Essay On Pecola

396 Words1 Page

Pecola faced tremendous amount of pressure due to her skin color and dismissal from her own community. Criticized by friends and family for being ugly, Pecola was in constant disarray by the people around her. Pecola becomes more of a target when a young “light-skinned” girl named Maureen enters the novel. Maureen’s popularity at school and community became noticeable. She was the golden child of the black community, “she was rich, at least by our standards…swaddled in comfort and care. The quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me,” Maureen was poster child of what a true African-American child should be (Morrison 62). Maureen humiliated Pecola because of how she looked. Even Pecola’s own race was belittling her down spirits. …show more content…

During this time period, white communities valued Maureen’s overall structure and “light-skin” more than the darker colored black children. Maureen seemed to make Pecola the target at school because Pecola was darker skinned and ugly. For example, Morrison writes that Maureen kept screaming to Pecola, “I am cute…and you [Pecola] ugly! Black and ugly!” this scene demonstrates how Pocola’s self-esteem is grinding down on her (Morrison 73). Another scene that depicts how the community viewed white standards is when Claudia makes reference to dolls. Morrison writes that Claudia does not understand the difference between Maureen and other black girls, “we were less. Nicer, brighter but still lesser…the slippery light in the eyes of our teacher when they encountered the Maureen Peals of the world. What was the secret? What did we lack?” is a clear example of how the community saw darker skinned black girls compared to light-skinned white standards (Morrison 74). I really found this quote interesting when Morrison writes “we,” clearly showing two sides of the community. One side is the darker, Pocola’s of the world and the Maureen’s of the

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