Analysis Of Maureen Peal 's ' The New Girl '

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back. She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of white girls, swaddled in comfort and care. The quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me” (98). Frieda and Claudia were recognized as poor black children, not middle class like Geraldine and her family, but not completely lower class like the Breedloves. Frieda and Claudia had only a few school clothes in comparison to the new girl Maureen Peal. Morrison’s parallel structure between the school girls magnifies society’s social comparison. It is the stigmatism of people to associate appearance with wealth, education, and economic status. The better clothes you had, the larger the possibility you were wealthy. During the time of the novel, African Americans were rarely among the upper class of society; actually they were predominately known and categorized in the lower class. It was not until recently in the twenty-first century that African Americans rose to be a larger portion of the lower-middle class. Claudia’s detailed critique of Maureen Peal’s appearance signified how divided Americans were from each other. White Americans had the wealth and power of the nation, their appearance reflected that. African Americans, underprivileged, lacked social power, reflected in their presence and how society viewed them. Toni Morrison was able to take her perspective of the 1940s American society to explore the image of African Americans. It is more than just the idea of outer beauty that Morrison delves into it; it is the reflection of outer appearance that is supposed to miraculously determine character and destiny. As Claudia was able to even describe at a young age “Being a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life,... ... middle of paper ... ... BlackLivesMatter movement, African Americans have always been a main target for discrimination and have seeking full equality. It always starts with how people perceive you. How different you look based on skin color, clothes, and hair that people make pre-conceived notions about you. It is bad enough to be judged by how you look versus who you are, but to subject to a completely lower standard of life is cruel and unjustifiable. The beauty of life is the differences that everyone bestows, the main values of breaking away from conformity to allow for liberation and independence is what America was founded on. America’s eyes towards their own people need to be open, neutralized, and open to color, not blind to the qualities of different colors of people. It is the recognition of different colors that brings the beauty, the respect and appreciation come thereafter.

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