAKOR, PH.D
 MADONNA UNIVERSITY OKIJA, ANAMBRA STATE.



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achievement of racial equality, as somebody with internalized racism may believe that 
they are inferior to people of other ethnic groups. The 'Black is Beautiful' cultural 
movement fights the internalized racism experienced by African Americans specifically 
with regard to beauty standards.   Morrison uses Pecola's story to represent the product of 
this cultural hardship. Insight on her thoughts and actions allow us to see how these social 
prejudices influence the life of African Americans. Morrison's main goal is to emphasize 
on the psychological effect racism had on African Americans. Since the origins of 
African-American culture, white Americans have used and exploited black people, all 
while appropriating black culture. Kendrick Lamar exemplifies the polarization existing 
between cultures when he writes, “You hate my people, your plan is to terminate my 
culture/ You're fuckin' evil I want you to recognize that I'm a proud monkey” (27-28). 
“My culture” illustrates the disparity existing between blacks and whites, demonstrating 
a clear “them” and “us” relationship existing in the United States. This divide causes 
African-Americans to feel used and underappreciated, all the while, their culture is 
repetitively stolen and adopted by the white community. As the author points out in the 
afterword of the novel, the political climate of the United States was one of agitation, 
turmoil and great upheaval in the lives of African Americans when she wrote The Bluest 
Eyes.  It was actually the peak of the “Black is Beautiful” movement and Morrison started 
to think why the movement is needed. In Byers Thomas, “Why although reviled by 
others, could this beauty not be taken for granted within the community?” (76-84) The 
characters in the novel show exactly why such a movement was needed. All of the 
characters value themselves according to their degree of blackness. Some of them even 
experience self-contempt and self-loathing because they are considered too black. Yet, 
others like Geraldine live their whole lives keeping up appearances. The thought of 
separating the lighter skinned blacks consumes Geraldine. All of it stems from letting 
others determine one's value.

Morrision is using one atypical African- American family to demonstrate what the effects 
could be of this phenomenon. She has deliberately created an extreme situation to prove a 
point. All the characters are affected to some degree, but Pecola succumbs to the 
difficulties she is facing. That was deliberate. Morrision wanted to show how the most 
unprotected member of society would be affected. In Dalsgaard Katrine, Morrison says, 
“I focused, therefore, on how something so grotesque as the demonization of an entire 
race could take root inside the most delicate member of society, a child; the most 
vulnerable member; a female” (233-48). Blue Eyes are a metaphor that is understood. 
When Pecola wants blue eyes, she is really saying that she wants to escape her life and her 
double consciousness. She has defined herself only by her degree of blackness. Pecola 
and her family regard being dark skinned as synonymous with being ugly. At only eleven 
years of age the solution Pecola can find regarding her feeling of inferiority and 
worthlessness is acquiring the symbol of beauty in her community. Blue eyes are regarded 
as beautiful by all the characters, including mothers and children who unanimously 
admire Shirley Temple. Pecola is in a desperate situation. She is black and not appreciated 
by her family. She is subjected to neglect and sexual abuse. In the surrounding 
community, she is subjected to intra-racism both by grown-up and her peers. All these add 
up and Pecola is becoming more and more obsessed with her wish for blues eyes. This 
wish is made because she wants to escape her life of becoming something she is not. 

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When she is raped by her father and becomes pregnant by him, she goes insane and starts 
to imagine that she has actually got blue eyes. 

