the bluest eye

In Toni Morrison’s book, The Bluest Eye, the character Pecola Breedlove is a passive, young and quiet girl who lives a hard life; her parents are constantly physically and verbally fighting. Throughout the book, Pecola is reminded continuously of how ugly she is, which fuels her aspiration to be white with blue eyes. Pecola, a poor black girl, is compelled to believe that she is, in fact, ugly. Tortured and tormented by almost everyone she knows, the identity of the protagonist, Pecola Breedlove is destroyed by both society and her family situations and experiences. This presents the reader with the idea that society and or family experiences can tear an individual from their identity if they are mentally weak enough.
Pecola Breedlove, who wants to be beautiful, becomes torn from her “black” identity once society victimizes her innocence by labeling her as ugly. Pecola and her community live based on a set of ideals; whiteness and beauty. When Maureen Peal is introduced in the book, her skin color and class status is regarded as oppressive to other blacks in the novel, especially Pecola who is highly susceptible to it since everyone thinks of her as ugly. When described in the cafeteria, Maureen is presented as “A high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back” (52). The “lynch ropes” expression is outright racial oppression, as “lynching” (hanging) is what commonly happened to slaves for punishment along with the KKK incidences. When Pecola sees that being beautiful is related to having friends and more importantly to her, being loved, she will do anything to become beautiful. When Pecola and Claudia are exposed to Maureen Peal, they make up ugly names and relate her to ugly things so she would be on their ‘level.’ Maureen is an example of the ongoing theme that white people are rich and gorgeous, and black people are ugly and not content. Maureen says later on, that “I am cute, and you ugly! Black and