Skin Color Politics and the Beauty Standard: Examining African American Girlhood
in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) and God Help the Child (2015)
By Kalliopi Fragkouli
A dissertation submitted to the Department of English Literature and the Department of
American Literature, School of English, Faculty of Philosophy in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts.
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
December 2017
1 To all the girls struggling with self-acceptance
2 Acknowledgments
The writing of this thesis would not have been possible without the help, support and patience of my supervisor, Dr. Domna Pastourmatzi, to whom I am deeply grateful. I would like to thank her for understanding my need to explore new academic fields and for letting me work on a subject I was passionate about. I would also like to thank her for our conversations and meetings, which were always a source of inspiration and helped me gain a deeper insight of the material I was dealing with.
Additionally, I have to thank Dr. Tatiani Rapatzikou for acting as my mentor and guide from the beginning of this academic journey. She was the only person that could fully understand the emotional and mental struggles I faced during my postgraduate studies. I am forever thankful for her support, trust and good intentions.
Finally, I am grateful to my parents for respecting my choices and for standing by my side in all my endeavors. I feel blessed to know that I can count on them for every decision I make, and every step I wish to take in my academic career.
3 Abstract
In my thesis I attempt to shed light on the stigmatization of African American women by white American beauty standards. Toni Morrison’s novels, The Bluest Eye (1970) and God Help the Child (2015), provide an insight into the African American girls and women’s daily struggles with regards to their external appearance. I focus on race and gender in order to showcase in what ways the black female psyche is traumatized and inevitably is plagued by self-loathing and self-depreciation. In both novels, Morrison shows that dark-skinned black women are marginalized and devalued by white Americans as well as by members of the African American community because they are unable to meet the ideal image of female beauty, which requires light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. Despite the social factors that perpetuate and impose these standards on the black female mindset, Morrison seems to project a more optimistic view in her latest novel regarding the hope for change in American society and the prospect of a better future for African American women.
4 Table of Contents
Acknowledgements………………………………………………...... 3
INTRODUCTION………………….……………………………………………………………..6
CHAPTER ONE:
Standardized Beauty, Desired, Yet Unattainable...... 16
I. White American Standards of Beauty and the African American Community……...24 II. ‘Mama’: Morrison’s Black Maternal Figures and their Adoption of Beauty
Standards……………………………………………………………………………..28
CHAPTER TWO:
From Girlhood to Womanhood: Self-Perception, Femininity, and the Social Stigma of Ugliness……………..…………………………………….………...... 33
I. Have Things Changed? Morrison’s Restrained Optimism about the Future………...44
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………..50
Works Cited………………………………………………………………………………………52
5 INTRODUCTION
A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little
white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning
is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment.
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
It can be argued that African American beauty has been at the center of attention from the emergence of the “Black is beautiful” movement, and continues to be a hot topic of discussion even in contemporary American society. The image of dark-skinned black women and the changes it has undergone is an issue worthy of examination. Living in a social environment, which is dominated by white standards of beauty and influenced by stereotypes of race and gender, African American women frequently find themselves under the microscope. Toni
Morrison is one major American black writer who has fictionally represented the impact of the beauty myth on black females. In her novels Morrison focuses on the great influence of the white beauty standards, of the American beauty and fashion industry, and of Hollywood films on black people. The author analyzes the psychological oppression dark-skinned African American women and young girls experience. Trying to live up to the ideal image of femininity, many black women enter a vicious circle; they struggle to imitate the ideal but find it impossible, because by nature they have different bodily features that cannot be easily changed. Failing to meet the requirements of the ideal femininity, black women eventually lapse into self-loathing.
In The Bluest Eye (1970), Morrison examines the damaging beauty standard of the blue-eyed,
6 blonde-haired, white-skinned American girl of the 1930s (embodied by the movie star Shirley
Temple) and its impact on the mental wellbeing of some young black girls. Particularly,
Morrison tells the story of Pecola (the protagonist), a twelve-year-old dark-skinned girl, and shows that she falls into madness due to the pressures of her racist social environment. In God
Help the Child (2015), Morrison emphasizes the exploitation of black beauty, which becomes a profitable commodity for the cosmetics business and the fashion industry. Aiming to fit in the ideal image of exotic dark-skinned femininity, Lula Ann (the protagonist) gets carried away by the stereotypical representation of the luscious, curvy, and sensual black woman of the 1990s.
She relies on her external appearance and on her dark skin in order to be accepted as a respected member of the beauty industry. Interestingly, both novels highlight the pervasive influence of the deep-rooted western beauty standards on the African American community in general and on black mothers and on vulnerable young black girls in particular. While growing up in the dominant white culture, black-skinned girls are affected not only by the opinion of the whites but also by the opinion and attitude of their own mothers.
In order to fully decipher Morrison’s representations of African American girls and women, and the way they are shown to react to America’s beauty standards, it is necessary to shed light upon the persistent segregation African Americans confront in contemporary American society. Many African American women still face discrimination, which shows that the factors of race and gender continue to have an impact on their lives. As Douglas Massey and Nancy
Denton state the “isolation of black Americans was achieved by a conjunction of racist attitudes, private behaviors, and institutional practices,” which created an underclass in the black community, and “exacerbated black poverty” (83). Also, until recently, black and white
Americans were separated in all spheres of social interaction, and received completely different
7 treatment in terms of housing, education, job opportunities, and medical care. We realize that racial segregation and the inferior social position of the underprivileged African Americans have a long history in USA and partly derive from white racism and economic disadvantages.