   
Theoretical Paradigm
In The Souls of Black Folks, what W.E.B. Du Bois termed “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” is 
a point of view of how it feels to be the problem? African Americans have to put up a veil 
and be compelled to live a double life. The theory of double consciousness is the idea that 
the African American must navigate the voyages of life from within a form of “two-ness” 
(2), because he is both man, and black. The novel The Bluest Eyes constitutes Toni 
Morrison's most ambitious engagement with the dialogic of race in America. Morrison's 
work is more often preoccupied with, in significant measure, the internality of black life 
in America, even though she is always aware of the white presence at its fringes that can 
impinge at any time – as is so patently obvious in Beloved (as Sethe flees from Southern 
slavery) and, as a haunting pathology (the desire for a white physiognomy) in The Bluest 
Eyes. Whereas race is undoubtedly the dominant trope of the Nobel laureate's oeuvre, 
novels such as Beloved, Song of Solomon, and The Bluest Eyes makes this patently clear. 
Toni Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eyes, was written during the 1960s and published 
in 1970. Through several layers of voices and different narrative techniques, the book 
tells us according to Byers Thomas “the shocking story of a black little girl named Pecola 
Breedlove, who descends into madness after being emotionally and physically abused on 
several occasions by the entire community around her, even–and especially–by her 
family” (76-84). This study focuses on double consciousness and its devastating effects 
on Pecola. Double consciousness is a term coined by W.E.B. DuBois in his The Souls of 
Black Folks. He describes it as, “a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this 
sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by 
the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”(2). The Bluest Eyes opened 
with an anecdote of Dick and Jane to show how racism destroys the mental stability of 
black people. It equates whites with success and happiness while blacks with poverty and 
unhappiness. This traumatises the minds of Blacks and they begin to dislike their own 
heritage and skin colour in the white world of Dick and Jane. In The Bluest Eyes and in 
another novel Paradise, Toni Morrison has created two thoroughly racialized 
communities. Both communities are crippled by racism but in different ways. In The 
Bluest Eyes, Morrison has created a dualistic tale of the oppressors and the oppressed. The 
novel illustrates how the racism which exists within the African American community 
can be seen as an effect of the oppression and racism its members has been subjected by 
the whites. The racism, oppression and marginalisation have corroded the characters' 
self-esteem and sense of self-worth. Most of the African American portrayed feel 
contempt for their own blackness. When Toni Morrison began her novel, Song of 
Solomon, she introduces her readers to a world in which Caucasian Americans have full 
power over their African American neighbours. Detailing the pessimistic treatment of 
African Americans, readers come to believe in the stereotypical “weak, black man,” of 
African Americans who allow themselves to be dominated, who see the dangers that are 
forced upon them and bow down to them, obliging to the torture and prejudice they face 
every day. Morrison believes and shows us through her writing that African Americans 
acted one way when around white people in order to avoid trouble and a different way 

OJIAKOR Self-worth and the Effects of Double Consciousness: Toni...         



when around blacks. Now, through the stories of Pecola and the people who surround her, 
The Bluest Eyes brings to discussion matters such as race, identity, and raises questions on 
racial self-loathing, the menace of white beauty standards, and the African people's 
double consciousness. There are two kinds of stigmas in the novel opines Jerome Bump 
regarding the character of Pecola, the first one as “the bodily stigma of ugliness and 
femininity” and the second one as “the tribal stigma of being an African American” (156). 
My intention with this work is to analyze how concepts of identity in relation to race are 
manifested in the novel, how the book can be read as a claim for racial pride, and to show 
the tragic influence of being both African-American and at the same time ugly in order to 
make the reader align with the blacks. 

Understanding a character's inherent personality needs close examination of his/her 
behaviour and the world's reaction and response to their actions. Regarding Pecola, there 
are many parts of the novel which unveil her true personality. First off, it is necessary to 
study the first reference of the novel which creates a strange impression in the reader's 
mind. At the point when the mother informs Claudia and Frieda that they would soon have 
a guest whose situation is different from theirs: “Mama had told us two days earlier that a 
“case” was coming” (16). Here by referring to the “case”, a picture of a strange person 
would be shaped in the reader's mind, and this would spark the first attitude toward black 
people in the novel. Not even calling her name when introducing her to the children, 
mother of Macteer family snows it is somehow abominable that Pecola is similar to her 
own children. Black people are considered by Whites as savages. They see Blacks are 
totally different from other people with different lifestyles. This specific point is clear 
when the narrator compares them to birds, “Propertied black people spent all their 
energies, all their love, on their nests. Like frenzied, desperate birds, they over decorate 
everything” (18).

