Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Bluest Eye

Their Eyes Were Watching God was written by Zora Neale Hurston in 1937. Hurston moved to New York in 1925 and had a significant role in the Harlem Renaissance . The novel is about a girl named Janie who was raised by her grandmother in Eatonville, Florida because her mother ran away.  She experiences with three different marriages over the course of the novel, and all of them have their ups and downs but none end up working out. Her third marriage with Tea Cake was going well until he got bit by a rabied dog and Janie was forced to shoot and ultimately kill him.

 

Even though these two novels have similar backgrounds, being in the 1900’s in predominantly black towns, the manner in which society acts and views African-American’s are completely different. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola goes to Mr. Yacobowski’s store one day with her three pennies to buy some candy. Claudia states, “He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see”(Morrison 48). Blackness is a form of invisibility for whites in Morrison’s novel. The white clerk “does not see her” because the little black girl is not important to him since she is economically inferior and is carrying only three cents. Racism is also a form of paralysis in Morrison’s novel because Pecola couldn’t even give the money to the clerk; she stuck her hand out and waited for him to take it.

In Florida’s black society in Hurston’s novel, there was still many racist people but the society overall seemed to be more tolerant and understanding of race. At the end of the novel when Janie was doing her trial for killing Tea Cake, the narrator asks, “What need had they to leave their richness to come look on Janie in her overalls”(Hurston 185)? Rich, white people left what they were doing to watch a poor black girl in court for killing a black man. In The Bluest Eye, this never would have happened because whites and blacks refused to associate with one another and never got along, as illustrated in the scene with Mr. Yacobowski and Pecola.

One of the most significant symbols in both of these novels is hair and it’s powerful effect on people. First of all, Janie’s hair is symbolic of her individuality. At the beginning of the novel, the town’s critique illustrates how it is not right and undignified for woman around Janie’s age to wear their hair down. Janie is unique and her refusal to follow this tradition shows how she is a tough and rebellious individual. Also, similar to The Bluest Eye, Janie’s hair symbolizes whiteness and white power. Blacks in both novels praise women with straight hair because it is the most beautiful, particularly straight and blonde. Mrs. Turner, a black woman, worships Janie because she has straight hair. Also, it gives her an advantage in her relationships because her hair  makes her more “white” than her husbands, therefore giving her more power than them. In The Bluest Eye, African American woman see tight, curly hair as a source of shame and ugliness. Claudia and Pecola are given white dolls with straight blonde hair to be shown what looks the two girls should love.

 Claudia says about the dolls, “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”(20). Because of the expectations in society regarding hair, Geraldine and Pauline straighten it to look more beautiful. The craving of straight hair was not just evident in the books, but also real life. One of the most popular gels that people used at the time to acquire straight hair was called the conk.

       

"Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe"(Morrison 206)

Another common issue during the early to mid 1900’s was violence in African American society as well as violence in relationships. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, two of the three relationships that Janie had with other men ended violently. For example, when Janie’s dinner didn’t meet her husband Jody’s expectations, “he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store”(Hurston 72). One common reason for violence in the relationships is because "love is never any better than the lover." The characters in both novels have been warped or corrupted in some way, and therefore fail to love each other. For example, Pecola was raped by her father and Janie's mother ran away. The relationship between Janie and Jody is similar to that of Cholly and Pauline, Pecola’s parents. They fought eachother with a “darkly brutal formalism” and “tacitly they had agreed not to kill each other”(Morrison 43). In today’s society, fighting a girl is one of the worst things that a man can do but Cholly did it over and over again to his wife to the point where the kids were worried one of them would die. Although it’s very uncommon nowadays, African American violence between men and woman still exists, for example the Chris Brown beating of Rihanna.

          

Black Arts Movement Artists

To response to the ideology of Black Power, Black Arts Movement, as opposed to artwork simply created by an African American artist, signified the only relevant artistic production in the struggle for African American self-determinacy. Therefore, Black Art rejects the "art for art's sake theory" in favor of advancing art's sociopolitical influence in the re-definition of African American identity. Black artists, aimed to challenge the white standard aesthetic value system, voiced their own black culture and express ideas from the point of view of racial and ethnic minorities was not valued by the mainstream to display the distinction of black identity. Like other Black Art Movement activists, Toni Morrison internalizes the main concerns of the aesthetic. She writes about black oppression, consciousness and tradition. Morrison’s major characters are black and they are in constant search for their ethnic identity. Morrison tackles the destructiveness of double-consciousness in The Bluest Eyes. She does not avoid painful and complicated themes in her novels about black experience, and she also chooses stylistic devices that are faithful to her African-American heritage. Morrison implicates the importance of her culture by reflecting black traditions of storytelling and black spoken dialogs. Similar to Morrison, black artists in BAM displayed the ideologies and perspectives of art that center on black culture and life, and strengthen black ideals, solidarity, and creativity. They against the institutional racism that through educational system, popular culture and production of items that only cater to the whites. Black artists tried to open a new era that gives more space to individuality and diversity and against the community as a whole has accepted the Western values and considers differences from it a flaw. In Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, Pecola and Claudia remain a meaningful contrast to each other in facing the problem of Eurocentrism. 

Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, 1963

Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, a Jeff Donaldson’s oil painting, portrays the confrontation Donaldson envisioned. Appropriating icons of American consumer culture, the painting not only portrays a confrontation between Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, but also enacts a confrontation with popular media imagery responsible for furthering racist stereotypes. Donaldson's depiction of Aunt Jemima subverts the docility and subservience associated with this image of black womanhood. Though the Pillsbury Doughboy (a figure of oppression in the painting) restrains Aunt Jemima, her defensive stance and fierce expression indicate that she will not concede defeat. Moreover, Aunt Jemima’s statuesque figure implies that she holds the upper-hand in a contest of strength with her oppressor. Pitting The Pillsbury Doughboy against Aunt Jemima, Donaldson is simultaneously “identifying the enemy” and asserting black America's strength to overcome racist oppression and challenge the power of white supremacy. Notably, the subversive nature of Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy extends to the American flag as well. The strips of the flag in the painting's background are bent in an angle reminiscent of a swastika. Challenging the notions of democracy and freedom associated with the American flag, Donaldson is drawing a jarring connection between American racism and the recognized atrocities of Nazism since the destructiveness of the white beauty standard to the African American community is significant. The most notable victim is Pecola in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, who is deeply affected by the illustrations of white beauty around her and believes that she is ugly and desires to “be Mary Jane,” becoming insane at the end due to the society’s assuming of her ugliness. The Black Arts concepts struggled to abandon Du Bois’s idea of double-consciousness since blacks were constantly struggling toward the white culture’s ideals, even though the dominant society disabled them from reaching the white standard of beauty. Mirroring themselves against value structure of the oppressive white society was depriving the blacks of their empowerment. Jeff Donaldson wanted to concentrate on solving the problems of the African-American community from the inside, developing awareness of the rich black heritage and gearing the community to realize its worth. The Black Art Movement leaded the time for blacks to stop internalizing the image of being inferior in the society as a whole and asserting the strength, beauty, and self-esteem of blacks. Preventing the tragedy of Pecola, black artists built up black’s own brand—Aunt Jemima to confront the white standard beauty figures of “Mary Jane” and “Shirley Temple”. Jeff Donaldson claimed the "next level of struggle would [have to be] confrontational," to be black themselves and to love themselves, but not to “be Mary Jane” and “love Mary Jane” (50). The Black Art movement leaders tried to liberate blacks from the limitation of white beauty standard and the fallacy that people’s value depend on their looks.

Polarization, Claude Clark

Polarization presents the condition, names the enemy, and directs a plan of action. Depicting a black man arm wrestling Uncle Sam, Claude Clark presents African American life in opposition to white America; he specifically identifies the American government as the "enemy," and he points to direct confrontation as the mode of socio-political struggle. While Polarization portrays a confrontation still in action, Clark's iconography foreshadows the "American" victor. Linking African American's struggle for civil rights with the American Revolution, the American flag placed on the "side" of the black man indicates his eventual victory over the "monarchy" of white America (the crown beneath Uncle Sam's bench). Toni Morrison reveals the destructiveness of white authority by excerpting sentence from Dick and Jane. Like Uncle Sam, Dick and Jane are also the creations of the white society that determines the material values and desirable appearance for everyone. The blacks do not have public representation in the society. There were no reading assignments about black children who live in poverty. This manifestation of institutional racism contributes to the black characters’ personal prejudices, increasing their feeling of insecurities and ugliness. The Black Art Movement aimed to change black’s situation by fight against the standard aesthetic value set up by white people and “towards a plan of action in search of our own roots and eventual liberation" (Claude Clark).

If I Were Jehovah, 1970

This painting is an assertive revision of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's most noted poem "We Wear the Mask."

We Wear the Mask
Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but O great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh, the clay is vile
Beneath our feet and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask.

As depicted in the painting If I Were Jehovah, the "mask" African Americans historically used to shield the depth of their emotions in a racist society is being ripped away in a full expression of outrage and determination. The “mask man” in the painting rejects the white authority and tries to abandon the double-consciousness. Similar to Claudia in Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, the “mask man” does not wish to be white, but hate the western ideal and “desires to dismember it” (20). The “mask man” and Claudia recognize the institutional racism around the: the mass media bombards the black community with white images of beauty, making it harder for the minority to maintain its own identity and worth since no public presentations of black ideals or role models are available. Like Claudia, the activists in the Black Art movement rebelled to white institution and took off black’s mask.

Black artists in the movement tried to distinct black culture by using African motifs and musical beats in their art works, and they have profoundly changed what and how America sees--in the images that flare on the canvas as well as those that flicker on the large and small screen. 

Gordon Parks peeked through photographic and cinematic lenses to record the travail of Black life. In the photo “Children with Doll,” the two children represent different attitude to the white doll, just like Pecola and Claudia in The Bluest Eyes. One is addicted to the white doll and wants to become white girl, and one hates and rejects white standard beauty. While Pecola drowns herself of ugliness and worthiness and becomes a victim of the white standard of beauty, Claudia rejects the western ideal and in somewhat rebels like the Black Art movement activists.

