For the majority of her life, Pauline in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is heavily influenced by the media. Pauline creates many narratives to portray her life, but the problem with her narratives is that the meanings she derives from them negatively impact her. All of her pain and suffering could have been avoided if she just realized that Cholly would never be the "Stranger" from her stories. Even her experience with with Fishers causes harm, and not only to herself. By regarding her own experiences as more meaningful then with her own family, Pauline also hurts her children. This is the reason why Pecola and her brother don't receive any love from Pauline, making their relationship very brittle. In fact, this is probably why Pecola calls her mother Mrs Breedlove.Perhaps the most damaging is her addiction to movies. By watching movies, she begins to "regard love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit" (Morrison 122). She comes to believe that love is no loner about "lust and caring for" but rather possession and beauty. The narrator even describes love and beauty to be the "most destructive ideas in the history of human thought"(Morrison 122). After watching the movies for some time, Pauline begins to rank people on a scale of beauty. She goes from disregarding physical beauty to embracing it, which shows how much the media has affected her.
Nice post Kevin! I agree with you in that Pauline is negatively affected by the media. I also like how you mentioned the beauty scale because Pauline calls her own daughter ugly. I found the point you made about Pecola calling her own mother as Mrs. Breedlove very interesting. It really shows how strained the relationship between mother and daughter has become.
ReplyDeleteKevin, beautiful tracing of the media's effect on Pauline. I also think that Pauline is another example of the cycles of abuse because she was abused by her husband and this abuse transfers to Pecola.
ReplyDeleteHey Kevin! I really liked the cohesion of thoughts throughout this post. Every sentence seemed to flow into the next. Also, you maintained focus on the media's impact on Pauline very nicely. These things made your post very compelling. Nice post!!
ReplyDeleteKevin! I like how the theme of your post revolved around media and the impact it has. I agree that Pauline is a victim of media, which can be seen in her non-loving actions and strained perspective with beauty. You tied your points together nicely as well. Awesome!
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