Quest For Personal Identity Essay Research Paper

Quest For Personal Identity Essay, Research Paper

Quest for Personal Identity The main theme in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, is the pursuit of individual identity and the influences of the family and community in that quest. The Breedlove family has moved to urban Lorain, Ohio. This displacement along with poor working conditions and poverty leads to a destructive search for personal identity. The internalization of white standards into a black community plays an important role in the characters quest for individual identity (Fick,Gold 56). Pauline is a “mammy” to a white family and continues to favor them over her biological family. Pecola is a little black girl with low self-esteem whom has let others force her to believe that she is ugly. Pecola and Pauline Breedlove illustrate the possible consequences of depending on external conditions in search of self-image. Attempting to satisfy expectations that differ so radically from reality showing how Pecola and Pauline lead to their own self-destruction. Pecola and Pauline Breedlove satisfy this quest for personal identity throughout the novel with the effects of family and community evident throughout. Brought up as a poor unwanted girl, Pecola Breedlove desires the acceptanceand love of society. The image of “Shirley Temple beauty” surrounds her. In her mind, if she was to be beautiful, people would finally love and accept her. The idea that blue eyes are a necessity for beauty has been imprinted on Pecola throughout her life. “If [I] looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they would say, `Why look at pretty eyed Pecola. We mustn’t do bad things in front of those pretty [blue] eyes’” (Morrison 46). Many people have helped imprint this ideal ofbeauty on her. Mr. Yacowbski as a symbol for the rest of society’s norm, treats her as if she were invisible. Her classmates also have an effect on her. They seem to think that because she is not beautiful, she is not worth anything except as the focal point of their mockery. “Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepsnekked. Black e mo…” (Morrison 65). Shouted by her classmates on such a regular basis, this scorn seemed not to penetrate anymore. As if it were not bad enough being ridiculed by children her own age, adults also had to mock her. Geraldine, a colored woman, who refused to tolerate “niggers”, happened to walk in while Pecola was in her house. “`Get out,’ she said her voice quiet. `You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house’” (Morrison 92). By having an adult point out to her that she really was a “nasty” little girl, it seems all the more true. Pecola was never able to get away from this kind of ridicule. At home she was put through the same thing, if not worse because her familymembers were the ones who were supposed to love her. Her mother was not able conceal her obvious affection towards a white girl over her. One day as Pecola was visiting her mother at the home where she is working, Pecola accidentally knocked over a blueberry pie. Obviously burned by the hot pastry, her mother completely ignored Pecola’s feelings of pain and instead tended to the comforting of her white “daughter”. “`Crazy foo…my floor, mess …look what you…crazy…my floor ‘ The little [white] girl in pink started to cry. Mrs. Breedlove turned to her. `Hush, baby, hush. Don’t cry no more’” (Morrison109). Her mother viewed Pecola as an obstacle that had the potential to get in the way of her white charge’s happiness and consequently her happiness. Her mother refused to show any love to Pecola because it might interfere with more important things. For a little girl, the love of her mother is the most important love she can receive. Without that, how can she think that she is worth anything at all. Finally the rape by her father is the last evidence Pecola needs to believecompletely that she is an ugly unlovable girl. While in most cases a father figure is one who little girls look to for guidance and approval, Cholly is the exact opposite. He hurts Pecola in a physical way that in one attempt measures up to the years of hurtful mockery. He took away from her the one thing that was utterly and completely hers. After the rape, Pecola was never even remotely the same.She was so sad to see. She spenther days, walking up and down her head jerking to the beat of a drummer so distant only she could hear. In short, after the rape, Pecola went insane. Pecola’s search for identitywas defined by her everlasting desire to be loved. Her purpose in life was to be beautiful and as a result of that to be loved. Her family and community made it impossible for her to ever be sanely content. Pauline Breedlove, wife of Cholly, mother of Pecola, is a servant in a white household. The times she was there working for this family without any reminder of her own failures were the only times that she felt truly happy. It was there and only there that she finally felt as if she were part of something successful. In Pauline’s search for her identity and ultimately her happiness, she learned exactly what she would have to sacrifice so that she could be content, as well as the difference between herself and the rest of society. The movie theater helped her realize the stark difference between her and other women. “Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another-physical beauty. She was never able, after her education in the movies, to look at a face and not assign i