Internalization and Externalization of Color in The Bluest Eye and The Color Purple Anna Erickson College

Internalization and Externalization of Color

In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Pauline experiences the beauty of life through her childhood ‘down South;’ extracting colors in which translate into her most fond memories. This internalization of color serves as a pivotal action, providing insight into Morrison’s ideals of beauty and self-image. Steven Spielberg’s film, The Color Purple, utilizes rather the externalization of color to highlight character development and major themes.

Although a stark contrast in technique is present, both works succeed in providing a clear fluctuation in character worth and image while ultimately overcoming the notion of prejudice. Morrison allows this sense of internalization to exist overtly.As Pauline describes purple berries, yellow lemonade, and "that streak of green them june bugs made on the trees the night we left down home,” she continues on to state “all them colors was in me" (Morrison 34). Morrison continues to describe the accumulation of colors, detailing how Cholly releases in Pauline all the colors of life which were “sealed down in her soul” (Morrison 34). The description of their life in early marriage is vivid; true even of Pauline’s sexual experiences with Cholly, suggesting...