Who is Pecola Breedlove?

Pecola's identity crisis vlog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKyWl2mrnUU

Pecola: the Object of Pity

Aesthetic interpretations are socially imposed, right? So then, the word aesthetics could stand for a lot of things, right? It doesn't only refer to someone that is pretty, but something that fits; that looks good in a certain context. 

I just really wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks. 

*cough*Pecola*cough*

Today we will try to understand why Morrison fooled us into Claudia being the principal character and suddenly demonstrating favoritism towards Pecola. 

First of all I would like to clarify: I hate when that happens. Just because Pecola is a victim of everything - literally (and somehow she's still perfect to the cliche viewer's eye) - it means that everyone, including the narrator have to turn to her side. She isn't trying to victimize herself, I know, but she does incite people to either feel pity for her or to bully her. This is why I came up with this theory: everyone thinks Pecola is much more interesting because she is poor, ugly and needs someone to help her. I am not trying to be mean or anything, I really am sorry for her harsh reality (it is, in fact, the toughest reality for a little girl) but she isn't as interesting as Claudia. Pecola is easily driven away by the rules of aesthetics while Claudia has an opinion of her own and isn't always demonstrating vulnerability. But I figured, Claudia kind of knows that she is ahead of Pecola, so she decided to "tell her story." All with a specific purpose, of course. 

Also, it's always Pecola who steals Claudia's light. Well, a little bit. The MacTeers wanted Claudia to love the doll they had given her but they were disappointed when she teared the doll apart because of her not finding any beauty in it. And there was Pecola, innocently desiring blue eyes and blaming herself of being ugly, needing someone to congratulate her for liking blue-eyed Mary Jane.

Another time was when Maureen bought an ice cream only to Pecola because she felt pity for her. What about Claudia? Just because her life wasn't entirely dysfunctional she didn't get an ice cream? As Frieda and Claudia waited for Maureen and Pecola outside the ice cream store they were  "thinking that [Maureen] would treat [them], or that [they] deserved it as much as Pecola did." (69). Did you see that? Pecola deserves stuff because she lives it tougher. And somehow, even though she lives in an environment with so much conflict, she manages to be a harmless little creature full of curiosity and love. 

Pecola is the perfect way for Morrison to demonstrate the irony with innocence that occurred at the time: the context she lives in would typically make her a bad person, but she turns out to be completely the opposite. 

Such a good metaphor. 

Hoez, Hoez Everywhere

As I was reading The Bluest Eye where Pecola interacts with the "whores," I noticed the whole scene was very similar to Edith Piaf's experience in La Vie En Rose. In both works, the authors' perception of these prostitutes congrue. They "did not belong to those generations of prostitutes created in novels, with great and generous hearts, dedicated because of the horror of circumstance...they weren't young girls in whores' clothing, or whores regretting their loss of innocence. They were whores in whores' clothing, who had never been young and had no word for innocence." (57). These are whores that hated men, not in a cliche-kind-of-way, but in a ain't-nobody-got-time-fo'-that way. These are whores that prefer spending time with a little girl and teaching her about life and men, like she was their own little girl. They take the reality they are given as it comes, and are fine with it. Coincidence? I DON'T HAVE A CLUE.
That's the thing with this book. I never know. 

I just wanted to say that word corrected me when I typed ain't. It suggested I should type Ann's or Anita. Racist word. 

I figured this novel has a lot of irony. It often intends to be funny with topics that are actually very harsh and difficult to talk about. For example, in this same part with the prostitutes, the three women laughed and made jokes about their poverty and loss of dignity as Marie "threw back her head. From deep inside, her laughter came like the sound of many rivers, freely, deeply, muddily, heading for the room of an open sea." (52).  It is not funny, it's actually pretty sad how easy it is to come down from all to nothing. Yet Morrison insits in making them laugh about this. A bit cynical. 

Going back to aesthetics, in this part a great influence of it is found. They're all old, trying to look like they are twenty again, but the more make up they put on (a social construct made for people to think they will fit in if they use it) the more harassed they looked like. Contradicting, huh? How society uses the enemy's strength at its favor. 

What I don't get is, how come a book narrated with such innocence contains absolutely the opposite? R-H-E-T-O-R-I-C.