Essay On Pecola

396 Words1 Page

Pecola faced tremendous amount of pressure due to her skin color and dismissal from her own community. Criticized by friends and family for being ugly, Pecola was in constant disarray by the people around her. Pecola becomes more of a target when a young “light-skinned” girl named Maureen enters the novel. Maureen’s popularity at school and community became noticeable. She was the golden child of the black community, “she was rich, at least by our standards…swaddled in comfort and care. The quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me,” Maureen was poster child of what a true African-American child should be (Morrison 62). Maureen humiliated Pecola because of how she looked. Even Pecola’s own race was belittling her down spirits. …show more content…

During this time period, white communities valued Maureen’s overall structure and “light-skin” more than the darker colored black children. Maureen seemed to make Pecola the target at school because Pecola was darker skinned and ugly. For example, Morrison writes that Maureen kept screaming to Pecola, “I am cute…and you [Pecola] ugly! Black and ugly!” this scene demonstrates how Pocola’s self-esteem is grinding down on her (Morrison 73). Another scene that depicts how the community viewed white standards is when Claudia makes reference to dolls. Morrison writes that Claudia does not understand the difference between Maureen and other black girls, “we were less. Nicer, brighter but still lesser…the slippery light in the eyes of our teacher when they encountered the Maureen Peals of the world. What was the secret? What did we lack?” is a clear example of how the community saw darker skinned black girls compared to light-skinned white standards (Morrison 74). I really found this quote interesting when Morrison writes “we,” clearly showing two sides of the community. One side is the darker, Pocola’s of the world and the Maureen’s of the

Show More
Related

  • Brownies By Zz Packer Analysis

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story, this group of brownies came from the south suburbs of Atlanta where whites are “…real and existing, but rarely seen...” (p.518). Hence, this group’s impression of whites consisted of what they have seen on TV or shopping malls. As a result, the girls have a narrow view that all whites were wealthy snobs with superiority like “Superman” and people that “shampoo-commercial hair” (p.518). In their eyes “This alone was the reason for envy and hatred” (p 518). So when Arnetta felt “…foreign… (p.529), as a white woman stared at her in a shopping mall you sense where the revenge came from.

    Read More

  • Janie's Self-Discovery

    1473 Words  | 3 Pages

    Janie’s first discovery about herself comes when she is a child. She is around the age of six when she realizes that she is colored. Janie’s confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all her peers and the kids she grows up with are white. Janie and her Nanny live in the backyard of the white people that her Nanny works for. When Janie does not recognize herself on the picture that is taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laughs, leaving Janie feeling humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal meanness but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with the white people and dresses better than the other colored kids. Even though the kids that tease her were all colored, this begins Janie’s experience to racial discrimination.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in A Worn Path by Eudroa Welty

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... to get her grandson the help that he needs. Eudora Welty wrote the short story based on the southern way of life that she had observed. The modernist theme focused on overcoming and problem no matter what it took. Welty’s writing was a focus on the African American lifestyle in the South in the early nineteen hundreds. It was a tough road for the African Americans but they did what they had to. For example Phoenix encounters many things that Eudora Welty describes the readers to racism in the south. Welty symbolizes racism by the dead trees, the cake, and mistletoe. Also, racism is shown by the actions on the white people towards her.

    Read More

  • Literary Criticism In Toni Morrison's 'Recitatif'

    1632 Words  | 4 Pages

    Those two events may seem like nothing but it shows how even at the early age of 8, children are taught to spot the differences in race instead of judging people by their character. Directing after this Twyla mentions how her and Roberta “looked like salt and pepper standing there and that’s what the other kids called us sometimes” (202). On the first page of this short story we already have 3 example of race dictating how the characters think and act. With the third one which mentions salt which is white and pepper which is black we understand that one girl is white and one girl is black. The brilliance of this story is that we never get a clear cut answer on which girl is which. Toni Morrison gives us clues and hints but never comes out and says it. This leaves it up to us to figure it out for ourselves. The next example of how race influences our characters is very telling. When Twyla’s mother and Roberta’s mother meeting we see not only race influencing the characters but, how the parents can pass it down to the next generation. This takes places when the mothers come to the orphanage for chapel and Twyla describes to the reader Roberta’s mother being “bigger than any man

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In The Color Of Water

    1778 Words  | 4 Pages

    By supporting the competitive nature of dragging other girls down in order to raise themselves up, women are supporting their own oppression. In the Bluest Eye, Claudia is jealous of a young girl who she sees as the perfect white fantasy, taking her insecurities and imposing them upon the newcomer in an attempt to make herself feel whole. Because she has no basis for her hatred she then begins to find reasons to torment the little girl. She remembers, “Freida and I were bemused, irritated, and fascinated by her. We looked hard for flaws to restore our equilibrium… snickering behind her back and calling her Six-finger-dog-tooth-meringue-pie” (Morrison 63). In McBride's book The Color of Water, he shows how his mother experience this brand of hatred in her later years and how it isolated her. He remembered, ¨I noticed that Mommy stood apart from the other mothers, rarely speaking to them… ignoring the stares of the black women as she whisked me away”

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first stage of Pecola coming to believe she is ugly starts with her family's attitude toward her. Right from the very start of Pecola's life her parents have thought of her as ugly on the outside as well as on the inside. When Pecola was born, Pecola's mother, Pauline, said: "Eyes all soft and wet. A cross between a puppy and a dying man. But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly" (Morrison 126). Pecola became labeled ugly as soon as she was born. The reason people think of her as ugly relates to the way she gets treated by her family. Her parents never even gave her a chance to prove that she is worth something and not just a piece of trash. In the first stage of Pecola's realization of being ugly, she starts to feel the way she does because her family does not give her any support and tell her she actually means something to them. Pecola does not really have anyone that she can go to talk about things. All of the weight of her problems rests on her shoulders with no one to help her out, not even her parents, the two people that brought her into this very world.

