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Shirley Temple Analysis

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Though her pregnancy is a critical detail in the story, Pecola’s disfavor with her appearance is pronounced in the way she dreams of having white skin and especially blue eyes. Claudia, one of young girls that narrates describes Pecola’s love for Shirley Temple as she states, “Frieda and she had a long conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley” (Morrison 35). Pecola’s idolization of Shirley Temple indicates how culture, controlled by the dominant race, created the desire in young black girls to achieve the image of “whiteness”. Prejudice reigns in the means in which these young girls see beauty. Carolyn Gerald comments on this interaction between the young girls and societies …show more content…

As resources including food and shelter become ever more limited due to isolation, crime becomes eminent to survival and soon it manifests itself as a culture. Many carry the assumption that “black on black” crime is a bigger issue when comparing it to lethal police encounters. However, unlike the causes of police brutality, “black on black” crime is attributed primarily to limited access to quality food and healthcare (Chang 4). Bringing up a greater issue especially relevant to today, the issue of police brutality is a critical detail when analyzing such institutionalized oppression. These early political establishments such as slavery and eventually segregation created the idea of racism, however when blacks began to acquire civil rights, the white man’s control was being lost and was regained with unwarranted police brutality. Essentially slavery defined being black as a slave while Jim Crow defined being black as a second class citizen. Now, mass incarceration defines being black as being a criminal (Alexander …show more content…

Pecola Breedlove’s family and how they view themselves and Pecola, is another factor that contributes to the way she develops her low self esteem. Morrison describes the family writing, “They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly. Although their poverty was traditional and stultifying, it was not unique. But their ugliness was unique. No one could have convinced them that they were not relentlessly and aggressively ugly”(33). Regardless of whether or not this belief was true, the Breedlove’s internalized their misfortune of poverty and prejudice as being their own

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