This study imputes the issue of parenting as one of the foremost problem in the culture of 
the Afro-American. According to Andrea O' Reilly, attitude, issue of motherhood is 
central in studying African- American culture. How a mother treats her children and the 
whole family is of great significance. In Macteer's family, there is a mutual love and care 
between family members that keeps them united while in Breedlove's family; there is a 
specific segregation and desolation between family members, especially regarding 
Pecola's mother, Pauline. She is more enthusiastic to work outside than showing 
affectionate care and attention toward her family. Picola is so fearful of different persons 
or situations, so she is being teased easily by the people around her. She is deprived of her 
mother's affectionate love, and the result is her inability to resist any kind of oppression 
and injustice imposed on her by the society.

 Another pivotal aspect in studying African-American culture according to O'Reilly is that 
“Mothers and mothering are what make possible the physical and psychological well-
being and empowerment of African-American people and the larger African- American 
culture” (4).  Eleven-year Pecola lives with her family in Lorain, Ohio. When her father, 
Cholly, burns down their house, she spends some days with the MacTeer family. Claudia, 
the youngest MacTeer, is one of the narrators who tells us Pecola's story. In the years 
covered by the narrative, 1940 and 1941, the Breedlove girl is constantly bullied and 

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mistreated by teachers, classmates, neighbours and family. Because she thinks of herself 
as ugly, she attributes their mistreatment of her to her physical appearance, as she believes 
that no one would behave badly in front of her if she were beautiful. One of the most 
traumatizing events in Pecola's life is the moment when she is raped by her father, gets 
pregnant and loses her sanity. By telling her story, Claudia is trying to make sense of 
everything that happened to the youngest Breedlove and to their community. Toni 
Morrison's purpose of depicting Macteer's and Breedlove's family was to show how 
atmosphere of the house and parents' behaviour would shape and affect children's future. 
Because Pecola is disconnected from her family especially her mother, she does not 
consider herself as a mature woman and also a mother in the near future, but only 
imagines how it would be different if she were a girl with blue eyes, “it had occurred to 
Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the 
sights- if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be 
different” (46). 

Another is the notion of white God in Breedlove family. Breedlove family are not 
satisfied with their lives. All the family members identify themselves with White 
Americans and yearn for their luxurious way of life. The blatant and tangible comparison 
between Breedlove and White American family is described in the novel which would 
clarify this point. In O'Reily,

Pecola, Pauline, and Cholly Breedlove fall victim to their failure to transcend the     
imposing definition of 'The Other's' look. Reduced to a state of objectness 
(thingness), each remains frozen in a world of being-for-the-other and 
consequently lives a life of shame, alienation, self-hatred and inevitable 
destruction (50). 

This specific kind of feeling in poor African- American families especially Breedlove is 
clear when Morrison describes their austere situation of life in the novel: “They lived 
there because they were black and poor and they stayed there because they believed they 
were ugly” (38). Or in another part of the novel, when the narrator refers to God who has 
created these black creatures: “ It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had 
given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without 
question”(39). By bringing the word “master”, it might refer to God who has intentionally 
created them with black skin and made them to live under such inequality. To look at 
another aspect of the situation, a specific point which can be elicited from the above 
passage is that God and the angels are white who give their blessings to white people and 
abandoned all those non-Whites to live with their own vigour. This specific notion of 
White God is also described in the novel when Cholly, Pecola's father, describes his love 
of black devil: “God was a nice old white man, with long white hair” (134). So black 
people believe that all kinds of disrespect and ignorance which they bear in their life are 
rooted from God's own will that made the Whites to be emancipated and do whatever they 
want. That's why Cholly does not follow morality in his life and religious sanctum, which 
eventually led to his sexual relationship with his own daughter. 
The Bluest Eyes explores the tragedy of oppression and internalized racism. It examines 
the tragic effects of imposing white, middle-class American ideals of beauty on the 

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developing female identity of a young African American girl during the early 1940s. Hills 
Collins in her book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics 
of Empowerment, notes that, “Portraying the range of ways that African-American 
women experience internalized oppression has been a prominent theme in Black 
Women's writing” (43). Inspired by a conversation Morrison once had with an elementary 
school classmate who wished for blue eyes, the novel poignantly shows the psychological 
devastation of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who searches for love and 
acceptance in a world that denies and devalues people of her own race.  Morrison says 
that, 

