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Light Skinned Pete Character Analysis

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Throughout history, society and its standards produce the desire people have to live a better life. Often times the objective to achieve the “American Dream” is unattainable and warps the thoughts of those who could not reap its benefits. Middle-class women find themselves rejecting who they are and creating a facade of beauty that only benefits their short time mental stability. This obsession with their beauty severely affects children they have an influence on in their daily lives. Unstable relationships and poor parenting affect young Pecola during her entire life. Her desire for blue eyes and acceptance trouble her especially in the presence of light skinned Maureen who was blessed with the grace and beauty of the ideal “American Dream …show more content…

“Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs - all the world had agreed that a blue eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘this is beautiful, and if you are on this day ‘worthy’ you may have it” (Morrison 20). One day, a new student, named Maureen Peal, arrives at the school Pecola attended. She fit the bill for society’s beauty standards: pampered, light-skinned and a green eyed black girl. “A high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back. She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of white girls, swaddled in comfort and care. The quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me” (Morrison 62). She intimidates Pecola and her school friends with her beauty and possessions. They envy her because she has what they desire. “If she was cute - and if anything could be believed, she was - then we were not. And what did that mean? We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser. Dolls we could destroy, but we could not destroy the honey voices of parents and aunts, the obedience in the eyes of our peers, the slippery light in the eyes of our teachers when they encountered the Maureen Peals of the world” (Morrison 74). Maureen’s character emphasizes the desire for an “easier” life just because of her physical appearance. Both black and white people treat Maureen with equal respect. It is as if following society's guidelines give her a fast pass throughout her

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