Index law 4 examples

Evans 1Self-Hate andThe Bluest EyeAt a time when blue-eyed, pale skin Shirley Temple is idolized by white and black alike, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove desperately seeks out beauty for herself. In order to attain beauty in her culture, Pecola must do the impossible: find white beauty. Toni Morrison shows the disastrous effects that colorismand racismcan have on a whole cultureand how African-Americans will tear each other apart in order to fit into the graces of white society. The desire to be considered beautiful in the white world is so compelling, that the characters in The Bluest Eyeloathe their own skin color and feel shame for their culture. These feelings of self-loathing and contempt pass on from the adults to their children, creating a continuous cycle of negativity and self-hate. “Here was an ugly little black girl asking for beauty...A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes” (Morrison, 174). By petitioning for white beauty, Pecola Breedlove is desperately attempting to pull herself out of the pit of blackness. Because Pecola has dark-skin andauthentic African-American features, black and white society has conditioned her to believe that she is ugly. Pecola‟s physical features ensure her to be a victim of classical racism; classical racism being the notion that the “physical ugliness of blackness is a sign of a deeper ugliness and depravity” (Taylor, 16). This notion allows the mistreatment of dark-skinned people because their blackness is a link to a “dark past” and to uncivilized ways. Pecoladoes not epitomize white society‟s standards ofbeauty because she does not have light skin and trademark blue eyes; therefore, she must be uglyand bad things will inevitably happen to her because she is uglyand. According to Elaine Showalter‟s discussion about “The Female Tradition”, there are several phases that a minority group experiences. The first phase is described as an extended
Evans 2period of “imitation of the prevailing modes of the dominant tradition, and internalization of its standards of art and its views on social roles” (Hamilton, 114). White Western society plays the dominant role here, and Pecola exhibits longing to imitatewhite society. Her desperation to have white beauty is so strong that she eats Mary Jane candies, fantasizing that the candies will make her white: “Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of clean comfort...To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane” (Morrison, 50). Claudia Macteer is the only character that seemingly has distaste for white beauty. She is not at all impressed with it and does not understand why she is not considered beautiful like other white children.Readers get a snapshot at the beginning of The Bluest Eyeof Frieda and Pecola discussing their fondness of Shirley Temple. The only one who seems to have a disdain for Shirley Temple is Claudia: “I couldn‟t join them in their adoration because I hated Shirley. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles, who was myfriend, myuncle, mydaddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me” (Morrison, 19). Claudia cannot comprehend why Bojangles, an African-American man, would not dance and play with an African-American girl. How could girls with darker skin think of themselves as cute or pretty if their own men are seen fraternizing with white girlsas opposed to colored girls? Claudia shows even more distaste for white girls when she is given a white doll forChristmas. “I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me...all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (Morrison, 20). After the dismemberment of the doll, Claudia remembers being scorned by the adults of her family telling her“...Now-you-got-one-a-beautiful-one-and-you-