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Transcendence from an Oppressed Society - The Bluest Eye


In an ironic tragedy the hero feels excluded from a society he or she is trying to belong to. Pecola is a scapegoat victim as she is an outcast from her community based on her race and class. She clearly wants to belong to this society as she would do anything to be considered beautiful. By the end of the story the hero is isolated by society, often to their death. Pecola Breedlove is a young black girl who is the hero in this analysis. Pecola as well as the "[a]dults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs" recognize beauty to be associated with white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes (20). American culture encourages the concept that whiteness should be desired. In her town she is seen as ugly and worthless. Due to the notion of where beauty lies that was implanted in her mind at such a young age she is obsessed with the need to achieve this beauty and longs to obtain blue eyes as it occurs to Pecola that "if her eyes were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different" (46). Pecola believes that altering her physical appearance will solve her problems. In the last section of the book titled, "Summer", Pecola is raped and impregnated by her father resulting in further exclusion for Pecola. The individuals in her community believe she should be, "taken out of school" and she, "carries some of the blame" (189). After being unable to process and accept the fact that her father raped her, she receives her wish of blue eyes in a disturbing form; Pecola encounters the spiritualist Soaphead Church, a self-proclaimed "Reader, Adviser, and Interpreter of Dreams" who finds pleasure in hating others and exploiting the innocence of children (165). Soaphead takes pity on Pecola when he sees the degree of her self-hatred. He believes "that only a miracle could relieve her" so he fulfills Pecola's wish for blue eyes (46).


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