How Does Jane A Conformist

Conformity is, by its very nature, meant to suit one to a standard. Yet, efforts made with this aspiration are futile at best and at worst regressive. The undeniable resulting distortion of the individual’s identity and their persistent inability to assume the role in society that both they and the preordained norms are dictating establishes endeavors to mold as such. For, a conformist can’t have a strong sense of self to begin with, and without grounding, the lines between the facade and what’s underneath muddle. Nor is white, corporate America tolerable or accommodating to those unbelonging to their system and unqualified to match their (unsurprisingly exclusive of oppressed, envious, and enraged blacks) criteria. Both these unfortunate
She does so mainly because on each of the wrappers is a picture of Mary Jane, a pretty, white, little girl. In eating the candy and in admiring the wrappers, Pecola’s envy is materialized in her blatant desire for those blue eyes which she prays for every night. As she sees it, “To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane.” (50) However, such a mentality full heartedly embraces the fact that Pecola is not in fact Mary Jane, and is not white, and that there is something to be had that Pecola, being black, simply did not possess. Moreover, to acknowledge such a fact is to acknowledge that Pecola can never be what she so desires because she will never be white, and therefore that her 3¢ spent on the candies and her time praying spent at night offer no more than foredoomed dreams. Similarly, the casting of Zoe Saldana in the movie, “Nina”, has caused controversy over the makeup needed to enable the actress, who has noticeably more European features than the characteristically African looking Simone, to accurately portray her character. Covering seems to only highlight the differences between the late musician and the Hollywood star. Both the consummation of the Mary
Breedlove and Maureen Peal, two characters who have ostensibly accepted their predetermined role in the white-dominated world. However, when examined, it is clear that their attempts to “get rid of the funkiness,” (83) are misguided and only accomplish the very opposite of what they search for. In the case of Mrs. Breedlove, this is manifested in her employment by a white family and her place among them. In earlier years of her life, Mrs. Breedlove was once hopeful and young, searching for love, lust, and redemption. All of this she seems to find, or seems to believe to find, in her job as the irreplaceable “ideal servant.” (128) She accepts this label without reservation and with pride. Yet, by definition, a servant is below her master, and thus the equality and the integration she seeks is explicitly rejected in what she perceives a glowing, embracing laud. In order to devote so much to the white family, Pauline neglects her own family, consequently rejecting her own identity and nonetheless alienated from her fantasy. Similarly hopeless, the young and very socialized Maureen Peel disassociates herself from her own people. Even outright comparisons are used to describe her, “She was rich… rich as the richest of the white girls…” (62) Thus, Maureen is as white as she can be without ever being white. And just as Mrs. Breedlove isolated herself from her family, so does she with the black