Terry Eagleton once stated, “Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same, but attending equally to everyone’s different needs” (Quotes…). Reflecting on the 1940s segregation of blacks and whites was a huge deal, whites could get away with sexual harassment, stealing, and murder by just accusing a black. White folk also got the good paying jobs and lived in nice neighborhoods while black folk were stuck in the jobs that payed below minimum wage, and lived in the run-down neighborhoods. Looking at Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye through a Marxism view, one can see the characters as the quintessential embodiment of the typical black folk of the 1940s in the following moments in the novel: Cholly’s forced rape of Darlene that fueled the
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“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” (Morrison 20). Every young black girl carried around a Baby Doll with these features because at that time whites held the power over blacks and it was what the media was showing, aka Shirley Temple. If you were a young black girl and did not have nor want this features you were an outcast to society – you were treated as if you were a fly on a wall, you meant nothing to anyone in power. This complexion complex is similar to today’s society, how if you are not in tip top shape, skinny, tan, and acne free than you are ugly and will be judged. In the character Claudia, a young black girl, gets this doll for Christmas and tears the doll apart, she states she had “…one desire: to dismember it….to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me…” (Morrison 20). She continued to dismember it till it was just a piece of medal. After this is when she realized that it was just a figure of what people wanted: to fit in by having these features whites deemed necessary for success, but losing yourself and your heart in the process. She starts to hate them because they symbolize everything she cannot be: not white, not …show more content…
“Her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes…” (Morrison 49). Pecola’s assumption that Mr. Yacobowski sees right through her – because she is black and does not have blue eyes – demonstrates the way white adults see blacks as worthless, and Pecola’s feeling that she is not worth being looked at. The difference between Pecola’s features and her inward thoughts shows there is a real human being under her black skin that no one else can see. “…points her finger at the Mary Janes…assertion of a black child’s attempt to communicate with a white adult…’Christ. Kantcha talk?’ His fingers brush the Mary Janes..” (Morrison 49). Mr. Yacobowski inability to understand and communicate with Pecola demonstrates the divide of him being white and her being black, she can hardly talk to him without feeling as though she is being judged. Also, the way Mr. Yacobowski does not want to touch Pecola’s hand demonstrates his racism and the inability to want to communicate. There is definitely a shift of emotions seen in Pecola after the encounter at the store on the way she perceives herself and surroundings. Because of Mr. Yacobowski Pecola begins to believe she is ugly. While the shame of her not being able to
“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” (Morrison 20). Every young black girl carried around a Baby Doll with these features because at that time whites held the power over blacks and it was what the media was showing, aka Shirley Temple. If you were a young black girl and did not have nor want this features you were an outcast to society – you were treated as if you were a fly on a wall, you meant nothing to anyone in power. This complexion complex is similar to today’s society, how if you are not in tip top shape, skinny, tan, and acne free than you are ugly and will be judged. In the character Claudia, a young black girl, gets this doll for Christmas and tears the doll apart, she states she had “…one desire: to dismember it….to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me…” (Morrison 20). She continued to dismember it till it was just a piece of medal. After this is when she realized that it was just a figure of what people wanted: to fit in by having these features whites deemed necessary for success, but losing yourself and your heart in the process. She starts to hate them because they symbolize everything she cannot be: not white, not …show more content…
“Her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates, the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes…” (Morrison 49). Pecola’s assumption that Mr. Yacobowski sees right through her – because she is black and does not have blue eyes – demonstrates the way white adults see blacks as worthless, and Pecola’s feeling that she is not worth being looked at. The difference between Pecola’s features and her inward thoughts shows there is a real human being under her black skin that no one else can see. “…points her finger at the Mary Janes…assertion of a black child’s attempt to communicate with a white adult…’Christ. Kantcha talk?’ His fingers brush the Mary Janes..” (Morrison 49). Mr. Yacobowski inability to understand and communicate with Pecola demonstrates the divide of him being white and her being black, she can hardly talk to him without feeling as though she is being judged. Also, the way Mr. Yacobowski does not want to touch Pecola’s hand demonstrates his racism and the inability to want to communicate. There is definitely a shift of emotions seen in Pecola after the encounter at the store on the way she perceives herself and surroundings. Because of Mr. Yacobowski Pecola begins to believe she is ugly. While the shame of her not being able to