The Bluest Eye Afterword

When Morrison said that “Beauty was not something simply to behold, it was something you could do,” I see her thinking that beauty is shown through action. How we treat others, how we interacted with one another, the things we did not how we look or how we changed ourselves for others to call us beautiful. Actions are what make us beautiful. Throughout the book, she showed how Claudia and Frieda remained friendly and openhearted towards Pecola. They were her friends regardless of how ugly everyone called her and her family or themselves. Pecola was beautiful for the actions she showed not for how she looked. Vanity meant nothing to them as they saw how pretty Maureen Peal was on the outside but how ugly she was on the inside when she didn’t get her way. She asked some crude questions about Pecola’s father and when she got told to stop talking nasty and about boys she flipped on them and called them names. I think she only bought Pecola ice cream because she wanted a reason to be able to ask those questions. She never cared about their friendship. Another character that backs up this quote is Geraldine. She was the epitome of vain and only liked things she deemed worthy of love by how they looked and how she felt towards them. Only her opinion mattered and was shown when she told her mixed race son to only play with the colored kids that weren’t dirty or loud as she saw them beneath them. She even prompted him to play with mostly white kids or other mixed race children. Her house was spotless and she really only cared about her cat because he was similar to her. cant think of anything cant think of anything cant think of anything cant think of anything cant think of anything cant think of anything cant think of anything The way that some of the characters valued outer beauty over inner beauty is also something to look at in this book. Anyone that was dark skinned felt looked down upon and isolated for their looks. People of fairer tones stayed away or taunted them for it. Pauline Breedlove also was a character who was blinded by the beauty she wanted to obtain. After her tooth fell out, she stopped feeling beautiful and once her and Cholly had children she turned her nose up at them for their blackness and how they looked. She treated her boss’s daughter better than her own children and didn’t even allow the daughter she promised to love call her mom or her name. She referred to her own mother as Mrs. Breedlove but allowed a pristine little white child to call her Polly, her given nickname in the house, which showed how little care her mother had for her. She also did not care whether her own daughter was ok after spilling hot blueberry pie on the floor splashing herself. Polly immediately took to beating her daughter, yelling at her about the pie, and telling her to leave. On the flip side, she picked up the little white child, told her she’d change her clothes and ignored her questions about who the little girls were when that was her own daughter and her friends. She even said she’d bake her another pie while her daughter walked away scalded, scolded, and carrying wet laundry. Polly also did nothing when her husband raped their daughter showing how her true nature was not beautiful at all. The true sides to some characters were ugly no matter how their surface appearance was. The beauty that one could “do” was only shown through kind actions and words given.