    Read More

  • Morrison's Bluest Eye Essay: Misdirected Anger Depicted

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    Toni Morrison tells this story to show the sadness in the way that the blacks were compelled to place their anger on their own families and on their blackness instead of on whites who cause their misery.  Although they didn't know this, "The Thing to fear(and thus hate) was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us"(74), whiteness.

    Read More

  • A Lost Identity Within I Am A Martinican Woman

    1283 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout the novel, Mayotte denigrates blacks, when, in fact, she is partially black. At the very beginning of the novel she depersonalizes herself from the “groups of young black girls” that carry baskets filled with food on their heads (Capecia, 34). Mayotte observes them and their graceful manner, but in no way associates herself with them, and even ventures to describe the crude details of how the girls stopped “to [meet] a need right there on the path; after which, she would simply wipe herself with her skirt and go on her way”(Capecia, 34). After her mother tells Mayotte the story about her grandmother, she expresses how proud she is that she had a white grandmother, yet she ventures to ask “How could a Canadian woman have loved a Martinican?”(Capecia, 63). She is amazed, it seems, that a white woman would stoop to marry a black man. Mayotte specifically states that a “grandmother was less commonplace than a white grandfather”(Capecia, 62).Here, it is evident, that Mayotte sees blacks as inferior. But at the same time, she is partially black. Many critics see this as an expression of the “lactification complex,”or the mind frame of idolizing whites as well as a desire to be white, that silently existed within not only Martinican society, but also throughout the Caribbean (CLA, 260).

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Bluest Eye And Marxism

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    She is envious of people with blue eyes because she thinks that those people have better lives. “Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty....A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes…” this quote is from Soaphead, a man that runs a church and he pretends to be God, after Pecola has asked him to give her blue eyes. Even a terrible man that has committed many terrible sins, feels sympathy for Pecola because of the terrible life she has

    Read More

  • Social Issues in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    Maureen's influence in the novel is important. "She enchanted the entire school... black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girl's toilet... She never had to search for anybody to eat with in the cafeteria--they flocked to the table of her choice" (62-63). In contrast, Pecola's classmates insult her black skin by chanting "Black e mo Black e mo Ya daddy sleeps nekked/ stch ta ta stch ta ta" (65).

    Read More

  • Our Nig Theme

    1772 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wilson opens the novel with Mag’s story and goes on to describe the life of Frado. As she does so, Wilson points out the distinct similarities between mother and daughter. Frado, like her mother, is forced to live among a racially different family, and she is also an outcast of the community. She leads a life of poverty and experiences an unhappy marriage to an unfaithful man. These parallels between their lives accurately show the intricacies of the lives of fallen women who are unable to educate their daughters on how to become proper women capable of attracting a good husband and starting a family. Furthermore, the author seems to suggest that all humans, regardless of race, are capable of suffering at the whims of destructive spouses, and that it is possible for any individual to become an outcast. If we realize that we are all capable of suffering in the same manner, then we have taken a significant step towards ensuring equality among people. Because Wilson depicts Frado and her life as a reflection of her mother and her mother’s life, the author signifies the importance of motherhood rather than race. Obviously, being black or white affected one’s life drastically at that time, but the author demonstrates that anyone can be dishonored or fall from grace or become unhappy. If the society places these restrictions and expectations on all people, then in the long run, a difference in color of skin does not necessarily affect one’s status, and consequently, that person’s

    Read More

  • Racism and Sexism in the Bluest Eye

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    Maureen Peal comes from a rich black family and triggers admiration along with envy in every child at school, including Claudia. Although Maureen is light-skinned, she embodies everything that is considered "white," at least by Claudia's standards: "Patent leather shoes with buckles.fluffy sweaters the color of lemon drops tucked into skirts with pleats. brightly colored knee socks with white borders, a brown velvet coat trimmed in white rabbit fur, and a matching muff" (Morrison 62).... ... middle of paper ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings By Maya Angelou

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through the mood of the words Angelou uses, the reader is able to recognize Marguerite’s dissatisfaction for her black features. For example the narrator states “Wouldn 't they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream… number-two pencil.” The use of the word “ugly” when she describes wanting to wake out of the black dream conveys her association of being black with something unattractive or frightening as a nightmare. Her use of the word “mass” portrays her discontent with how large her kinky hair is. Lastly, the use of the word “too-big” when she is describing a Negro girl tells of her distaste for being larger black girl. These words have a negative connotation and depict an unfavorable outlook of features associated with a black girl. Another example is when she describes a “cruel fairy stepmother” who turned her into a “too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.” The use of the word “cruel” tells the reader that the fairy stepmother cursed her by making her black. Furthermore showing her belief that being black is a

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye

    1323 Words  | 3 Pages

    Two of the major instances of sexual abuse present in the novel involved both Mr. Henry with Frieda and Cholly with Pecola. The incident with Mr. Henry, while very serious...

    Read More

  • Oppression In The Bluest Eye

    537 Words  | 2 Pages

    image of Shirley Temple. She even eats Mary Jane candies. “To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane.”By doing so, Pecola tries to avoid the ugliness which is a concept or prejudice imposed upon Blacks by the Whites. She goes through traumatic experiences throughout the novel. Her encounter with fifty two year old storekeeper makes her aware about her subordinate place in the society.

    Read More

More about Essay On Pecola

Open Document