The character of Pecola is the most affected by the standardized ideology of racism through the concept of beauty. The unreachable concept of white beauty victimizes Pecola and allows the African American community to also discriminate and address their self-hatred toward Pecola. In contrast to Claudia, Pecola has no self-love for herself as she always sees herself through the eyes of others and her only aspiration is to conform to the standard of beauty to be accepted in the community. The narration of the book allows readers to unfold that it was Pecola's own assumption to feel ugly and that her deep internalization of white beauty standards and their value drives her to her ultimate insanity. The character of Pecola loses or never has …show more content…
Demonstrating once again that African Americans have little to no place in the country’s overall dynamic construction. This leads to having racism internalized to a great extent that African Americans have no choice but to deny their ability to see themselves as their own entities. In “Racism through a Child’s Eyes,” by Maria Lydevik, she further declares,
While the blacks in this book are no longer slaves, they are still victims of whiteness as being the standard of beauty. Black beauty is looked down upon or ignored, which inevitably results in their feelings of inferiority, especially because they live in an environment defined by white people in which they have to struggle for recognition. The members of the black community internalize the fact that they are unimportant beings and ugly in comparison to the white people. …show more content…
Representation of different ethnicities is important because it demonstrates the unity between people and when representation is show casing only certain ethnicities sends a message of preference of one over another culture. However, there is not an actual definition of what beauty is or is not, only that the base of is starts with light colored skin and a certain standard of perfection. The author displays with her novel, how characters fall short when they compare themselves to the notion of the beauty. The aftermath results in the destruction of the black female mind and body because they do not realize that it is not their fault they fall short of achieving those beauty standards through the ill-defined standards. The character of Pecola is blind to these problems and she is forced to feel ugly and ashamed of her darkness that works as an ability to be invisible to the rest of the world, denying to find beauty within something different other than white beauty, “the distaste must be for her, her blackness. All things in her are flux and anticipation. but her blackness is static and dread. And it is the blackness that accounts for, that creates the vacuum edged with distaste in white eyes,” (Morrison 49). Pecola fails to see beauty within herself because society has chosen to target the less