Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Ugliness
What struck me while reading this is text is the fascination with ugliness, how it is explored and reinforced with the different characters. The way in which Morrison brings ugliness to the forefront is through the character Pecola. Pecola is obsessed with the fact that she is black, for that time period, meant she was ugly. We can see how she wishes she had blues, if she had blue eyes she believes she would be beautiful. Then we see the opposite of this in Claudia who does not wish to be beautiful but instead destroys the concept of beauty. She destroys the doll which to her represents white beauty. I am interested to see how this conecpt of ugliness and beauty will play on later in the book.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I agree with what David says and I would like to extend the interplay between beauty and ugliness to Maureen Peal. Pecola, Claudia, and Freida consider Maureen the epitome of whiteness; she is rich, has “long brown hair”, “patent-leather shoes with buckles”, “coat trimmed in white rabbit fur”, etcetera. I claim that Morrison wants us to draw parallel between Maureen and the white doll. Claudia takes a swing at Maureen after Maureen derides Pecola and her father. Claudia becomes more enraged after Maureen screams, “I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly…” (73). Claudia views Maureen and the white doll as preachers of the belief that white is beautiful and black is ugly.
Post a Comment