Pecola Ugliness In Othello

As a poor, African American girl in the 1940s, society has cast Pecola aside. Right from birth her mother thought she had a “head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly” (126). Pecola does not understand the ugliness placed upon her. For “long hours she [would sit,] looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised” (45). Pecola finds herself drawn to the prostitutes because they do not accept the ugliness forced upon them and instead find themselves worthy of love and beauty. While the prostitutes may look like Pecola, they do not think like her. Pecola’s family “wore their ugliness, put it on, so to speak, although it did not belong to them” (38). Her whole family falls victim to the mask of ugliness placed upon them by their economic status and race. Her parents accept their ugliness and teach it to Pecola, who accepts her ugliness without question. Pecola “hid behind hers. Concealed, veiled, eclipsed—peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom” (39). Rather than allowing others to define their worth, the prostitutes know others want them. This is an idea that pulls Pecola away from her own ugliness while she visits them.

Little parts of her body faded away” (45). The prostitutes see Pecola as beautiful and without the ugliness that shrouds her. Pecola does not think this way, instead believing that only those with blue-eyes and the right facial features can achieve beauty. “They know I’m rich and good lookin’” (53), says Miss Marie, one of the prostitutes. Even though Miss Marie knows that she does not hold true physical beauty, she pushes aside the mask of ugliness forced upon