In her novels Morrison depicts black female experience within a white-dominated environment and highlights the ways in which the identity of African American girls is affected by the mainstream cultural standards. As Cynthia Davis mentions all of “Morrison’s characters exist in a world defined by its blackness and by the surrounding white society that both violates it and denies it” (7). The destructive effects of racial oppression in Morrison’s fiction underline the hardships that African Americans have to deal with. Aware of the recurring pattern of discrimination, Morrison claims that “[t]he Look of white society […] not only freezes the black individual but also classifies all blacks as alike” (10). Her African American characters, who have difficulty identifying themselves as members of the black community or have adopted white cultural values, are vulnerable individuals struggling with self-definition.
To be more specific, America’s urban underclass is evident in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
(1970) in which Morrison exposes “this self-reinforcing cycle of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” (Massey and Denton 83). Chronologically the story spans from the 1930s to the post-Depression 1940s. The fact that “the Great Depression of the 1930s ravaged the black communities of the north” (Massey and Denton 116) is perfectly demonstrated through the
Breedloves’ deprived life. In Morrison’s novel, the Breedloves are portrayed as an impoverished, unhappy, and alienated African American family. Living in an abandoned store instead of a home, the Breedlove family lacks the love, tenderness, and tranquility that usually define a familial environment.
8 Morrison’s God Help the Child (2015) takes place in contemporary America (from the
1990s to the first decade of the 21st century) and examines whether the black female condition has improved. Aside from the fact that “skin color remains a powerful basis of stratification in the United States” (Massey and Denton 85), Morrison demonstrates that gender can accentuate pervasive discrimination when it is burdened with the sexist images of white supremacy.
According to Robyn Wiegman, Morrison depicts the ways “the social violences of race and gender” (1) influence the life and welfare of African American females. “America’s quite violent and damaging historical exclusions” (Wiegman 9) and social inequality are exposed. Morrison’s fictional dark-skinned girls and women are viewed as subhuman, and/or are treated as sex objects and male possessions. Considering that “[w]omanhood, like blackness, is Other in this society, and the dilemma of woman in a patriarchal society is parallel to that of blacks in a racist one” (Davis 12), Morrison’s protagonists in the novels under examination are doubly victimized by sexist and racist views.
Contextualizing Morrison’s contribution with regards to the position of the African
American women and the impact of white American culture on the black community, it is essential to trace the literary objectives of black women novelists in terms of race and gender.
African American female scholars, including Morrison, feel the need to break the silence and make black voices heard by the general public, especially by white American society. As
Morrison explains in her essay, “Unspeakable Things Unspoken” despite the fact that African
American artists have been acknowledged and serious scholarship “has moved from silencing the witnesses and erasing their meaningful place in and contribution to American culture” (31)
African American literature is frequently regarded as inferior, “imitative, excessive, sensational, mimetic (merely), and unintellectual” (32). There are still stereotypical literary representations of
9 African Americans even in contemporary white aesthetics that seek to muffle the voice of the black race, keep its progress hidden, and relegate blacks to the social margins. Despite the efforts of white supremacists to keep the system of racial segregation intact, things began to change gradually in American society during the postwar decades. Missy Dehn Kubitschek emphasizes that “America’s social landscape changed substantially from 1950 to 1970” (28) with the emergence of the Black Power movement, the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, and the “Black is Beautiful” campaign. A vital part of the black freedom struggle of the 1960s were African American writers and artists who worked to change the ways black Americans were represented in literature and the arts. This movement is known as the Black Arts movement.
According to Elliott Butler-Evans the black aesthetic was created in order to “represent [b]lack life as lived by the [b]lack masses, to fashion identities that corresponded with those of ordinary
[b]lack people, and to displace Western cultural hegemony” (21). Regarding Morrison’s literary works, it has been said that the author uses fiction “as an instrument of empowerment” (Butler-
Evans 7). To be more precise, Morrison’s novels are inseparable from “the Black Arts and feminist protests against racist and sexist injustice” (Kubitschek 30). In fact, Morrison exposes race and gender as the powerful tools with which white America suppresses and discriminates
African American girls and women.
Evidently, African American women’s literature is inextricably linked to social and political contexts and “encodes racial and gender questions” (Butler-Evans 4), which are raised in different time periods and under particular historical circumstances. The aim of African
American fiction written by female authors is “to deconstruct the White/Black binary opposition” (10), as well as enable black women “to have their voices heard and their histories read” (13). Black female writers focus on “the formation of an inner drive toward the assertion of
10 selfhood” (4), and on the development of strong female characters. Specifically, they intertwine fictional scenarios with skin color politics in an attempt to communicate crucial messages regarding black consciousness and white American society, and shed light upon taboo matters involving the female nature, such as “menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, abortion, and sexuality” (Kubitschek 30). Moreover, the black poet Audre Lorde has argued that African
American women’s literary work “is full of the pain of frequent assault, not only by a racist patriarchy, but also by black men” (288). Therefore, we realize that not only white racist
Americans are to be held responsible for the traumatized black female psyches, damaged lives, and distorted mindsets, but also those members of the African American community, who have embraced the sexist ideology and the white beauty myth. Undeniably, African American female novelists wish to showcase that colorism maintains its hold on white American society and on
African American communities, and continues to inflict psychological damage.