The origin of the novel lay in conversation I had with a childhood friend. We had 
just started elementary school. She said she wanted blue eyes. I looked around to 
picture her with them and was violently repelled by what I imagined she would 
look like if she had her wish. The sorrow in her voice seemed to call for sympathy, 
and I faked it for her, but, astonished by the desecration she proposed, “I got mad 
at her instead.” (270)

African-American history starts in the 16th century, with peoples from West Africa 
forcibly taken as slaves to Spanish America, and in the 17th century with West African 
slaves taken to English colonies in North America. After the founding of the United 
States, black people continued to be enslaved, and the last four million black slaves were 
only liberated after the Civil War in 1865. Due to notions of white supremacy, they were 
treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U.S. citizenship 
to whites only, and only white men of property could vote. These circumstances were 
changed by Reconstruction, development of the black community, participation in the 
great military conflicts of the United States, the elimination of racial segregation, and the 
civil rights movement which sought political and social freedom. In 2008, Barack Obama 
became the first African American to be elected President of the United States.  
Before being an industrial country, America is agricultural country which has enormous 
farming land that should be farmed. Because of that, America takes many immigrants 
from Africa and India to work at their enormous farming land. Slavery in America started 
in 1619, when a Dutch ship brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of 
Jamestown, Virginia. They worked as farmers in America, farming land. They planted 
cotton and tobacco. The success of cotton and tobacco plantation improved the great 
number of immigrants. Throughout the 17th century, European settlers in North America 
turned to African slaves as a cheaper, more plentiful labour source than indentured 
servants, who were mostly poorer Europeans. Racism is one of dominant discrimination 
in the United States. This is because of the black people's position as minority and the 
history of their race. They were discriminated against because they came from slavery. 
Then occurs some prejudice based on the physical appearance and characteristics toward 
their behaviour. This condition made it hard for them to live normally and get some 
opportunities.  
  Neelam Bhardwaj's paper entitled ―”The Bluest Eyes: A Tragedy of Oppression and 
Internalized Racism”, talks about the life of African-American women that had been 
affected by racism, sexism and classicism. It says that Black women are also victimised 
not only on the basis of races and sex but also badly treated by class exploitations which is 

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the greatest oppression of blacks in America. In this way, black women suffered from the 
double disadvantage of racial discrimination and gender bias. The paper also explores the 
tragedy of the oppression or violation of children, especially poor children and she 
explores a problem specific to groups targeted by racism, that of internalized racism. If 
the Black Arts Movement then failed black women by not taking their gender into their 
agenda, the feminist movements of the period failed them by not taking race into theirs. 
As feminist theorist, Bell Hooks points out that a black woman looking for a theory that 
would encompass both gender and race would be pretty isolated: 

No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as 
have black women. We are rarely recognized as a group separate and distinct from 
black men, or as a present part of the larger group “women” in this culture. When 
black people are talked about, sexism militates against the acknowledgement of 
the interests of black women; when women are talked about racism militates 
against recognition of black female interests. When black people are talked about 
the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus 
tends to be on white women (21).

A Du Boisian Reading of The Bluest Eyes
What matters mostly in this society is European or Western's way of life and what is not 
included in this domain of society is marginalized like what Pecola represents. This 
feeling of being ignored by others is also clear when Pauline talks about the time she was 
in hospital and wanted to give birth to Pecola. Being a black woman, Pauline was not 
under doctors' monitoring, while white pregnant women took benefit from nurses' and 
doctors' care. This kind of ignorance and marginalization or Othering definitely affects 
the embryo's consciousness in Pauline's womb as is depicted in the novel, “They never 
said nothing to me. Only one looked at me. Looked at my face, I mean. I looked right back 
at him”. Or when she says that doctors talked to white women warmly: “I seed them 
talking to them white women” (125). 
The African suffers oppression also in the way he uses language. They do not pronounce 
words correctly or pay attention to making their sentences properly. This is seen in the 
novel when the narrator says, “nasty white folks is about the nastiest things they is” (120). 
These kinds of self-hatred and shame drive from the fact that African-Americans suffer 
from double-consciousness. Du Bois asserted in his famous book, The Souls of Black 
Folks that,

The Negro is ... gifted with second-sight in this American world – a world which 
yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the 
revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, 
this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring 
one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity (1-2).

