Pecola, instead adopts the view of beauty as white, blond, and blue eyes. She feels that ugliness connects her to her family that if she was beautiful they will love her,
As long as she looked the way she did, as long as she was ugly she would have to stay with these people.…Each night without fail she prayed for blue eyes.…If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they’d say, “Why look at pretty eyed Pecola. We musn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes”. (45-46)
When Pecola eats Mary Janes, she not only enjoys the flavor but for her “to eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes. Eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane” (50). Pecola’s passion with the popular ideal of beauty and with all people around her saying to her she is ugly causes her to hate the person she is. Pecola’s need to be accepted as a human being in society is “concentrated in her sad fantasy of obtaining blue eyes. Through them, she might see and be seen as a real person and thus acquire the self-determination denied her by her circumstances as well as by her race and gender” (Rubenstein 130). Although …show more content…
Pecola’s longing for beauty has a direct relationship to the neglect and abuse she receives from her parents and society. Their arrangements force her to become absorbed in society’s view of beauty. Having blue eyes and being what she thinks is beautiful are her ways out of the negative environment she is forced to stay in. Bouson confirms, “The damage done to Pecola is total, and she steps over into madness. […] Her self damage beyond repair, Pecola retreats from real life” (Bouson 26). Pecola’s hard life does leave her with her blue eyes, but they exist in her own world where only she can see
As long as she looked the way she did, as long as she was ugly she would have to stay with these people.…Each night without fail she prayed for blue eyes.…If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they’d say, “Why look at pretty eyed Pecola. We musn’t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes”. (45-46)
When Pecola eats Mary Janes, she not only enjoys the flavor but for her “to eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes. Eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane” (50). Pecola’s passion with the popular ideal of beauty and with all people around her saying to her she is ugly causes her to hate the person she is. Pecola’s need to be accepted as a human being in society is “concentrated in her sad fantasy of obtaining blue eyes. Through them, she might see and be seen as a real person and thus acquire the self-determination denied her by her circumstances as well as by her race and gender” (Rubenstein 130). Although …show more content…
Pecola’s longing for beauty has a direct relationship to the neglect and abuse she receives from her parents and society. Their arrangements force her to become absorbed in society’s view of beauty. Having blue eyes and being what she thinks is beautiful are her ways out of the negative environment she is forced to stay in. Bouson confirms, “The damage done to Pecola is total, and she steps over into madness. […] Her self damage beyond repair, Pecola retreats from real life” (Bouson 26). Pecola’s hard life does leave her with her blue eyes, but they exist in her own world where only she can see