ipl-logo

Alienated Self-Hatred In The Bluest Eye And Sula

1627 Words7 Pages

Swine &Das observe in “The Alienated Self; Searching for Space in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Sula” anthologized in Modern American Literature that ”This novel probes deeper into the black woman’s psychic dilemmas, oppressions and tribulations as symbolized by the tragic life of Pecola literally affected by the dominant culture’s beauty standards(Swain and Das89). Pecola, like her mother, equated and standardized beauty with white. Both are haunted by this inferiority complex and self-hatred. Cultural hegemony distorts the true nature of values so that it dominates the subordinate class to believe that they are inferior and the dominating class is the superior; as such, here white is believed to symbolize beauty and black is to symbolize ugliness. Pecola stands for binary opposition ugliness, unworthiness, invisibility and lack of self-esteem. In fact Pecola prays to have blue eyes so that she could be considered beautiful. Since being white is associated with aesthetics, moral superiority, and power, …show more content…

Pecola menstruated in the garden while playing with Frieda and Claudia. Whist Pecola had no idea of what happened to her and she thought that she would die. Frieda explained that she was now capable of having a baby. While the sisters tried to help and clean Pecola-they were confronted with the nosey neighbor Rosemary who threatened to tell their mother that the girls were “playing nasty” (Morrison 22). Claudia the rebel reached out and scratched Rosemary’s nose. Mrs. MacTeer broke off a branch from the bush and started hitting Frieda on the leg, and at one stage said she would have preferred pigs to her because at least she could slaughter the pigs. Being abused, “Frieda was destroyed. Whippings wounded and insulted her” (22). As the girls slept that night Pecola asks if she could have a baby now and Frieda answers ironically “Somebody has to love you”

Show More
Related
1309 Words | 6 Pages

From February of 1930 through May of 1961, the Dominican Republic fell subject to the tyranny of General Rafael Trujillo. Throughout his dictatorship, Trujillo relentlessly abused his power of authority and exploited the rights of his citizens. Meanwhile, underground resistance movements began to form, all with the intentions of expelling Trujillo from power. Though these resistance movements were mostly comprised of men, it is the Mirabal sisters who are likely the most notorious of these revolutionaries. In her novel

Read More
1383 Words | 6 Pages

Although Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “The Lame Shall Enter First,” creates a wicked atmosphere through its plot and characters, it can easily be compared to “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin with its dangerous environment within the city of Harlem. The evil shown in both of these stories are reflected through the effects of family neglect, the main characters’ persistence for change and the outcomes, and the secondary characters that are primary source of darkness. Family neglect and the different effects it can have on people are shown within O’Connor’s and Baldwin’s short stories. O’Connor shows this through the opposing circumstances it had on Sheppard and Norton. After his wife’s death, Sheppard took up a life of serving for the needy

Read More
1343 Words | 6 Pages

In The Gathering of Old Men, by Ernest J. Gaines, and The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, the authors follow the story of different black communities and how they are affected by oppression. In The Gathering of Old Men a white man, Beau, is found dead in a black man’s yard, Mathu. Mathu’s ‘daughter’ brings together all of the black men in the surrounding neighborhoods to say that they were the ones who shot Beau. In The Bluest Eye a black child, Pecola, is oppressed in many ways throughout the story and near the end is raped by her father. The most substantial part of the story however, is afterwards and how she eventually becomes insane from the onslaught of oppression she faced.

Read More
943 Words | 4 Pages

Sexuality vs. Race in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand Helga Crane a character in Nella Larsen’s novel Quicksand confronts the challenge of embracing her emotions and feelings and of falling into the danger of being painted as a primitive, exotic, sexualized black female. The nightclub scene is arguably the most aesthetically striking scene in the novel. It is full of color, rhythm, and movement which illustrate the physical, psychological, and sexual characteristics of Helga Crane and further emphasize the struggle between sexuality and race for Helga Crane. Progressively, Helga Crane’s double consciousness in which she is unable to embrace white or black culture or her sexuality pushes her deeper into depression and angst as she does not feel in

Read More
886 Words | 4 Pages

Similar to the flower, she is treated by the way she has been labeled: as a poor, ugly, black girl. It is noticeable that the author points out Pecola’s ability to recognize the negative label of the flower and still find beauty within. After arriving at the store, the clerk treats her harshly due to her appearance and because of this Pecola has a hard time finding her confidence to do such a simple task such as buying a piece of candy. When leaving the store, Pecola is overwhelmed with shame and embarrassment of herself due to the ugly way the clerk interacted with her. While passing the flowers again, the narrator writes, “She thinks, ‘They are ugly.

Read More
1648 Words | 7 Pages

To have something as wonderful as that happen would take a long, long time"(46) This line from the text shows that to Pecola this white feature represents beauty and the end of her problems. Furthermore, symbolism can also be found in the homes of the characters. In the novel, homes are a symbol of economic status. The reader can infer that the nicer the home is, the richer the character.