What Lewis Gordon believes is that this kind of double-consciousness has two particular 
aspects to be analyzed. The first one is about “negative and psychological impacts of 
being a black person. So after comparing themselves with white people, blacks try to see 
themselves through the lens of Whites”. The second one which Gordon refers to is that, 

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“after finding themselves different from others, they realize that they are not treated the 
same as Whites” (78). This is clearly illustrated in the novel when Pecola identifies herself 
with her white fellows and imagines how her situation of life would be different if she 
were a white girl. So in that way, she would be revered as a respectable girl: “If those eyes 
of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (46). This 
feeling of two-ness in one's personality reveals the assumption that black people will be 
offended opines Paul Mocombe from “a synthesis of African survival (Africanism) with 
European cultural norms, giving blacks a double consciousness or making them hybrids 
or bicultural”(7). In The Bluest Eyes, Morrison refers to the plant dandelion which has a 
particular significance. Being a wild plant, dandelion is considered as a useless flower 
which later becomes a white ball of seeds. This can be attributed to Pecola who is being 
ignored by white people, “nobody loves the head of a dandelion. Maybe because they are 
so many, strong, and soon...” (47) Pecola refers to her own situation and conveys the 
message that although she is not a beautiful girl right now, later she will be a girl with a 
white skin and blue eyes who would be praised by everyone. What Mocombe believes is 
that this kind of being a black, behaving in a way which does not attract White's attention 
is part of their “innate sense of blackness or Negro blood” which caused these poor 
African- American people different from their white fellows” (59). What Braden 
Kendhammer argues in his article about Du Bois's concept of double consciousness is 
that, “because of feeling a special duality in their personality, Blacks should have a 
satisfactory state of life and live in a way to take advantage of modern education” (57). 
But we see that the reverse of it exists in the novel. Instead of building their life upon 
education and construction of their identity, the Breedlove family is deprived of ordinary 
education and there is no clear and stable relationship among family members. There is no 
portrayal of any special love or understanding between Pecola and her parents. Even 
Pecola's father works for his own profit and his only trouble is his own survival. One 
particular aspect in considering Du Bois's double- consciousness is according to Richard 
Schafer, the concept of 'veil'. This specific veil refers to “race itself and its impact on the 
lives of Black American, the racial lens through which White Americans view Black 
Americans” (3). In analyzing the novel, it becomes clear that Pecola's family suffers from 
such veil in their lives, for example, when the poor condition of Pecola's life is described 
in the novel, “and Pecola, she hid behind hers. Concealed, veiled, eclipsed- peeping out 
from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the return of her mask” 
(39). Black people have to conceal behind their ugliness, blackness or their originality 
and be marginalized. Actually a great gap or a vast dichotomy turns up between these two 
groups. Another part of the novel which talks about existing veil between Whites and 
Blacks is when it says that the true and primordial obstacle which does not let white 
people build a good relationship with their black fellows is their skin colour and also their 
ugliness: “And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with 
distaste in white eyes” (49).
Throughout the novel, references to people's eyes are of great significance, for example, 
in the above sentence “white eyes”, or in a place where Pecola sees herself in the mirror: 
“Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness” 
(45). Morrison intentionally made references to people's eyes, especially those of Blacks'. 
She is saying that people's eyes act as a medium for one's expression of feelings and 

