Abuse And Neglect In Toni Morrison's Pecola

Claudia, another character who goes through a similar situation compared to Pecola. She is a young girl who came out from a loving family and is intrusive, yet sensitive.

Pecola evaluated herself ugly, and wanted to have a pair of blue eyes so that every problem could be solved. Pecola was an African-American and lived in a family with problems. Her father ran away because of crime, her brother left because of their fighting parents, and was discriminated simply because she has dark-skin. Pecola is a passive person. She is almost destroyed because of her violent father, Cholly Breedlove, who raped her own daughter after drinking. Because of this, Pecola kept thinking about her goal- to reach the standard of beauty. However, she was never satisfied with it. Pecola believed once she become beautiful, fighting between her parents would no longer happen, her brother would come back, and her father would no long be a rapist. No problem would exist anymore.

With some background knowledge on Pauline, the mother of Pecola, it’s easier to understand some of Pecola's core traits. There are parallelisms between Pecola and Pauline. They find their reality too harsh to deal with, so they become fixated on one thing that makes them happy, and they ignore everything else. Pecola's desire for blue eyes is more of an inheritance that she received from her mother. One of Pauline’s own obsessions was back when she was fascinated with the world of the big pictures. As long as they can believe in their fantasies, they're willing to sacrifice anything else.

If she had beautiful blue eyes, Pecola imagines, people would not want to do ugly things in front of her or to her. The accuracy of this insight is affirmed by her experience of being teased by the boys—when Maureen comes to her rescue, it seems that they no longer want to behave badly under Maureen’s attractive gaze. In a more basic sense, Pecola and her family are mistreated in part because they happen to have black skin. By wishing for blue eyes rather than lighter skin, Pecola indicates that she wishes to see things differently as much as she wishes to be seen differently. She can only receive this wish, in effect, by blinding herself. Pecola is then able to see herself as beautiful, but only at the cost of her ability to see accurately both herself and the world around her. The connection between how one is seen and what one sees has a uniquely tragic outcome for

     Although there are many different characters in this novel that are affected by the great advertisement of the beauty of a female in society, Pecola is the one to end up being insane due to the images- the image that she couldn’t possibly attain. Pecola grew up believing that she was born into an ugly family, making her ugly also. The ugliness wasn’t just from the window signs and newspapers, it was from her family and her neighbors. Therefore, she seeks the next best thing in her life, to have those blue eyes of a white girl, thinking

            Pecola's friend Claudia is angry at the beauty of whiteness and attempts to dismember white dolls to find where their beauty lies.  There is a sarcastic tone in her voice when she spoke of having

From the day Pecola is introduced to us in the novel, she has been a target for others to dump their “waste” onto her. On page 163, Claudia states, “We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness…”(Morrison

Pecola is constantly labeled as inferior due to her ugliness and copes with her sorrow by conforming to society’s label. Throughout the novel, Pecola’s fascination with white girls is heavily expressed. It is first shown very early on when Pecola admires the Shirley Temple cup. Claudia narrates, “She was a long time with the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple’s dimpled face” (19).

Pecola and the sisters then shared childhood adventures, and what Claudia remembers in particular is the startling onset of Pecola’s puberty when she unexpectedly first had her menstruation.

Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used--to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt.” Pecola was the only person in the town who was naïve and had hope of a better life. The town used her as a scapegoat and projected their insecurities and any negative feelings onto her since she was an easy target.

Pecola Breedlove, is an eleven-year-old black girl whom the story revolves around. She is abused by almost everyone in the novel and eventually suffers being raped by her father, Cholly Breedlove. Pecola's experiences, however, are not typical of all black girls who have to grow up in a hostile society. But who is to blame? One could easily argue that it was Mr. and Mrs. Breedlove. But who is to blame for how they treat their child? The white supremacy is the main cause of Cholly’s past, Pecola’s rape and the psychological mindset the mother is in. Pauline is Pecola's mother, and her character allows the reader to see how cultural conceptions of beauty can play themselves out in a more affectionate, but still unfortunate, form than Pecola's

Beyond the “Doll” section of the novel, Toni Morrison shifts from a vivid description of Claudia destroying white baby dolls in order to “find their beauty” to providing a scene in which Pecola’s old family dynamic is brought up to show the desperation of her entire family. The scene in which Pecola’s mother is harassing Cholly to get out of bed and get some coal for the fire clearly shows the mother’s frustration with Cholly, and Cholly’s corresponding indifference. This is a crucial moment, for it shows what sort of relationship the parents have: one of rivalry and apathy, all in one. This combination can be lethal, as it can be transmitted to the children as well as all the actions the parents make. Toni Morrison has a tendency of introducing

Pecola then thinks her mother has no love for her because she isn't white with blue eyes. When Pecola's dad raped her and got her pregnant her mother did not believe her. Her mother ever beat her for saying he raped her. After finding out that she is pregnant, everyone wants the baby dead, everyone except Claudia and Frieda.

Characters do not read books, did not finish school, they do not care about their own children, they toil all their life for the sake of cents, which can barely feed themselves and their kids. Pecola's mom did not have a time to pay attention to her kids, especially Pecola. She did not ever ask her daughter what was bothering her. Even when Pecola got ripped her mom did not believe her. Absence of the mother in Pecola's life leave a big imprint on the her. Pecola very insecure, she cannot stand up for herself, she squeezed; therefore, becomes a victim of abuse by everybody including her own father. In my opinion, if the mother would pay closer attention to her kids Piccola probably would have different future.

She faces abuse and rape at the hands of her own father. It is also tragic that a grown man would take advantage of a naive young girl and make her poison a dog, further robbing her of her innocence. Pecola’s yearning of blue eyes drives her to evil fulfillment of unknowingly poisoning Soaphead Church’s dog. The most tragic part of all is that despite the abuse that she faces, Pecola seeks outside help not to heal her emotional pain, but to try and make her eyes