Read More
991 Words | 4 Pages

After years and years of isolation at school and racial contempt, Pecola “pray[s] for blue eyes” each night for a year, without fail (61). For Pecola to be driven to such extreme measures and to the point where she is praying to look different, shows how far her self-hatred has gone and how detrimental the effects of conformity are. Not only that, but when her wish is not granted, she goes to a miracle worker for help, who responds with “a surge of love and understanding” because “an ugly little girl was asking for beauty” (189). Rather than preaching to the child that beauty is more than white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes, Church feels sympathy and agrees with her, demonstrating how devoured that society has become by society’s notion of beauty. That devoured society has misbegotten and impressed upon Pecola the idea that beauty is restricted to white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes, all of which Pecola does not have.

Read More
975 Words | 4 Pages

Pecola and her mother, Pauline, see themselves as ugly because they hold themselves to beauty standards in which light-skinned people are the ideal. Pecola and her mother have a brutal home life due to the drunken violence of Cholly Breedlove, and the constant pressure of beauty standards only adds to their misfortune. Morrison explains this pressure by asserting that “[i]t was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they

Read More
1002 Words | 5 Pages

Pecola is challenged by the idea that her mother prefers her work life, that they have an outdated house, and that she does not look like the Shirley Temple doll with blue eyes. Morrison went into great detail when describing the elegance and beauty that was present in the Fisher home, to demonstrate that those who do not fit into the ideal American life often feel shame. The Breedlove family lived a very simple life, and in no way did they fit into what society believed to be correct. Mrs. Breedlove was the only member of the family that truly understood what the American Dream looked like. The work that she did for the Fishers lead her to envy the American Dream.

Read More
1356 Words | 6 Pages

But it is not only the race and the colour of their skin what makes them unable to change their situation, but also poverty. Race and wealth are intertwined, and Pecola is the fundamental victim of this relationship, for she is a young black girl suffering from this ideology that determines her life. The dominant class imposes its values upon the other, for they think they are the best ones, reducing thus the personality of the people belonging to other classes, and at the same time, making them unable to change their oppressed situation, for they do not have the chance. They just accept their current position, and thus they will always be

Read More
1542 Words | 7 Pages

Toni Morrison, the first black women Nobel Prize winner, in her first novel, The Bluest Eye depicts the tragic condition of the blacks in racist America. It examines how the ideologies perpetuated by the dominant groups and adopted by the marginal groups influence the identity of the black women. Through the depictions of white beauty icons, Morrison’s black characters lose themselves to self-hatred. They try to obliterate their heritage, and eventually like Pecola Breedlove, the child protagonist, who yearns for blue eyes, has no recourse except madness. This assignment focusses on double consciousness and its devastating effects on Pecola.

Read More
800 Words | 4 Pages

Destructive Nature of Racialised Beauty Toni Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, in 1970. In this novel, Toni Morrison shows how societies racist and false beliefs on beauty can be seriously destructive if believed and taken to heart. Toni Morrison displays the destructive nature of racialised beauty through the character in the novel named Pecola Breedlove. Pecola lacks self esteem and believes that she is the blackest and ugliest girl, and she believes that white is the only beautiful race.

Read More
1172 Words | 5 Pages

As Paul C. Taylor declares, “the most prominent type of racialized ranking represents blackness as a condition to be despised, and most tokens of this type extend this attitude to cover the physical features that are central to the description of black identity” (16). Such attitudes are found in the words of black women themselves, when they talk about Pecola’s baby, saying that it “ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly. Be better off in the ground” (188). Without any support from her community or even family, Pecola is a character who is

Read More
835 Words | 4 Pages

Morrison 's first novel, The Bluest Eye, examines the tragic effects of imposing white, middle-class American ideals of beauty on the developing female identity of a young African American girl during the early 1940s. Inspired by a conversation Morrison once had with an elementary school classmate who wished for blue eyes, the novel poignantly shows the psychological devastation of a young black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who searches for love and acceptance in a world that denies and devalues people of her own race. As her mental state slowly unravels, Pecola hopelessly longs to possess the conventional American standards of feminine beauty—namely, white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes—as presented to her by the popular icons and traditions of white culture. Written as a fragmented narrative from multiple perspectives and with significant typographical deviations, The Bluest Eye juxtaposes passages from the Dick-and-Jane grammar school primer with memories and stories of Pecola 's life alternately told in retrospect by one of Pecola 's now-grown childhood friends and by an omniscient narrator. Published in the midst of the Black Arts movement that flourished during the late 1960s and early 1970s, The Bluest Eye has attracted

Read More
1260 Words | 6 Pages

1) Society has change the way Pecola perceives herself and she has the idea in her mind that her life would be less miserable if she has blue eyes. She is always thinking that “if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (Morrison 46). Pecola has gotten the impression of her life being complete if only she has blue eyes. She would see the eyes of others and become envious of their blue eyes. The boys at school would always pick on her and call her an ugly black girl.

Read More

More about Alienated Self-Hatred In The Bluest Eye And Sula

Related Topics

Open Document