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Symbols
To the characters of The Bluest Eye, Blue eyes stand as the definitive symbol of whiteness and beauty. Characters who possess whiteness and beauty are privileged, empowered, and secure. This fact leads to Pecola's desires for blue eyes, as she believes blue eyes would change the way others see her, allowing her to transcend her horrible situation at home and in the community. Likewise, she thinks that blue eyes would give her the ability to perceive what she sees in a different way. Through the course of the novel, however, the symbolic nature of blue eyes changes. Pecola's attainment of blue eyes comes at the expense of her sanity, and only causes the community to "see" her in a more damaging way. In this sense, the "bluest" eye could also take on the association of blue with sadness and symbolize Pecola's sadness, defining her as the saddest character in the novel, or in a larger sense, the sad realities of racial self-hatred stemming from obsession with white beauty.
Blue Eyes Quotes in The Bluest Eye
The The Bluest Eye quotes below all refer to the symbol of Blue Eyes. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
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.
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He does not see her, because there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth, his mind honed on the Virgin Mary, his sensibilities blunted by a permanent awareness of loss, see a little black girl?
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To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane.
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Chapter 10
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I thought of the baby that everybody wanted dead, and saw it very clearly. It was in a dark, wet place, its head covered with great O's of wool, the black face holding, like nickels, two clean black eyes…no synthetic yellow bangs suspended over marble-blue eyes, no pinched nose and bowline mouth. More strongly than my fondness for Pecola, I felt a need for someone to want the black baby to live—just to counteract the universal love of baby dolls, Shirley Temples, and Maureen Peals.
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Get the entire The Bluest Eye LitChart as a printable PDF.
Blue Eyes Symbol Timeline in The Bluest Eye
The timeline below shows where the symbol Blue Eyes appears in The Bluest Eye. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...face disappear, but her tightly closed eyes remain. The narrator explains that Pecola believes possessing blue eyes would make her beautiful, and things would change at home and school. She has prayed...
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...because it has a reality and a presence. But when she thinks about Mr. Yacobowski's blue eyes again, the shame returns and stays until she remembers the Mary Janes. Each piece of...
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Chapter 9
...asks Pecola what he can do for her, she asks if he can give her blue eyes . He tells Pecola that she must make an offering to nature. He goes into...
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Chapter 11
...imaginary friend berates Pecola for compulsively looking into the mirror. Pecola believes she has received blue eyes , and cannot keep herself from looking at them. Pecola accuses her imaginary friend and...
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...to pry about the rape, but Pecola changes the subject, focusing once again on her blue eyes . She reveals that she is still insecure about her eyes, that maybe they aren't...
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