Moreover, in a society marked by racism, sexism and capitalism the position of the dark- skinned African American woman becomes even more complicated when she tries to meet the established beauty standards of the white American culture. Morrison argues that the Black is
Beautiful rhetoric is too simplistic and incapable of solving the problems and healing the wounds in the lives of African American women. Black girls like Pecola find themselves physically inadequate and far from the female ideal represented by “white ‘doll baby,’ blonde and blue-eyed
Shirley Temple” (Davis 12). Admiring this unattainable image of beauty and girlhood does not prevent ‘ugly’ black girls from being perceived as “‘the antithesis of American beauty’”; they
“can never satisfy the gaze of society” (12).
Τhis thesis will focus on Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) and God Help the Child
(2015) and examine the impact of white American cultural standards on African American girls’
11 perception of female beauty. Morrison’s first novel is set in the post-Depression 1940s whereas her latest work covers the contemporary era (from the 1990s to the early 21 st century). Due to their dark skin color, which automatically determines their position in American society and the way they will be treated, the protagonists of these two novels, Pecola and Lula Ann, are subjected to physical and mental abuse. Their black mothers, who judge them according to white beauty standards and who prefer a light skin color, are cruel and unloving. Thus, both Pecola and
Lula Ann experience a traumatic childhood plagued by racial discrimination and self-hatred, and acquire a distorted perception of the concept of beauty, which in turn scars their transition from girlhood to womanhood. Although Morrison’s first novel is written in the late 1960s and her latest novel in the second decade of the 21st century, both are coming-of-age stories, focusing on the torments African American females (represented by the characters of Pecola and Lula Ann) experience while growing up and living in the United States. By comparing the lives of the two protagonists, this project aims at revealing whether the self-perception and the position of dark- skinned African American females have improved and answer the question whether Morrison detects any substantial changes that have taken place in the self-image and social acceptance of black females who happen to have a darker skin.
Specifically, Chapter One thoroughly explains what constitutes the ideal white beauty as well as the standards (the white American beauty values) that dark-skinned young girls desire but fail to meet. I discuss the Black is Beautiful movement and its distortion which led to the misconception of black female promiscuity, and the association of exotic black beauty with economic profits. This chapter showcases the ways in which the beauty industry poisons the black female psyche by promoting white beauty as the only acceptable image of beauty. In The
Bluest Eye, Morrison illustrates that the black girls’ perception of beauty during the 1930s and
12 1940s was shaped by the movie industry and by the white actresses who embodied it. In God
Help the Child, Morrison shows that a dark-skinned girl growing up in the 1990s can still be the victim of racism but she learns what skin color is considered beautiful (and thus desirable) from the reaction of her parents. I examine Pecola’s and Lula Ann’s encounters with white characters, ranging from classmates to adults, in order to point out that Morrison includes such encounters in the narrative because they contribute to the traumatic experiences of dark-skinned girls.
Additionally, this chapter argues that in these two novels Morrison makes clear to the reader that the concept of beauty and the white American beauty standards are also deeply-rooted in the black community and thus come to stigmatize Pecola’s and Lula Ann’s transition from girlhood to womanhood. I unravel this argument focusing on the dark-skinned girls’ interactions with their fellow students and African American adults, who do not reject the falsity of white
American beauty standards, but blindly accept them and impose them on young black girls of their own community. This chapter probes the issues of mental and physical abuse and the responsibility borne by each girl’s family as well as by the wider African American community.
In addition, it argues that Morrison points to the lack of love within the family, particularly to the dysfunctional relationship with the mother, as the main factor contributing to Pecola’s and Lula
Ann’s traumatic childhood. Both Pauline (Pecola’s mother) and Lula Mae (Lula Ann’s mother) are portrayed as heartless and authoritative tyrants, who do nothing to prevent the cultural colonization of their daughters’ mind by racist and sexist ideas. Inevitably, Pecola’s and Lula-
Ann’s self-perception suffers but each girl reacts differently towards the beauty standards as she grows older.
Chapter Two focuses on Lula Ann’s evolution from girlhood to womanhood and looks into the way she managed to make her black beauty into an advantage and enter the beauty
13 industry as an entrepreneur. In God Help the Child, Morrison shows that the ideals of the “Black is Beautiful” movement can be exploited for economic profit, in an industry that values exotic dark-skinned beauty as a commodity. Unlike Pecola (a defenceless, vulnerable girl), the adult
Lula Ann does not descend into madness; instead she becomes an icon of beauty, following the latest trends in contemporary America. Also, this chapter addresses the question of whether
Morrison recognizes and affirms that change has taken place, regarding the position of dark- skinned African American girls in white American society. In The Bluest Eye, although both
Pecola and Claudia (the narrator of the novel) are African American girls who live in the same community and face the same social prejudices and sexist ideas, they do not have the same destiny. In God Help the Child Lula Ann becomes pregnant and is ready to give birth to a baby, to new life, which can be seen as a hopeful sign for the future, because it will grow up in a black family with both a loving mother and a father. However, Sweetness, Lula Ann’s mother, insists that not much will change and that every African American child will experience a traumatic childhood of racial discrimination. She emphasizes that, after all, black people will always be subjected to the catastrophic social and psychological consequences of racism. From these fictional female characters in Morrison’s work, we can draw several conclusions regarding the way the author sees the position of black girls both in white American society and the black community. Morrison seems to believe that the beauty standards of white culture that have carved the stereotypical image of the dark-skinned African American female continue to influence the perception of mulatto-Blacks. Light-skinned African Americans like Lula Ann’s mother and father have a hard time loving and accepting a child with a darker skin. In her latest novel, Morrison shows that the white beauty industry has embraced images of exotic black
14 beauty because they are profitable, whereas mulatto parents still dread the possibility of giving birth to a dark-skinned child.
