The Pecola Breedlove Family

For centuries the African American race has gone through several stages of oppression in which they have been targeted by institutionalized racism. The Bluest eye by Toni Morrison depicts an African American family who is victim to the pressures of society. Pecola Breedlove has been born into a world in which she attempts to fit in and establish herself. However she comes to understand that it will never be possible based on the circumstances in which she lives around. Within Toni Morrison’s The Bluest eye, he attempts to reflect how society enforces standards of beauty which establishes how an individual creates their own identity and how they are accepted within society.
The Breedlove family is forced to bear the image of ugleness because …show more content…
Maureen’s characterization is much different than the other black people within their town. She is described as having “ a hint of spring in her sloe green eyes, something summery in her complexion, and a rich autumn ripeness in her walk. She enchanted the entire school” (Morrison 63). Maureen’s image encomasses everything that is considered beautiful within their society. This is partially due to the fact that culture has created this internalized racism and has taught blacks to target each other; “contempt for their own blackness” (Morrison 65). There is a perception that being “black” is a bad quality, and because maureen possesses both wealth as well as a lighter complexion she is placed above everyone else. This is why “Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth....Black girls stepped aside” (Morrison 62). Using the words black boys and black girls enforces the notion that she is dissociated with her own race. In the end this becomes her identity as she believes she is above everyone a “ high yellow dream child” (Morrison …show more content…
Pecola is representation of individuals who never were given to the chance to explore themselves because society targets them and never provides them with an opportunity to succeed. “ Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills it of it’s own violation…the victim had no right to live” (Morrison 206). Pecola was victim of not only racism but, internalized racism, society manipulated an entire race to hate one another;“Blacks, have been, and are, the victims of a system whose only fuel is greed, whose only god is profit.(Baldwin 3). The result of this oppression comes from America’s social and economic system which focus on wealth and image rather than ethics and