Morrison has consistently expressed criticism of various elements of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In several interviews, she has stated that the "Black is Beautiful" slogan was a major influence for her novel The Bluest Eye. Although set in the 1940s, the novel explores the pressure Black individuals face to adhere to the beauty standards of white society, intertwined with the larger issue of racism. It becomes clear that several characters, especially Pecola and Pauline, are deeply troubled by their obsession with beauty.

As the title suggests, Pecola's greatest desire is to have blue eyes, which she associates with beauty. She believes that acquiring blue eyes would transform her life, alleviating its ugliness and possibly changing her parents' behavior. Pecola admires the beautiful white icons of the 1940s: she drinks milk from a cup with Shirley Temple's image at the MacTeer's home, buys Mary Janes candy to gaze at the blond-haired, blue-eyed girl on the wrapper, and even seeks assistance from Soaphead Church, hoping he can grant her blue eyes. By the novel's conclusion, Pecola genuinely believes she has blue eyes, a tragic illustration of the damage white societal ideals can inflict on a young Black girl who, lacking alternatives, embraces them.

Pecola's mother, Pauline, experiences her own struggles. Her life takes a downturn when, as a child, she steps on a nail, leaving her foot permanently injured. After marrying Cholly, their life in Lorain, Ohio, fails to fulfill her fairy tale dreams, driving her to find comfort in the movies. There, she encounters what the novel describes as the concepts of physical beauty and romantic love, "probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion." Pauline immerses herself in the fantasy of cinema, even styling her hair like the famous white actress Jean Harlow. Her illusion is shattered when she loses a tooth while eating candy at a movie. From that moment, she resigns herself to "just being ugly" but eventually finds employment with a white family, seeking the "beauty, order, cleanliness, and praise" missing from her own home. For example, when Pecola accidentally knocks a hot pie off the counter at the Fisher household, Pauline slaps and scolds her for disrupting her immaculate, white world, while comforting the Fisher girl who is startled by the incident. Although Pauline doesn't descend into madness like Pecola, her decline is apparent, as she only finds beauty in the surrogate family that makes her feel "white," rather than in herself or her own family.

Unlike Pecola and Pauline, Claudia MacTeer, the main narrator of the novel, defies the beauty standards society tries to impose on her. Claudia harbors a strong dislike for Shirley Temple and is perplexed by the admiration Black people show for young white girls. Much to her family's disappointment, who view her behavior as ungrateful, Claudia takes apart a white doll she receives for Christmas "to see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me." Though Claudia, like everyone in her community, struggles with self-image, she realizes they all made Pecola a scapegoat because "we were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness." As Claudia recounts Pecola's story, she expresses remorse for how they treated Pecola and admits that even though she eventually learned to "worship" Shirley Temple, it was merely "adjustment without improvement."