15 CHAPTER ONE
Standardized Beauty, Desired, Yet Unattainable
In almost every analysis and discussion about the female gender and the characteristics that define femininity, the concept of beauty is given a very prominent position. In different cultures, countries, and historical periods women are considered to be the beautiful sex; they are also taken to be naturally dependent, naïve, and charming. Certainly, the word ‘beautiful’ is frequently used to describe a woman in terms of her face, body shape, and physical appearance.
But, it is essential to think about and question the objectivity of beauty standards. Who defines the notion of beauty? who has decided what is beautiful and what is not? As Jane Barstow claims in her essay, “Politics and Aesthetics,” beauty is “a social construction—taught, learned, policed
[…], an asset or currency with value that can be circulated and exchanged” (23). In the western civilization, particularly in White America, the concept of beauty is closely associated with the stereotypical image of a tall, well-proportioned, light-skinned, and blond-haired young woman.
In the USA women are constantly bombarded by distorted female images and by the misleading and inappropriate idols promoted through the mass media, the entertainment industry, and the beauty industry. The value of femininity and the female appeal are assessed and criticized according to the beauty standards, imposed and perpetuated by the dominant culture.
Delving into the seemingly frivolous issue of beauty standards in the western culture, feminist scholars have shown that many women do not feel good about themselves and their bodily constitution due to the pressures exercised upon them by the biased environment they live in. According to Naomi Wolf, beauty is not fixed, unchangeable or universal; however, western culture “pretends that all ideals of female beauty stem from one Platonic Ideal Woman” (12),
16 thus forbidding and condemning diversity in beauty. The beauty myth constitutes a social tool to effect women’s degradation and depreciation, a social “weapon against women’s advancement”
(10). It hinders self-discovery and self-esteem. Moreover, the American mass media (TV and cinema) intensify the ideal of beauty and increase the average women’s distance from the idealized femininity usually represented by white actresses. As Una Stannard explains, in her essay “The Mask of Beauty,” American women’s obsession with beauty begins the minute they are born, “[w]hen a mother unwraps the pink blanket from her tiny bundle [and says] ‘My, isn’t she pretty’” (187). The little girl grows up surrounded by “models of female beauty everywhere”
(187), and learns to have daily looks in the mirror, long and hard, so as to witness her transformation from an ugly duckling into a swan. Always scrutinizing herself for signs of beauty, the young girl walks a hard path to womanhood. She constantly seeks the approval of her familial and wider social environment. Consequently, this “frantic pursuit of beauty” (188) requires a girl to use every means possible to meet the standard. For instance, a “change of hairdo,” a “padded bra,” a “tight sweater or sack dress will somehow make her glamorous [and] captivating” (188, 189) in other people’s eyes. In particular, the cosmetic products, which “can transform [the looks of the modern woman], create the illusion of perfect feminine loveliness that every woman longs for” (188). Undoubtedly, the average woman endures “the whims of the cosmetic and fashion industries so that she will not be singled out from the mass of women”
(193). While trying to fit in the standardized image of the fair sex, women are never free from the beauty game. The billion-dollar beauty industry in America exploits women’s sense of inadequacy and upholds a model of femininity very few can live up to, thus “destroying women physically and depleting [them] psychologically” (Wolf 19). Caught in the beauty game, women
17 develop an obsessive behavior, try hard to look polished, and maintain a youthful appearance.
The price to pay is very high.
The interrelation between femininity and beauty is made more complicated by the factor of race. African American women, even young girls, experience this endless suffering of feeling inadequate. Black women compare themselves with the iconic image of white beauty and fall victims to the deep-rooted stereotypical representations of femininity in the dominant, western culture. As bell hooks explains, in her book Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, “white supremacy ha[s] assaulted [African American women’s] self-concept and [their] self-esteem” and has constructed “color caste hierarchies,” which have resulted in an “internalized racism in relation to beauty” (202, 203). Black women have tried to shape their external appearance according to white American racist standards. Despite the efforts of the “Black Is Beautiful” movement in the 1960s, numerous black women were unable to feel comfortable with their own skin color and physical appearance. They accepted the belief that black is “ugly, monstrous, undesirable” (203). Even in contemporary society, some African American women still feel that having a darker skin means “to start life handicapped, with a serious disadvantage” (204).
Passively absorbing the prevalent representations of beauty, some black women resort to questionable methods, chemically straightening their Afro hair, wearing a wig, or using skin- bleaching cream. By doing such things, these African American women seek to assimilate the western ideals of beauty with the hope that they will be accepted and not devalued. However, to this day in America, “[l]ight skin and long, straight hair continue to be traits that define a female as beautiful and desirable in the racist white imagination and in the colonized black mind set”
(209), despite the critique of color hierarchies by the Black Power movement. Those African
American women who refuse to “critique and question the politics of representation that
18 systematically devalues blackness” (212) will inevitably develop self-hatred and a troubled psyche. It becomes evident that skin color politics and white American beauty standards are intertwined, affecting directly the black state of mind, influencing black women’s life, shaping their reality, and entrapping them in a racist society.
