“They seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds― cooled ―and spilled over lips of outrage, consuming whatever was in its path.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (65)
Pecola herself learned to hate herself through the harsh words or her mother and people that surrounded her. She saw proof in what they told her in the preferred adoption of white beauty standards by all people in society. Her early
education of her worthlessness to society was by no means unique. All members of her community have experienced it before and each has his/her own way of dealing with it. The older married couples can take out their frustrations on each other while the children are left to deal with it by themselves or with their friends. The group of boys who team up to torment Pecola do so with the knowledge that the people in the lowest community (them) still have the power to ridicule the members who are lower than them The hopelessness of their prospects to escape their place in society causes anger that they can only take out on an outcast. They harm her in any way that they can in their effort to regain some semblance of control in their lives, lives that are controlled through the prejudices and old laws of the white dominated society. The description of the all consuming hatred felt by the boys shows the inevitability of their own abuse to other in society. It also shows how the self loathing brainwashes the children since before birth.
I wrote about the same passage (and the sentence after it) in my blog post, too! I liked that you wrote about how beauty standards influence everyone in the black community, instead of just focusing on the boys in the passage.
ReplyDeleteI think that the recurring theme of the novel about how the oppressed oppress each other is very sad. This passage is very beautiful, however, in the way that it is written. I think this particular exert makes readers feel shame because in their society, blacks are forced to hate themselves.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, that same passage seemed to affect me a lot also. The work choice is so perfect, and the whole mood just demands emotional response.
ReplyDeleteI feel like it's more a testament to mob mentality than actual self deprecation; after all, the best example of a "typical" household is that of the MacTeers, and they don't loathe themselves. Sure, they have a Shirley Temple cup, but that in and of itself doesn't mean much (other than that they like Shirley Temple, which isn't true of all of them).
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