Understanding the feelings of African Americans during the civil rights movement is critical to understanding Ton Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye. W. E. B. Du Bois thinks that a biography of an African American always possesses a “double consciousness of the African American” (Lewis 143-145). Du Bois states that a black person living in a predominantly white country must learn to think with "two minds" - his own and that of the white man - if he is to have any chance of survival. In an interview with Toni Morrison in 1989, the author recalls her inspiration for writing The Bluest Eye. What struck her as almost more heartbreaking than the lack of black writers in Western literature was the fact that the black Americans whose books she had read seemed to be writing to a white audience and felt it necessary to explain things about black culture that they would never know. had to explain them in a normal conversation (LeClair). The example he gives is in the opening of The Bluest Eye: “However quiet, there were no marigolds in the autumn of 1941” (Morrison 5). In black culture, Morrison explained, "it means a big lie is about to be told. Or someone will tell some grave information, who's sleeping with who. Black readers will giggle" (LeClair). Ethnic studies was created to teach the stories, histories, struggles, and triumphs of people of color on their own terms. Critics identified The Bluest Eye as penetrating the mind of black culture and superficial feelings of racial inequality at the time of its publication (Lorde 114-123). Toni Morrison uses several literary devices to illustrate this mindset, including white as a standard of beauty, doubling of contrasting pairs, and supporting motifs. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayIn his book, Toni Morrison Explained, Ron David states that "in a Toni Morrison novel, there's a big difference between the story and the book. [I] can tell you the story in two pages, but you still won't have a solid idea of ​​what the book is like” (David 41). If you asked anyone who's read the novel what The Bluest Eye is about, they'd probably say it's the story of Pecola Breedlove. But David rejects this simple reading and claims that it is not Pecola's story, but rather the image of Pecola, a young black girl who thinks her life would be perfect if she had blue eyes. This solitary image is so powerful that it “sums up in the snap of a finger one of the greatest tragedies of our time” (David 41). This tragedy is the embodiment of the novel's theme, which is that every person of color in America is forced to struggle against a standard of beauty that is the exact opposite of what they are. This standard of beauty is that of whiteness. The message that white is superior is peppered throughout the novel. A particular case in which this message is strongly spread is when Claudia is given the little white doll with blond hair and blue eyes for Christmas. Her reaction is immediately negative when she states that she is "physically disgusted and secretly frightened by those idiotic round eyes and pancake face and orange worm hair" (Morrison 20). He then proceeds to dismember the doll, desperate to find out what was in that little pink thing that everyone seemed to find so adorable and beautiful. In addition to loathing this white-skinned doll, she loathes child star Shirley Temple, the embodiment of angelic beauty for little girls. To play with Du Bois' theory of the duality of the black mind, we are presented with the image of Pecola. Pecola is another young black girl who, aUnlike Claudia, she is obsessed with the thought that to be beautiful she must have blonde hair and blue eyes. Pecola is also obsessed with the same actress Claudia despises: Shirley Temple. Not only does she idolize Shirley, she drinks milk from a Shirley Temple cup and loves eating Mary Jane, the candy with the Shirley Temple clone on the package. The whiteness of the milk, Shirley and the candy wrapper take the "white is beautiful" theme to the next level. Pecola is also the person who suffers the most from the denial of possessing the white characteristics of beauty. She associates beauty with being loved and believes that if she were to possess the coveted blue eyes, the brutality in her life would be replaced by affection and respect. This fruitless desire for love and blue eyes leads to Pecola's madness and death. Toni Morrison expands on white superiority by doubling several contrasting couples throughout the novel. The bluest eye has three different beginnings. The first beginning is a piece from the classic Dick and Jane books that many have learned to read. The reason why Morrison chose this as one of his beginnings may be to introduce the beauty standard early. Ron David recalls that “every kid in America aspires to be Dick and Jane… who, in case you hadn't noticed, have blonde hair, blue eyes, and just enough white” (David 44). The second beginning is a gossip in which a now adult Claudia tells us what will happen in the novel. Most books tell you the "what" and the "how" at the same time, but Morrison gives us the "what" right away, and the story tells us the "how." The third and final beginning begins the real story: the "how." Now, why would an author have three separate beginnings? What's the point? Well, the beginning of Dick and Jane comes back into play at the beginning of almost every chapter. Morrison begins these chapters with an excerpt of Dick and Jane's introduction, usually contrasted with the story that follows. The most obvious and important of these contrasting pairs is that of Dick and Jane's fantasy versus Pecola's reality. The first case where this is seen is in the section immediately following Claudia's; there are three lines of words from Dick and Jane that say (with spaces inserted) “Here's the house, it's green and white, it's got a red door, it's very pretty, it's very pretty, pretty, pretty” (Morrison 33). The "beautiful house" lines contrast with the subsequent substory, which focuses on Pecola's dilapidated house. Other examples of contrasting couples within the novel are Pecola's acceptance of whiteness as the standard of beauty and Claudia's resistance, Pecola's shabby house versus Geraldine's tidy house. You could also include the extensive confrontation between Pecola and Claudia and Shirley Temple. Although the main theme of The Bluest Eye is whiteness as a standard of beauty, there are numerous secondary and minor motifs that Toni Morrison uses to reinforce this idea. The first reason is the representation of the seasons. The novel is conceived around the four seasons, which means it is not linear, but cyclical. This structure means that the story theoretically has no beginning or end and is part of an ongoing process. Typically, a seasonal book follows these symbols: Spring is a time of rebirth, and Autumn is the time when things die. The Bluest Eye begins in autumn, the season before winter, so audiences can understand that it won't be a happy novel. That's the bad news, as Ron David explains. He says the good news is that as a seasonal book, the book rhymes with the seasons, so "no matter how bad things seem, it's not final; it's part of a cycle; hold on until spring" (David 45).The second motif used by Morrison is the opposition between white and colour. This.