What is more, the mass media along with the entertainment and beauty industries have really poisoned American society with oppressive stereotypes regarding African American femininity and sexuality. As bell hooks clarifies, in her book Black Looks: Race and
Representation, black beauty often becomes a commodity promoted by mass culture, which
“publicly declares and perpetuates the idea that there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgement and enjoyment of racial difference” (21). The body of the colored Other is symbolized as an unexplored terrain, a not-yet-colonized piece of land in need of fertilization.
Since the time of chattel slavery, African American woman’s sexuality has been defined as immoral and bestial, and has been maligned by the systematic exploitation of a “racialized sexual encounter” (22), and the invention of a “fallen womanhood” (64). In the 21st century, sexism and colorism are fueled by the continuation and blind acceptance of unrealistic beauty standards; together they form an invincible system of domination and oppression and determine the fate of powerless African American young women who try to find their place in American society.
Unfortunately, the American beauty industry and mass media have distorted both blackness and femininity for the sake of profit. Since the 1990s, iconic dark-skinned models have promoted the industry’s notion of black beauty and thus have rendered it a marketable product associated with sexuality, exoticism, and eroticism.
With regards to the representations of blackness by white imagination, these are influenced by supremacist beliefs and cultural ideals, which stigmatize the black psyche. The
19 beauty images promoted by the American mass media have for a long time manipulated the minds of impressionable and vulnerable black children. From a feministic point of view, the critique of the dominant beauty standards is of great significance, since they severely influence the self-esteem of black women. Confronted with the white gaze and stereotypical representations of themselves, African American girls and women are thrown into an uphill battle to create a positive self-image and escape their influence. In fact, the representation of black female bodies in popular culture humiliates and underestimates African American women. A recurring image of the black female is that of an inferior and expendable sex object. In her essay,
“Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,” bell hooks points out that for a long time African
American women and young girls were “daily beaten down, mentally, physically, and spiritually” and some of them still remain “powerless to change their condition in life” (270). Likewise,
Frances Beale highlights that black women, burdened by the traumatic experience of self- depreciation, are constantly “manipulated by the system, economically exploited, and physically assaulted” (146). The perpetuation of economic, social, and racial exploitation has scarred the powerless African American women. Furthermore, the myth of exotic black beauty has entrapped numerous dark-skinned black women into a deep-rooted stereotype. Rachel Adams clarifies that black women’s exotic beauty, as imagined by white Americans, has been “the most easily and regularly fabricated of all attractions” (158). Consequently, African American women and young black girls inevitably become victims of the white American beauty standards. At the same time, they are “doubly defined as failures and outsiders” (Davis 12). As a result, many black women and young black girls are traumatized by the dominant culture. They experience a vicious cycle of social stigma, racial subordination, and sexual manipulation. They end up feeling devalued because they cannot meet the ideal image of beauty.
20 The fact that American beauty industry has poisoned the psyche of black women and girls cannot be denied. Having penetrated the black female mindset, western beauty images aroused insecurities as well as contributed to the low self-esteem of dark-skinned individuals. Among the first black writers to expose the consequences of the western beauty myth is Toni Morrison. Her novel, The Bluest Eye, “holds as its central concern a critique of Western beauty and its special destructiveness when imposed on people of color in general and women of color in particular”
(Guerrero 28). Morrison introduces Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old black girl, who grows up in the 1940s, and who is traumatized by her inability to meet the beauty standards of the white
American society. Pecola represents every African American girl who is devastated by society’s opinion with regards to her physical appearance. Through the story of Pecola, the author reveals the psychological consequences of the imposed myth that blackness equals ugliness. While she is
“looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike” (TBE43),1 Pecola becomes more vulnerable. She is too young to resist the messages she receives from her racist environment. It is evident in the novel that Pecola is extremely marginalized and alienated simply because she lacks the appropriate looks. Although beauty is a subjective concept and differs from individual to individual, the American beauty myth is widely shared among the whites. Pecola’s encounter with Mr. Yacobowski (when she visits his store to buy candy) is a perfect example of how white
Americans viewed a young black girl. Specifically, he refuses to look at her; “he senses that he need not waste the effort of a glance [and] does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see” (TBE 46). Through the distaste “lurking in the eyes of all white people” (TBE 47), Pecola experiences “[t]he total absence of human recognition” (46), which Morrison unquestionably attributes to her blackness. Pecola’s skin color, dark eyes, and Afro unruly hair stand for her
1All references to Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye will be designated as TBE. 21 African American identity; they are the reasons why she faces discrimination on a daily basis.
Struggling to acquire the look and gain social acceptance, Pecola retreats “even more deeply into a confused—and finally shattered psychotic—self-image” (Guerrero 29). According to Pecola’s distorted perception, having blue eyes is the only solution to her problem. But the narrator shows that this solution threatens the little girl’s wellbeing. Without adult guidance, Pecola is unable to reject the myth that she is ugly; she falls victim to the dominant beliefs of her racist social environment and eventually descends into madness.
Similarly, in Morrison’s recent novel, God Help the Child,the protagonist, Lula Ann
Bridewell, experiences the prejudices of racism and colorism from a very young age, since “her black skin would scare white people or make them laugh and trick her” (GHC41). 2 As a young
African American girl, Lula Ann realizes that white American society—represented by Mr.
