Discuss the differences and similiraties for the characters, content Essay

Discuss the differences and similiraties for the characters, content and writing style for the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and - Essay Example The families are segregated and discriminated by the dominant society and pushed to take resort to isolation. It is the isolation that makes the parental characters violent, neglectful and careless to their children. In return, the children also are forced to isolate themselves from the family as well as from the society. The most haunting theme that both of the two novels contain is the association of whiteness with every sphere of a black’s life in a white dominated society. It is not a mere phenomenon of life; rather it is the prerequisite for love and romance; the standard of beauty, symbol of decency for Pecola. In the same manner, whiteness, especially, blond hair is the symbol of beauty. Since she is a fat black girl, she is in constant self-admonishment that she is ugly. Both of the two novels deal with the devastating impacts of color-based on the growth of teenage psychology as well as on the whole black community. The color-based racism misguides them to find their worth in color, that is, the beauty or whiteness of their skin. Whereas Pecola finds relief from this color-based beauty in her service a white woman’s home, Maya seeks relief and feels confidence in herself by learning to challenge the white dominance. Both of them feel that they are ugly and longs for beauty. But neither of the two can surpass the stern reality that they are black and therefore ugly by birth. Maya describes the unbearable pain of being segregated and humiliated by the whites in the following lines My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. . . . This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. (Angelou 58) Indeed their tragic flaw lies in the fact that they taught by the society believe that beauty lies in whiteness. But when Maya learns a bout the insidious nature of racism and finds her worth in being able to revolt against this racism and learns that white beauty is nothing but the racial discrimination of the white society in which she lives, Pecola’s relief in working for the white woman dooms her further by deeply rooting the belief in her mind that she is cursed by birth and she can never have Caucasian blue eye and whiteness. Indeed Pecola blindfolded by her romantic notion of love that if she does not have the blue eye, she will not be loved, as the narrator says, â€Å"It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different† (Morison 89). But she cannot perceive that the white definition of beauty and blue eye is essentially the result of racial discrimination. Therefore she further becomes vulnerable to an eternal depression. Indeed whe reas Maya gets vigorous support from her grandmother, Pecola is deprived of such familial support. In this regard, Pecola is in utter contrast with Claudia and Frieda who are mentally strong in the face of racial adversaries. They vigorously and actively take a stance against the discrimination as well as any adversaries of life. They continued to support Pecola