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attitudes. Eyes are the most powerful organ of the body by which people can 
communicate with each other. Or put in another way, the eyes are the first and most 
efficient organ of the body through which man can penetrate and understand each other's 
soul. What Morrison claims is that no matter what the colour of people's skin, they can 
realize each other's needs just through looking at each other's eyes. In the novel, the 
reverse of this situation is depicted. There is no respect or love between White and Black. 
The whole novel describes Pecola's and even her mother's desire to be in the shoes of 
Whites and be white and beautiful like them. Actually both the mother and the daughter 
are in the words of Shirshankar Bhanegaonker “the poor victims bewitched by the 
illusory models of beauty” (381).  This is what Du Bois describes as 'double-
consciousness'. Black people's identity trapped between a kind of two-ness and 
divergence make them not to preserve their primary personality and wish for something 
ruling in the society- white skin. Instead of constructing a new identity for herself, Pecola 
destroyed it. What Bhanegaonker says regarding her situation is that such voluntary need 
to be a beautiful girl led to Pecola's despair, frustration, disintegration and insanity” (389). 
Pecola thought that by having blue eyes she would be praised by everyone and do 
whatever she wanted, but what is actually depicted in the novel was death of her baby 
which was concomitant with her madness: “She, however, stepped over into madness, a 
madness which protected her from us simply because it bored us in the end” (206). This 
kind of seeing themselves through the eyes of Whites reveals another aspect of Du Bois's 
concept of double-consciousness, opines Shao Yuh- Chaun, “the relation between 
individual and community and also past and future of blackness” (550). They all think 
about their future life and imagine how their life would change if they were white, and 
they also consider themselves in opposition to the whole society. They are always afraid 
of not being accepted by the community and have a disillusioned feeling which makes 
them alienated and dissociated from other people. To look at the other side of the matter, 
Morrison in Chaun, “dramatizes the devastating effect of chronic shame on her 
characters' sense of individual and social identity, describing their self-loathing, self-
contempt, their feelings that they are, in some essential way, inferior”(556). This kind of 
feeling about one's 'self' in Blacks is clear in the novel when the narrator talks about 
Pauline's treatment toward her family: “Into her son she beat a loud desire to run away, 
and into her daughter she beat a fear of growing up, fear of other people, fear of life” 
(128). Actually Pecola's insatiable desire for having blue eyes results in becoming an 
invisible figure in the society who eventually becomes mad. She not only wanted a great 
transformation in her life like being a white and beautiful girl but also wanted the bluest 
eyes in the world. This kind of transcending beyond her capacities caused her tragic 
destiny. This kind of double-consciousness has its effect on Frieda and Claudia too. In a 
place, when Claudia asked herself, “what made people look at them and say, 
“Awwwww”, but not for me?  Or when she destroyed white baby dolls” (22). Finally, the 
most apparent part of the novel which talks about Pecola's double-consciousness is in the 
part where the narrator talks about Pecola's appearance: “So the distaste must be for her, 
her blackness. All things in her are flux and anticipation. But her blackness is static and 
dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with 
distaste in white eyes” (49). 

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Conclusion
In Lorain, Ohio where Picola grew up, the citizens are suffering from self-loathing 
because of their marginalization and because their self-worth has been so corroded by the 
lack of affirmation and appreciation. It is established that Blacks in America are trapped 
between two poles of existence- as Africans and also Americans, so they are not able to 
establish a unique and permanent identity for themselves. They are under the influence of 
double-consciousness which made them become keener toward white people's world and 
an insatiable desire to be in their shoes like having white skin, speaking fluently or taking 
advantage of modern education. What Toni Morrison depict in her novels is that there is a 
great barrier or wall or what Du Bois calls 'a veil' between Whites and Blacks that exists 
which does not let each understand each other and penetrate each other's culture and 
civilization. The hegemonic situation in the society led to a state where the whites feel 
superior and dominant while Blacks are doomed to be ignored and alienated. This state of 
being detached from community creates a special feeling of self-loathing and shame in 
Black people and force them to transcend their current personality and desire something 
unachievable like what is depicted in the novel—Pecola's desire to attain blue eyes caused 
her madness. However, as the writer highlights in the foreword section of the book, it is 
also extremely important to the narrative that the protagonist is a young child. Pecola's 
struggles with her black appearance can be seen in the passage, in which she wishes she 
could make it disappear,

Please, God,” she whispered into the palm of her hand. “Please make me 
disappear.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Little parts of her body faded away. Now 
slowly, now with a rush. Slowly again. Her fingers went, one by one; then her 
arms disappeared all the way to the elbow. Her feet now. Yes, that was good. The 
legs all at once. It was hardest above the thighs. She had to be real still and pull. 
Her stomach would not go. But finally it, too, went away. Then her chest, her neck. 
The face was hard, too. Almost done, almost. Only her tight, tight eyes were left. 
They were always left (43).