Leigh, the landlord—regards and defines her as a “little nigger cunt” (GHC 55). With this incident as the starting point, Lula Ann experiences a “[s]hock, as though she had three eyes”
(GHC 81). She also faces racial hatred at school; her peers abuse her verbally. They all call her
“Coon. Topsy. Clinkertop. Sambo. Oogabooga” (GHC 56). The abusive behavior of Lula Ann’s classmates escalates to “[a]pe sounds and scratching of the sides, imitating zoo monkeys,” as well as heaping “a bunch of bananas on [her] desk” (GHC 56). According to Muhammad Abbasi and Shaheena Bhatti, getting accustomed to hate speech from a very young age is a sign of colorism; the black child learns that in “the color-obsessed American society, the dominant whites try to sustain their hegemony through their choice of words and feel privileged about their superiority (135). As a result, the verbal violence generated by white children of her age at school (the microcosm of society) makes Lula Ann feel “like a freak, strange, soiling like a spill
2All references to Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child will be designated as GHC. 22 of ink on white paper” (GHC 56). Lula Ann admits that the name-calling and bullying helped her
“built up immunity so tough that not being a ‘nigger girl’ was all [she] needed to win” (GHC 57).
The distinction between black and white skin colors is made during the early years of her life.
This fact makes her not vulnerable, like Pecola, but stubborn and determined to prove that she is worthy one way or another. During her adult life, Lula Ann is still the object of racism, without being aware of it and despite her exotic beauty or her successful professional career. To be more specific, after being beaten by Sofia Huxley, her best friend, Brooklyn—a “white girl with blond dreads” (GHC 23)—claims that Lula Ann’s beauty is ruined; Brooklyn says “[t]here isn’t enough
YOU, GIRL foundation in the world to hide eye scars, a broken nose and facial skin scraped down to pink hypodermis” (GHC 26). Seeing her best friend’s perfect looks destroyed, Brooklyn no longer needs to suppress her jealousy. As the opportunity arises, her immediate reaction is to take over Lula Ann’s business position that “might be up for grabs” (GHC 26). She represents and verifies the popular conception that “women look at other women with a more intense and discriminating eye than any man does” (Stannard 201). Brooklyn’s way of thinking reveals that their interracial friendship is not at all built on trust and loyalty, but on egoism, envy, and personal interests. Both in The Bluest Eye and in God Help the Child, Morrison shows that black female children are exposed to racism and colorism very early in life. Their contact with white students and white teachers intensifies their victimization, but how the black child reacts to and deals with abuse depends partly on her personality, partly on her family environment, and partly on her self-awareness.
23 I
White American Standards of Beauty and the African American Community
While reading The Bluest Eye, one cannot help but notice that Morrison does not blame only the racist ideology of white American culture. What is even more alarming, because it pushes Pecola towards her descent to madness, is the fact that some members of the African
American community maltreat her. By creating scenes in which adult blacks victimize Pecola,
Morrison dramatizes “the ways in which hegemonic white standards of beauty have become a system of oppression, especially as internalized by African Americans” (Barstow 11-12). Not only her mother Pauline, but also other blacks criticize Pecola and undermine her self- confidence, blinded by colorism and white beauty standards. As Terry Otten claims Morrison demonstrates that “the black community has allowed itself to be corrupted by a simplistic notion that devalues human beings solely on condition of their seeming ugliness” (12). Even children of
Pecola’s age, both her classmates and neighborhood kids, have internalized the white American cultural standards and have adopted a racist behavior due to “their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth” (TBE 63). For example, Maureen Peal—“[a] high- yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes” (TBE60)—differentiates herself from the other black girls by screaming to Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda, that she is cute. In her view, they are “[b]lack and ugly black e mos” (TBE 71). Thus, Maureen’s verbal attack brands the girls as “lesser,” even though they “could not comprehend this unworthiness” (TBE
72). Maureen’s attitude validates the existence of racism within the black community. Morrison reaffirms in her novel that, even in the black neighborhoods of Northern cities, lighter-skinned
African Americans are treated differently because their physical appearance makes them more attractive and socially acceptable than black people with darker skin. In addition, lighter-skinned
24 African Americans tend to embrace their superiority and to regard dark-skinned blacks as unattractive and unworthy.
Another striking instance, which shows that Pecola’s physical appearance interferes as she interacts with members of the African American community, is when she walks by
Geraldine’s and Junior’s house. Bored and frightened, Junior identifies Pecola as “a very black girl taking a shortcut through the playground” (TBE 86). He recognizes her as the girl from school “standing alone, always alone, at recess” (TBE 86). He admits that her ugliness is the reason why “[n]obody ever played with her” (TBE 86). As Wilfred Samuels and Clenora
Hudson-Weems clarify Junior’s hostile behavior toward Pecola is worth examining because it symbolizes his need to retaliate for being prevented from a very young age, “from playing with
‘niggers’” (12). Because he cannot strike at his mother, he victimizes Pecola. On the other hand, his mother, Geraldine—a “pretty milk-brown lady” (TBE 90)—is used to meeting black girls that come from impoverished, underclass families, but does not sympathize with Pecola. Instead,
Geraldine regards Pecola as a fly that hovers and has now “settled in her house”; she calls Pecola a “nasty little black bitch” and orders her to “[g]et out of [her] house” (TBE 90). Pecola’s interaction with Geraldine exposes the severity of an intraracial confrontation based on skin color, and highlights the potential psychological damage it can cause. By entering Geraldine’s home, Pecola intrudes but also reminds this adult black woman of their racial connection.
