Claudia And Frieda Character Analysis

In contrast of Claudia and Frieda, an important point to stress is that Pecola’s conviction of her own ugliness stems from the society’s judgment of her being unattractive rather than from herself. Pecola would for, “...long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of her ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike…” (Morrison 1990, 34). The impossibility of Pecola’s wish for blue eyes undermines her self worth. The intensity of her feelings of shame is profound indeed. That subjective infringement of one’s self-respect, which stems from the imposed sense of inferiority, contributes to her giving in to the cultural disregard for her own race (Zebialowicz). By Pecola internalizing the white standards of beauty, it lead her to a state in which she inhabits invisibility
“The authentic black self is buried so deep in some of the characters that their perception of themselves amounts to self-hatred. This self-loathing is strongest in those characters who are farthest from their communities; for what they hate most is being different since difference brings abuse and cruelty. The self- hatred is often focused on the body as the most obvious indicator of race; hair and color “ (Taylor). Black self-loathing is not only all about the dislike of the skin color, it can also result in shame of anything that is associated with the African culture. Because Pecola and her mother are rejecting their own blackness, they are internalizing the white supremacism so that their own beliefs, attitudes and values are based on the general social judgment and stereotypes of African-Americans which drove Pecola to insanity based off the fear of being nothingness due to the lack of love and