Claudia MacTeer gives us some better insights to Pecola’s obsession with blue eyes and white skin. Toni Morrison makes it seem that it was very common for black folks to want to be white folks. Claudia frequently received white, blue-eyed baby dolls as Christmas and birthday presents. The adults think it is wonderful she gets such pretty dolls. However, Claudia hates them and destroys them on purpose. She even feels she would enjoy destroying real white girls. She interestingly talks about her hatred for white girls, more specifically Shirley Temple, when she says, “Younger than Frieda both and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would all me to love her” (Morrison, 1970, p.19). This
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The experiment was designed and carried out by Kenneth and Mamie Clark, two certified psychologists. They performed a simple, yet enlightening experiment which displayed obvious effects segregation had on young African American children. Kenneth Clark had four identical dolls with only one difference, the skin color of the dolls. Two of the dolls had light skin colors, while the other two had darker skin. They asked children, between the ages 3 and 7, to identify the race of each doll and which one they liked the most. The results of this experiment were shocking. The majority of black children preferred to play with the white dolls. Clark said “The children also gave the ‘white’ color positive attributes like being good and pretty. On the contrary, ‘black’ was attributed to being bad and ugly” (Stereotypes, 2010). The attitudes of the children in this experiment are reflected by the characters in The Bluest Eyes. Pecola and her mother are two examples of African Americans in the 1940s who want to be white because it will make them “good and …show more content…
Linda Meyer Franklin and David Finkelhor did research to better understand the characteristics of sexually abusive fathers. The researchers found that “incestuous fathers were more likely than the nonabusive fathers to have been rejected by their parents, physically abused, or sexually abused when they themselves were children” (Williams & Finkelhor). Cholly was rejected by his mother when he was only four days old. Years later, he finds his father but is rejected by him as well. Parental rejection is a major characteristic of incestuous fathers. Another characteristic of a sexually abusive father is personal sexual abuse. Although Cholly was not directly abused sexually as a child, he did experience a traumatic event when he was losing his virginity. One could say, Cholly Breedlove was destined to become an abusive
The experiment was designed and carried out by Kenneth and Mamie Clark, two certified psychologists. They performed a simple, yet enlightening experiment which displayed obvious effects segregation had on young African American children. Kenneth Clark had four identical dolls with only one difference, the skin color of the dolls. Two of the dolls had light skin colors, while the other two had darker skin. They asked children, between the ages 3 and 7, to identify the race of each doll and which one they liked the most. The results of this experiment were shocking. The majority of black children preferred to play with the white dolls. Clark said “The children also gave the ‘white’ color positive attributes like being good and pretty. On the contrary, ‘black’ was attributed to being bad and ugly” (Stereotypes, 2010). The attitudes of the children in this experiment are reflected by the characters in The Bluest Eyes. Pecola and her mother are two examples of African Americans in the 1940s who want to be white because it will make them “good and …show more content…
Linda Meyer Franklin and David Finkelhor did research to better understand the characteristics of sexually abusive fathers. The researchers found that “incestuous fathers were more likely than the nonabusive fathers to have been rejected by their parents, physically abused, or sexually abused when they themselves were children” (Williams & Finkelhor). Cholly was rejected by his mother when he was only four days old. Years later, he finds his father but is rejected by him as well. Parental rejection is a major characteristic of incestuous fathers. Another characteristic of a sexually abusive father is personal sexual abuse. Although Cholly was not directly abused sexually as a child, he did experience a traumatic event when he was losing his virginity. One could say, Cholly Breedlove was destined to become an abusive