Effects of western colonization on black people's lives especially their mind are in a way 
that they spend their lives trying to imitate western state of life and imagine themselves as 
one of the Whites. Their main purpose is that they believe that all these kinds of good and 
advancement are the prerogatives of the Whites. The Bluest Eyes shows how the African-
American Community has been denied the “American Dream”. They have been closed 
out and rejected by the very country into which they were born.
After reading and writing this work, I believe that the “remaining touched but not moved” 
(VIII) Morrison refers to is related to an inquiry of our society's values. Should beauty be 
as important as it is? Do African Americans gain from being considered beautiful, or is it 
still harmful and drives them further away from their traditions? Pecola does believe she 
has gotten her blue eyes by the end of the novel, but she still wants more: she needs the 
bluest eyes. After all, beauty standards are always going to be unachievable, even for 
white people. We will always be too fat or too tall, and the pursuit of beauty as one of the 
most desirable values in life will always create self-loathing. We all take part in Pecola's 
downfall, and that may be the reason the “why” of her story is so difficult to handle (4). 
While we cultivate beauty as our strongest wish, we may be generating and spreading 
self-contempt.

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As a solution, Morrison brings love, stories, connection to the community. In The Bluest 
Eye, that community is the African American one, since that is the position of the main 
characters. After all, the bluest eye does not refer exclusively to Pecola's wish. The “eye” 
can be read according to Moses Cat as “I”: self, subject (126). The bluest may be 
understood as a reference to blues: a strong African American tradition. If Pecola 
imagined her healing would come from possessing the bluest of eyes, Morrison seems to 
think that a truly healed identity will more probably come from connection to community 
and to others, and that is the message her novel gives.

Works Cited

Bhanegaonkar, Shivshankar G. “Reflections of Cultural Conflict in Toni Morrison's The 
Bluest Eye. Nanded: People's College U.P., 2012.

Bump, Jerome. “Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eyes: A Template for an Ethical 
Emotive Criticism”. College Literature, Vol. 37, No. 2. West Chester U.P., 2010.

Byers, Thomas. A City upon a Hill: American Literature and the Ideology of 
Exceptionalism. American Studies in Scandinavia 29.2.pp 76-84. 1997.

Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folks. Rockville: Arc Manor Press, 2008.

Dalsgaard Katrine. “The One All Black Town Worth the Pain: American Exceptionalism, 
Historical Narration and the Critique of Nationhood in Toni Morrison's Paradise-          
African Critical Essay”. African American Review. Summer 35(2): pp. 233-48. 
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Gordon, Lewis. An Introduction to African Philosophy. New York: Cambridge U.P., 
2008.

Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought : Knowledge, Consciousness, and the 
Politics of Empowerment. Boston : Unwin Hyman 1990.

Hooks, Bell. Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism.  NY: Routledge, 2015.

Kendhammer, Brandon. “DuBois the Pan-Africanist and the Development of African  
Nationalism”. Ethnic and Racial Studies. Vol. 30, No. 1. 2007.

th
Kendrick, Lamar. “To Pimp a Butterfly”. Genius. 9  February, 2015.  

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Mocombe, Paul. Soul-less Souls of Black Folks. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of 
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Moses, Cat. “The Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eyes”. In Bloom's 
Modern Critical Interpretations – Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eyes – Updated 
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Neelam, Bhardwaj. “The Blues Eyes: A Tragedy of Oppression and Internalized Racism”, 
in International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL). 
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O'Reilly, Andrea. Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart. America: New 
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Semmes, Clovis. “The Sociological Tradition of E.Franklin Frazier: Implications for 
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Schaefer, Richard. “Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Double 
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Toni, Morrison. The Bluest Eyes. London: Vintage Books, 1999.

Yuh-chuan, Shao. “The Double Consciousness of Cultural Pariahs—Fantasy, Trauma 
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American Studies, Academia Sinica. Vol. 36, No. 4. 2006.

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