Black artists used Abstract Expressionism and social protest--and brushes, pens, invented materials and found objects--to fashion the textures and colors of a new Black humanity that challenged racial stereotypes.

                                               Jazz: (N.Y.) Savoy--1930s, Romare Bearden

Humanity shines in Romare Bearden's collage, Jazz: (N.Y.) Savoy-1930s, which treats the most majestic music Black folk have created. Bearden achieves the sense of sound and rhythm associated with jazz through irregular spatial relationships and intense lights and darks. As in the music, what appears random—a face here and instrument there—coheres into a structured whole. To portray black ethnic voice like Bearden does, Toni Morrison uses old, black storytelling traditions in The Bluest Eyes to convey an authentic African-American experience. Morrison uses the call-and-response style of communication that initiates from the time of slavery. She continuously changes her focalization with narrative and writes non-chronological revealing of Pecola’s story, aiming to resemble African-American storytelling. Through the methods of black storytelling, Morrison gives a voice to several silenced issues of oppression.

Black artists and writers like Toni Morrison in Black Arts Movement were both trying to challenge the authority of white value system and injecting new diverse voices of minority. Their rebellion not only dealt with the racial issues but also changed the dominant white culture situation to a new multicultural era.

The Dove Campaign & The Bluest Eye

Whether a person considers herself to be beautiful or hideous, an individual's expectation and desire to meet appearance standards is emotionally and psychologically consuming. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye illustrates the feelings of self-hatred derived from social acceptances and external attitudes towards African Americans through Pecola Breedlove's character, while Dove has created a beauty campaign in attempt to destroy any sense of personal abhorrence and establish a new idea of beauty in the minds of self-conscious individuals. 

Before the novel even begins, Morrison introduces the romanticized image of beauty in the Dick and Jane reader, continued before each paragraph, claiming that blonde, light skinned, blue-eyed little girls were considered beautiful beyond any opposition. This fascination with a specific look was mimicked in media, advertisements, and consumer goods that surrounded the characters, shaping the opinions of African American girls and women that eventually would see themselves as ugly. Pecola Breedlove suffocates under this predetermined standard for so long that she begins to long for blue eyes, as if that is requirement to being beautiful. Her mind is warped by her obsession of sorts, and her thoughts explode:
"Pretty eyes. Pretty blue eyes. Big blue pretty eyes...They run with their blue eyes. Four blue eyes. Four pretty blue eyes" (46). 

Formatted like the Dick and Jane books, Pecola's thoughts focus solely on her desire to be white, to be pretty, to be like Jane. If she could not completely disappear from existence, Pecola focused all of her conscious effort on shedding her ugliness or, in her mind, attaining blue eyes. 

Female perceptions in the twenty-first century share the same pressures and yearnings in terms of objectified appearance.Under Dove research it was calculated that "only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful," while over three fourths of women believe beauty lies within everyone but simply cannot locate their own (Dove). Unlike many commercial products that alter and mask appearances, Dove is not based on transforming the female physical image, yet building the self-esteem that makes each girl or woman comfortable in her own skin. 

For their advertisements Dove doesn't look for the skinniest girl, or the tallest, or the one whose picture would appear in the mind of any girl imagining someone beautiful, but one that is real; a image that consumers and witnesses can relate to; one that is normal. 

Pecola Breedlove is the ultimate victim to the four percent statistic, as she finds nothing beautiful about herself, yet discovers more and more imperfections, as do her Black friends. The girls: Pecola, Freida, and Claudia, are blatantly called ugly by their lighter-skinned classmate Maureen. Hurt and convinced of the insult's truth, the trio "walked quickly at first, and then slower, pausing every now and then to fasten garters, tie shoelaces, scratch, or examine old scars. [They] were sinking under the wisdom, accuracy, and relevance of Maureen's last words" (74). The obsessive attention to detail found in the minds of Morrison's characters is beyond that of any comfortable, confident child. The girls fasten, tie, scratch, and examine as means of pointing out each visible flaw which others point out as overriding any aspect of beauty. 

It is the Dove Corporation and its campaign for real beauty that illustrates that no one resembles Jane, or in current terms, no one resembles the face staring at you from a magazine, billboard, or catalog. In the evolution video, Dove's most prominent campaign tool, a team pulls a simple girl- pieced with average blemishes and face structure- and constructs her to fit a particular image to be placed on a public billboard. The resulting picture, after the model is made over, photographed, photo-shopped, and printed captures the eyes and consumes the thoughts of numerous minds, like those of the two girls captured admiring the final picture at the end of the film. 

The two images above are perceived by thousands as the same face and image, yet, behind the scenes, the first is real while the the second is completely computerized to perfection. Dove's mission is to publicize that no person fits the mold of beautiful that implants the minds of girls and women who desire such attributes for themselves. It sets out to revive senses of self-worth in those that only see ugliness, and therefore such a program could have been one to help save Pecola from self-destruction.