Spiritual Space

Deprival of Spiritual Space In order to highlight the severe consequence the deprival of spiritual space can have on Pecola, it is essential to bring up another factor that determines the extent to which spiritual space matters, since the importance of African spirituality to Pecola is not only defined by her surrounding, but also by her intrinsic desire for spiritual space. Constantly being ignored, discriminated, and mistreated, Pecola didn’t abandon herself to vice, instead, she continues to strive for love. “How do you get somebody to love you?” (Morrison 25) is a profound philosophical question she proposes. It is evident that her tragic childhood experience of growing up in an extremely crippled family doesn’t cause her to lose faith

Morrison implies Pecola’s condition of lacking spiritual space by inserting bits and pieces of the “Dick-and-Jane” story at the end of each section of the novel without using any kind of punctuation. The lack of punctuation indicates the dissolve of spiritual space, and the disability to access the spiritual realm makes it impossible for Pecola to have the power of spirits to support her in staying strong and surviving the perils of oppression (Zauditu-Selassie

One of the reasons behind the abandonment is a disruption of balance caused by the foreign notion of white supremacy. White supremacy stirs up cultural clashes, for instance, a conflict between the different standards for beauty and ugliness; it stimulates the formation of double-consciousness that leads to a sense of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (Du Bois 2); it destroys the traditional worldview of African-Americans, and then the people as well (Zauditu-Selassie 3). In the Bluest Eye, Pecola is a victim of the imbalance caused by white supremacy, and her desire for blue eyes serves as evidence of distorted cultural values. Morrison demonstrates the destructive effect an imbalanced society can have on its people through narration of Pecola’s tragic fate. Furthermore, by creating a contradiction between Pecola and other members in the same community such as the MacTeer sisters, Morrison indicates that the imbalance can possibly be restored with the power of spirituality. In comparison to the MacTeer sisters, the one thing Pecola lacks in particular is