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[UNK] Descent: The Devastating Effects Of Racism And Abuse In Society

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Pecola’s Descent: The Devastating Effects of Racism and Abuse in Society

Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye Illustrates how a lack of emotional sustenace from her family, sexual abuse, and societal racism all led to Pecola’s descent into hysteria. Toni Morrison explored this through the character Pecola Breedlove. Pecola Breedlove is a young black girl growing up in the 1940’s when society was full of racism and hate. The Bluest Eye tells a compelling story of how trauma affects a young girl through precise imagery and many different characters and perspectives.
Pecola's mother, Polly breedlove, is very negligent of Pecola and never gives her a mothers love and support. She even favors the little white girl who takes care of her own …show more content…

In school, Pecola is ignored by her teachers and taunted by her peers, everyone sees her as ugly. For this reason, when a young boy called her attention on the playground and invited her into his home, she went. However, she would soon find out that she was too trusting as he would then trap her in different parts of the house and murder the family cat then frame Pecola. His mother, a privileged black woman, walks in to see her cat dead and her son blaming the girl in her living room,which then leads her to demand Pecola to, “Get out. You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house,” (Morrison 92). Characters in this novel who have lighter complexions are seen as superior in this time and all other skin tones have the burden of falling under them. Thus, having someone her own skin tone put her lower than they already were was extremely destructive to her self image. Numerous times in her life, Pecola has been burdened by the weight of society with racism and standards that made her feel subordinate and …show more content…

At an early age, Pecola was home doing dishes and her father Cholly came home drunk. The novel goes into extensive imagery about the act and then later it is revealed that she is found to be pregnant. Such disturbing news spreads quickly in town, however there is very little empathy for Pecola. Most are appalled at the value of the Breedlove family and some even go as far to comment on how ugly her child will be. Yet, Pecola miscarried and her mental state falls rapidly into delusion. Not only does she have to deal with the trauma of surviving her fathers sexual assault, but once again the society around her is exiling her for things she cannot

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She miscarries and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pecola retreats into a fantasy world where she is a bird and can fly away from all the pain she has endured, and she is unable to escape the delusion. Another little girl named Claudia blames herself and her sister’s fear of interacting with Pecola as the reason for Pecola’s mental break, but it wasn’t them; it was the adults that surrounded

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revealing to the reader Cholly’s internal conflict. Unknowing how to show love to Pecola, Cholly rapes her, assuming that is the way a father is affectionate

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In the book when we first meet Pecola she is homeless and teased by kids at school. Claudia is Pecolas sister who wonders why people admire white girls.

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When Pecola was just being born she was being called ugly by the person who she needed the most, her mother. This is because the same thing happened to her Mother, and her Grandmother. Racist Societal constructs broke their family

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Pecola wanted to have blue eyes because things may have been easy for her and her life may be better. Pauline messed up foot and fallen teeth made her feel so ugly and she did not wanted to fit in with society was of beauty she didn’t love herself. Cholly had always been neglected by her parents society and he had never learned how to love it affected him in the long run and a traumatic event in his life had scared him as a result. It is why beauty is undeserved for those who are called ugly according to

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In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Pecola Breedlove is heavily

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In order to understand the implications of Pecola’s rape, it is imperative that readers understand the significance of Cholly’s rape. As Pecola washes dishes in the scene prior to her rape, Morrison describes how Cholly becomes uncomfortable watching her “young, helpless, hopeless presence” wash dishes (161). Cholly accuses himself of Pecola’s destitute attitude, but he does not know what a “burned-out black man say to the hunched back of his eleven year old daughter”

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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

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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.

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Pecola becomes the ultimate tragic figure and in this sense she becomes a Christ-like figure, one who takes on the ugliness of the world she lives in. But in Pecolas world, "it's much, much, much too late" to keep any hope alive. It is not made clear what is to happen to the characters of the narrative and little or no sight of hope is

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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.

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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

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3280 Words | 14 Pages

It is the mother’s vulnerability to the racial standards of beauty that is transmitted to the daughter and ultimately leads to her victimization. In fact, the reason of Pauline’s vulnerability to the racially prejudiced notions of beauty lies in her relationship with her own mother. The relationship between Pecola Breedlove, the protagonist, and her mother, Pauline Breedlove, is ironically characterized by lack of love, and emotional attachment, indifference, frustration and cruelty. Set in a small town in Ohio, during the Depression, The Bluest Eye is the story of eleven year old Pecola Breedlove, who, victimized by the racist society, yearns for blue eyes, which, she believes, will make her worthy of love, happiness and acceptance in the

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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

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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.

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