Geraldine denies this connection and verbally attacks the little girl. It is Pecola’s dark skin that offends Geraldine; she wants nothing to do with ‘niggers’. With this scene Morrison indicates that the ideology of colorism, absorbed by mulatto parents, influences the way they raise their own light-skinned children, whom they teach to reject any connection with their dark-skinned peers. Pecola becomes Junior’s scapegoat because the boy was taught by his own mother not to
25 play with niggers. Implicitly, Morrison blames mothers like Geraldine for accepting the
American racist ideology and separating themselves and their children from the darker members of the African American community.Their acceptance of the norms of the dominant culture has a severe impact on the emotional world of the mulatto and the dark-skinned children.
Towards the end of the novel, Claudia, the narrator of Pecola’s story, includes several fragments of conversation, specifying that they come from the gossip of members of the African
American community. The two interlocutors agree that Pecola’s unborn child would be lucky if it dies, since in their view it would be “the ugliest thing walking” (TBE 187). They conclude that
Pecola’s baby would be “better off in the ground,” as it is the product of “two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly” (TBE 188). Not only the unborn baby’s but also
Pecola’s life is deemed worthless because of her African American features and her dark skin.
Morrison has Claudia say:
All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our
beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us—all who knew
her—felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful
when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt
sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think
we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent.
[…] And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on
her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our
strength. (203)
26 With this passage the author highlights the fact that Pecola’s psyche is a dumping ground, burdened by the flaws of the members of the African American community. They use her to cover their own insecurities and imperfections and feel superior. Lacking voice, it is apparent that “Pecola is the epitome of the victim in a world that reduces persons to objects and then makes them feel inferior as objects” (Davis 13-14). In the racist social environment she inhabits,
Pecola suffers the effects of the damaging ideology of colorism and of the indifferent attitude of several members in the African American community, who deem themselves superior and do nothing to prevent her from falling into madness. In short, Pecola stands for any young black- skinned girl who is despised and discriminated within her own community and in the wider
American society because she happened to be born with distinct African features who do not meet the standards of the white beauty myth.
27 II
‘Mama’: Morrison’s Black Maternal Figures and their Adoption of Beauty Standards
The role of the mother is extremely crucial when it comes to African American girls’ development of character and their transition from girlhood to womanhood. Inevitably, black mothers stand as the most relatable female figures with whom young black girls can identify.
Because mothers represent models of womanhood, daughters unconsciously and blindly adopt their opinions without processing, assessing,or questioning them. Therefore, African American mothers can be held responsible when they perpetuate the stereotypical image of the ugly and repulsive black girl, as it has been constructed and imposed by white American culture. By embracing the white beauty standards, black maternal figures leave themselves and their female children exposed to the institutionalized “white power” and seem to have little resistance against the stereotypical representation of “black female bodies in American popular imagination”
(Harris 2). Stripped of its beauty, blackness becomes a liability, especially in the eyes of mulatto mothers. As a result, those black mothers who teach their black-skinned daughters to accept their inferior position in society and see themselves as embodiments of ugliness can be held accountable for imbuing their children with feelings of self-detestation.
In Morrison’s fiction, black motherhood is central. Some of Morrison’s fictional African
American mothers are shown to have internalized white norms of beauty. In The Bluest Eye,
Pauline Breedlove represents black mothers who have “become disconnected from their motherline” (O’Reilly 47) and who have been brainwashed by the Hollywood film industry.
Morrison uses Pauline’s character to highlight the dangers of internalized images of feminine beauty, images produced and circulated by the dominant culture. To be more specific, Pauline
28 stands for the typical African American young woman from Alabama, who has moved to a
Northern city in search of a better life. After marrying Cholly and moving to Lorrain, Ohio,
Pauline notices that the African American community is “[n]o better than whites in meanness”
(TBE 115). As she says,“[t]hey could make you feel just as no-count, ‘cept [she] didn’t expect it from them” (115). Due to her unhappy marriage and boring life, Pauline turns to the movies to find consolation and gradually becomes accustomed to the white American culture. Through her experience in the movie house “Pauline relieves her boredom and loneliness” (O’Reilly 50).
