The Bluest Eye (A-paper)

In The Eye Of The Beholder: The Search for Self in The Bluest Eye Ugliness and shame permeate Pecola Breedlove¡¦s being in every step she takes, every word she breathes, and every thought that her mind conceives. Pecola spends her life seeking acceptance in the eyes of those around her. She believes that if she can just possess the blue eyes that all those white, blond, blue-eyed, Shirley-Temple-looking-girls have, then she will also attain …

…the role that education plays in oppressing the victim and teaching the victim to oppress her own black self by submitting to the values engraved in the text (160-161). In the end, Pecola follows in the footsteps of her family: her mother who finds refuge in the white world of the Fishers, her father who finds refuge in alcohol. Pecola, too, finds refuge in the depths of her insanity, folding, again, into herself--this time indefinitely.