곤경에 빠진 소녀들의 자기 교육

How Do They Grow to be Women?: The Bluest Eye

This paper aims to identify the destructive power of racial and sexual prejudice against black girls and their struggle to cope with it in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Morrison herself writes in the foreword that while writing this novel she focused on showing how young African-American girls learn to hate themselves and how they overcome that self-hatred in a white male dominated society. In describing Pecola Breedlove's destruction and the MacTeer's sister's fight against the social norms, Morrison grasps the delicate moment when racism, poverty, and sexual oppression meet. Along with the MacTeer sister's defiance, the resistance of three whores also displays Morrison's hope of how black girls can overcome both social and racial oppressions. Through Morrison's portrayal of these characters, the reader comes to recognize how either mockery or angry responses against society can be a starting point for self-preservation. Through the story of the Breedlove family, Morrison depicts the mechanism behind how the mass media can plant the seeds of self-hatred in the minds of black people. She also shows how this leads black mothers to affirm their identities as maids for white families rather than their identities of mothers of their own families. Black mothers who identify themselves as maids for white families over mothers of their own black children are a problem because a black mother's disregard for her own family ruins the family life, especially for her daughter. Through the story of Pecola Breedlove's madness, Morrison tells us the fundamental and calamitous effects of racism and sexism which American society inflicts upon black girls in general. In addition to this, Morrison tries to show an alternative way of life that black girls can take. The three whores laugh off all patriarchal and racial prejudice and their mockery against social convention functions as a resource of self-respect. For them, humor enables them to transcend the absurdity of social norms. Also, The MacTeer sister's questioning and fighting against everything that defines them as ugly invigorate them to live a fulfilling life. Through Pecola's tragedy, the humor of three whores and the defiance of the MacTeer sister, readers observe how the growth of black girls could be achieved.