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The symbols that appear throughout The Bluest Eye: The baby dolls, the milk & the shirley temple cup, the prostitutes, and the blue eyes, are representative of not only Pecola's, but the all the girls' perceptions of the standard beauty norms, and life as an African American girl with no guidance about how to love yourself no matter your race.

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" Three merry gargoyles. Three merry harridans. Amused by a long-ago time of ignorance. " (pg. 55)

The prostitutes in the novel, are a huge representation of the power obtained from breaking away from societal expectations. The reason Pecola looks up to them so much, or really admires their lifestyle, is because she wishes that she would be able to free herself from the pressures she has put on her to conform to society but she also knows that she is not brave enough to do so.

"With Pecola they were as free as they were with each other. Marie concocted stories for her because she was a child, but the stories were breezy and rough. If Pecola had announced her intention to live the life they did, they would not have tried to dissuade her or voiced any alarm. " (pg. 57)

I think one of the reasons that Pecola has such a hard time growing up, is because she is not only ridiculed by her society, but she has no role models in her life. No one to tell her what is right and what is wrong, and the prostitutes are part of the reason why she has no guidance. (while this is correct, it does not speak to your topic in this paragraph and it is not really analyzing this particular quote) She looks up to them because they are free, but as a young girl, she shouldn't have to worry about the life she wants to live when she grows up. Especially if it isn't the best path for her and has no one to show her the right one.-- for this quote, I would have focused on the fact that they are free to speak as they want to with Pecola because they do not fear any repercussions from anyone's judgment, as they have have embraced and accepted the fact that they are outsiders. Even these women however, do understand that this life is not for everyone and that Pecola is not strong enough to handle this- hence why the narrator says that they would not allow her to become a prostitute like them.

I think I would have also included on here how they represent the only way in which African American women can empower themselves in society; because they are deemed otherwise worthless, the only way that they can find value even in themselves is to accept their roles as outsiders and embrace this by using the only thing they have to "sell" to their advantage. They also accept the fact that they will never be included in society and this acceptance actually gives them power because they know that they have nothing to lose, therefore they are emboldened to act freely in a society that does not see them.

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"My mother knew Frieda and I hated milk and assumed Pecola drank it out of greediness" (pg. 23)

Because of The color of the milk, it represents the desire to be white, as well as the beauty that comes with it, in Pecola's eyes. Unlike Claudia and Frieda, who are proud to be who they are, Pecola associates drinking the milk, with the thought that if she just kept drinking, it would somehow make her white and equally, beautiful.-- what she thinks is the following: the more she drinks from the Shiley Temple cup, the closer she can be to her and that this will bring her closer to being deemed worthy. Also, Claudia and Freida are not proud to be who they are- Claudia has a great deal of self hatred inside her- this is seen in the way she treats the dolls and also in the way that she wishes to harm white girls.

"Frieda and she had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was." (pg. 19)

Even though both Frieda and Pecola share a love of Shirley Temple, Pecola has a slightly different fascination with her. To Pecola, the cup represents the perfect example of beauty in a child. She sees how Shirley is liked by all people, and the love that she receives on a daily basis (which in part has to do with her being a celebrity), and she believes that it is because of her blue eyes and blonde hair. Something that Pecola longs for.

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"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... "why look at pretty eyed Pecola. we musn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes" (pg. 45)

Pecola always dreamed of having blue eyes. As a young black girl, she thinks that she will never feel the love received by those with white skin and blonde hair, as Because in her society, those features represent a perfect vision of beauty and worthiness. and She believes that if she had them, society would not only accept her, but she all her problems would go away. -- Hence the blue eyes become a representation of everything she wishes she was and everything that society accepts.

"Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty....A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles.” (pg. 174)

This is Pecola taking it to another level. The extreme. After suffering a great deal of discrimination and then being raped by her father,  Pecola receives in her daily life, she has given up on trying to live in a world where she is unwanted. So, she goes to Soaphead to see if there is anyway he can make her dreams come true. He sees a desperate child, and  although he sees her in the same way society does, he also is enraged by her presence because it is a reminder of his own self hatred. The blue eyes once again are a symbol of everything that is valued in society and although eh wishes he could help her, he knows that he is powerless to change the way society sees her. takes for granted, her desperation as he sees her the way society does.

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" It had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll. From the clucking sounds of adults I knew that the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish. I was bemused with the thing itself, and the way it looked." (pg. 19-20)

Claudia always knew who she was. She was never ashamed of it, but as she sees the blue eyed, yellow haired baby dolls, and the way that society assumes that she will accept them with loving arms, she understands the ideal that the dolls represent and that they are what she supposedly "desires" to look like. It is clear here how steady Claudia rejects this ideal because it contradicts her own self image, but it is also clear that she knows this is the way people expect her to react to this. They expect her to admire the dolls and to see them as  How she could be beautiful. Unlike those around her, she also sees how destructive this is for young black girls.

" Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs-all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. "Here" they said, "this is beautiful, and if you are on this day 'worthy' you may have it." " (pg.21)

The message in this statement to not only young black girls, but all girls in general is very damaging to  their self esteem, because as they try to develop in their own society, they are pained with this belief that if they will only be considered are worthy enough, if they you will one day be able to look like this beautiful dolls (referring to the baby dolls), and For those  who will never look this beautiful, they can have this doll to somehow make them feel closer to what you could never be. This is why it is so interesting to me that at such a young age, Claudia is so confident in who she is, that no one would be able to push this ideal on her.-- Claudia is not confident in who she is, she just becomes angry because she realizes that what she is being told is that she is not worthy. She accepts the standard like everyone else, she just also knows that she will never achieve it.

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One of the biggest ways Morrison expresses emotion and teaches lessons throughout the Bluest Eye, is through symbolism. Symbolism has such a large affect when going into depth about how the girls see themselves in the book, because every symbol plays a part in how they develop. This is especially true for Pecola. The themes in the book are also a very big part in the way that the symbols are presented, because if the societal beauty standards in The Bluest Eye didn't have so much power on not only Pecola's but also Claudia, Freida, and all the young girls, self images, they wouldn't feel a separation amongst them, based on what they looked like. Which Had they been able to see the beauty in themselves this in turn, would have provided them with so much more in their lives, rather than having to worry about how to be "prettier", and distancing themselves from those might not have been as "pretty". The symbols that appear throughout The Bluest Eye: The baby dolls, the milk & the Shirley temple cup, the prostitutes, and the blue eyes, are representative of not only Pecola's, but the all the girls' perceptions of the standard beauty norms, and life as an African American girl with no guidance in the idea of how to love yourself no matter your race.

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Morgan
You have some good ideas here but at times you do not go into depth enough to connect the text to the thesis you formulated. You also had some issues with grammar here. Again I do think you understood the novel and what Morrison was tying to do but your analysis at times needed a little bit further explanation.
Grade : 83