Pecola Identity

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.

She thought that if she had blue eyes, the blue eyes of the accepted white ideal, she would be beautiful and therefore loved. The acquisition of the blue eyes she so fiercely covets signifies Pecola's step into madness. It was a safe place, where she could have her blue eyes, and where she could be accepted.

“Again, the hatred mixed with tenderness. The hatred would not let him pick her up, the tenderness forced him to cover her.” [This quote represents the emotions that flood through Pecola’s father’s head after he rapes her. Prior to and during raping Pecola, Pecola’s father is enraged with many emotions. These emotions include anger, tenderness and l0ve towards Pecola. This is a significant quote in the novel because this is one of the few parts of where Pecola’s father, Cholly’s, character is shown. This quote reveals Cholly’s character because it shows that the events that happened in his

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.

In the third chapter of The Bluest Eye, entitled "Autumn", Toni Morrison focuses on Pecola's family, the Breedloves. Morrison goes in depth about the family dynamic of the Breedloves and how it affects Pecola and her self-image. The passage starts after one of many arguments between Cholly and Mrs. Breedlove, Pecola's parents, turns violent. Mrs. Breedlove wants Cholly to fetch some coal from the outside shed. Cholly spent the last night drinking and does not want to get out of bed. The passage begins with the children becoming aware of the argument. Mrs. Breedlove starts to hit him with cooking pans while Cholly mostly used his feet and teeth. After the fight is over Mrs. Breedlove just lets Cholly lie on the ground and she goes about her

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

Pecola and the caged bird range in the use of coping strategies, from singing to having virtually none, in order to manage their situations. Like the caged bird, Pecola also “stands on the grave of dreams,” symbolizing the hopelessness that has come over the two. After being kept in a cage for so long, the bird as well as Pecola, long “of things unknown” that are simply unattainable; freedom for the bird and acceptance in the form of blue eyes for Pecola. Throughout the Bluest Eye, Pecola is deeply infatuated with having blue eyes. She is convinced that beauty is directly associated with whiteness, specifically blue eyes. She believes that if she somehow gets blue eyes she will suddenly be beautiful in the eyes of those around her, and therefore lovable. After her father rapes her and her innocence dies, Pecola’s last shred of hope, her baby, also

It had occurred to Pecola … that if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different…. If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they’d say, " Why, look at pretty-eyed Peola". We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes (Morrison 46).

The Bluest Eye is a novel about an unwanted, unloved, and unappreciated little girl. Pecola is preyed upon by white shop owners, black mothers, and children in her own social class. Additionally, Pecola is not able to turn to her parents for support, as they have emotionally abandoned her long ago. Instead of loving his daughter, Cholly killed his ability to think about his own oppression with copious amounts of alcohol. Similarly, Pauline retreated to a world in which people appreciated her, something she had never experienced herself, and something she neglected to bestow upon her children. Pecola has a lot in common with both of her parents, mostly due to the fact that the oppression her parents faced was also a regular and ritual part of

Morrison’s use of two different narrators through the story also goes hand-in-hand with the novel’s contents. Throughout The Bluest Eye, Morrison uses an older Claudia MacTeer and a third-person omniscient narrator effectively in telling parts of the story. Claudia’s narration of the events provides a limited view of the story, as she can only relay what she knows and experienced. This can be seen through simple dialogue between Claudia and Frieda on page 101, where the girls discuss how a person can be “ruined” based on information fed to them by their mother. This makes Claudia’s narration somewhat unreliable, but her point of view still allows the reader to interpret more about the content and character presented. This is vital to the story, as she inserts her own opinions and reflections on the heavy topics

Pecola's parents have both had difficult lives. Pauline always felt like an outsider in her family and constantly suffers through feelings of loneliness and ugliness. She wants to love her daughter but finds Pecola unattractive. Pauline works for a wealthy white family and finds her comfort in their house. Cholly was abandoned by his parents and brought up by his aunt. He was often humiliated by white people and built up a great rage toward whites and women. When he met and married Pauline, things were good for a time, but he soon felt trapped and unhappy. The marriage is dull, except for those moments when they are fighting.

Pecola is first introduced as a foster child coming to live with McTeer family after her father burned down the Breedlove house. She arrives with nothing but the clothes on her back, exhibiting a shy demeanor. The effects of years of abuse and neglect are immediately evident through her interactions with Claudia and Frieda. She is compliant with whatever they do, trying her best not to draw attention to herself: “When we discovered that she clearly did not want to dominate us, we liked her. She laughed when I clowned for her, and smiled and gracefully accepted the food gifts my sister gave her” (Morrison 19). As the three girls stay together, Pecola’s insecurities are unveiled. She is aware that others dub her as ‘ugly’, and believes she is

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

There are many themes that seem to run throughout this story. Each theme and conflict seems to always involve the character of Pecola Breedlove. There is the theme of finding an identity. There is also the theme of Pecola as a victim. Of all the characters in the story we can definitely sympathize with Pecola because of the many harsh circumstances she has had to go through in her lifetime. Perhaps her rape was the most tragic and dramatic experience Pecola had experiences, but nonetheless she continued her life. She eliminates her sense of ugliness, which lingers in the beginning of the story, and when she sees that she has blue eyes now she changes her perspective on life. She believes that these eyes have been given

She drinks several quarts of milk at the home of her friends Claudia and Frieda McTeer just to use their Shirley Temple mug and glaze at young Temple’s blue eyes. One day Pecola is raped by her father, when the child the she conceives dies, Pecola goes mad. She comes to believe that she has the bluest eyes of anyone.