The Bluest Eye Racism

In various works of literature, racism is a factor, that is commonly embedded in many communities. In many cases, characters who experience racism, usually are brainwashed into thinking less of themselves and this frequently creates a long pattern of self hatred. For example, in the Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison exemplifies how a community of African Americans struggle with equating being white as beautiful, which is all because of caucasians historically suppressing African Americans and forcing them to believe that black is ugly. To add, various black characters in Morrison’s novel, lives are misused because of the influential white persona. Furthermore, the Bluest Eye takes place in the early 1940’s. Around this time, white supremacy was heavily …show more content…
It's possible that others will find this theory invalid. Some might think, the character’s behaviors are based on their upbringings and not racial suppression. Notedly, Pecola had an unstable home environment because “Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt,” which means that Pecola's father raped her. Also, Pecola's mother (Polly), didn't care much for her. Polly felt that “She was ugly...head full of beautiful hair, but Lord she was ugly”. Unfortunately, the young girl’s only form of kindness was given by prostitutes. Ultimately, being neglected and raped by one's parents would be detrimental to anyone's sanity, but one would have to keep in mind, both of Pecola's parents were discriminated against by caucasians growing up. To add, Pecola's father was sexually assaulted by white men and her mother was also bullied on her appearance. At one point, Pecola’s mother stated that “she was ugly because of her missing teeth...and she eventually stopped trying”. Ultimately, Pecola and her mother share the same amount of self worth, which is a small amount, so it would be hard for Polly to uplift her