Attempting to adapt to the white American beauty standards and imitate the looks of Jean
Harlow, Pauline fixes her “hair up like [she]’d seen hers on a magazine”; “[a] part on the side, with one little curl on [her] forehead,” and she looks “almost just like [her]” (TBE 121). Harlow, a powerful signifier of society’s values, affects Pauline “with Medusian stares through the very mechanical eyes (the lens) of the movie camera” (Samuels and Hudson-Weems 26). As a result,
Pauline is “easily seduced by [the] master narrative of beauty” (O’Reilly 50) and becomes susceptible to the representations of ideal femininity. Evidently, the images of Hollywood film actresses of the 1930s are imprinted on the mentality of this African American woman. They function to degrade her African American identity and racial pride. In addition, being black- skinned Pauline feels inferior, “unworthy of love and even social acceptance”; she is reminded of her different physical features and of “not having white skin, blond hairs, and blue eyes” (Rose
5). Morrison seems to suggest that the average African American woman has suffered from the beauty myth because she was forced to continually compare herself to a mass-disseminated image of ideal femininity, which intensified her self-loathing. From Morrison’s point of view,
Pauline is “forced to look at and apply to herself a completely unrealizable, alien standard of feminine beauty and to experience the dissatisfaction resulting from the contradiction” (Guerrero
29 30). Therefore, Pauline’s self-hatred, her inability to meet the white American beauty standard
(which she unquestionably admires) and her realization that she is despised and regarded as ugly and unattractive, result in her violent behavior towards her children. Pauline herself admits that
“[s]ometimes [she]’d catch [herself] hollering at them and beating them, and [she]’d feel sorry for them, but [she] couldn’t seem to stop” (TBE 122). Through physical and mental abuse,
Pauline teaches her daughter to accept her ugliness and her subordinate place in the white
American society. From the moment Pecola is born, Pauline sees her as ugly and compares her to
“a black ball of hair” (TBE 122). In the mother’s eyes, this black baby is “[a] cross between a puppy and a dying man” (TBE 124). Thus, Pauline becomes the symbol of intraracial prejudice as well as of parental abuse and negligence. On the one hand, she refuses to embrace Pecola and love her like a mother should; instead she takes care and soothes “the tears of the little pink-and- yellow girl” (TBE 107). On the other hand, Pauline confronts her daughter, “yank[s] her up by the arm, slap[s] her,” talks to her “in a voice thin with anger, abuse[s] Pecola directly” (107). She even calls her a “crazy fool” (107). Escaping in the clean kitchen of a white family (the Fishers),
Pauline gives some meaning to her life. Morrison makes it clear that Pauline is a problematic black mother who lavishes “upon her employer’s blue-eyed, blond-haired daughter the love she is unable to give Pecola” (Samuels and Hudson-Weems 26). Pauline’s repeated exposure to
Hollywood beauty idols results in “the damaging internalization of assumptions of immutable inferiority” (Suranyi13). It cannot be denied that Pauline embodies those African American mothers who can be held responsible for the perpetuation of white American beauty standards in the black community. She imposes the same racist criteria she has suffered from on her own daughter, Pecola, and contributes to the child’s descent into madness.
30 Likewise, in God Help the Child Morrison shows that Sweetness, Lula Ann’s mother, behaves in a similar way. This black woman lives by the white standards and views black skin color as a curse. This is the reason why her daughter is made to feel inferior and is deprived of maternal affection. From the very beginning of the novel, the readers are introduced to
Sweetness, who narrates her side of the story. Lula Ann’s coming to the world is not a joyful occasion for this mulatto mother. Lula Ann’s skin is so black it scares her. Sweetness denies her responsibility for Lula Ann’s skin color, which she describes as “[m]idnight black,” “[s]udanese black” (3). In particular, Sweetness, a light-skinned woman “with good hair” (3) compares herself to her daughter’s physical appearance and blue-black skin, and concludes that her baby resembles “those naked tribes in Australia” because Lula Ann has “straight but curly hair” (GHC
3). In this way, Sweetness distances herself from Lula Ann by pointing out all the bodily differences that distinguish them from each other. Sweetness abides by the dominant white culture when she admits that skin color is a means of dividing individuals into groups; “the lighter [the skin color] the better” (GHC 4). Sweetness expresses her fears of name-calling, but also believes that light-skinned blacks who can pass as whites avoid “being spit in a drugstore, shoving elbows at the bus stop, walking in the gutter to let whites have the whole sidewalk, charged a nickel at the grocer’s for a paper bag that’s free to white shoppers” (GHC 4).
Sweetness confesses that Lula Ann embarrasses her. The destructiveness of white American beauty standards is highlighted when, right after her daughter’s birth, Sweetness tries to kill her baby girl by holding “a blanket over her face and press[ing]” (5). She even thinks “of giving her away to an orphanage someplace” (GHC 5). Abandoned by her husband due to “that terrible color” (5) with which their child was born, Sweetness turns against Lula Ann, viewing her as a stranger and an enemy.
31 Aware of the inferior position assigned to black children like Lula Ann by white
American society, Sweetness decides to discipline her daughter and teach her “how to behave, how to keep her head down and not to make trouble” (GHC 7). Her knowledge of American racism and prejudice and “of skin privileges” (GHC 43), shapes Sweetness’ behavior toward the child. The mother aims to protect Lula Ann, because as she says, the child “didn’t know the world” (41). She starts by forcing Lula Ann to call her ‘Sweetness’ instead of ‘Mother’ or
‘Mama’ (6), so that she would not be associated with her blackness in public. Also, she repetitively claims that Lula Ann’s blackness is not her fault. Lula Ann may decide to change her name several times, but Sweetness maintains that her “color is a cross she will always carry”
(GHC 7). Consequently, Lula Ann attempts to win her mother’s love and gain her acceptance by accusing a white American teacher of child abuse. In order to appear worthy and make her mother proud, Lula Ann is forced to commit perjury. Throughout the novel Morrison has Lula
Ann explain that being touched and caressed by her mother is crucial for her character development. Unfortunately, Sweetness does not like to touch her daughter and feels repulsed when she has to give her a bath. Having absorbed the ideology of colorism, Sweetness is unable to show affection to her daughter. The child’s dark skin prevents this mulatto mother from embracing or kissing Lula Ann. Although Morrison locates Lula Ann’s birth in the 1990s, she seems to imply that the dominant beauty standards still influence the perception of African
American mothers and have an impact on the mother-daughter relationship.
32 CHAPTER TWO
From Girlhood to Womanhood:
Self-Perception, Femininity, and the Social Stigma of Ugliness
The self-perception of African American girls is greatly influenced by white American beauty standards. Besides peer pressure, familial pressure is also exercised upon them. Growing up in a society that demands women to live up to a certain image of female beauty, African
American girls are poisoned almost beyond repair very early in life. In the 1930s, black poor girls were bombarded by representations of ideal beauty embodied by white female actresses and by the standardized image of the popular Shirley Temple. By the 1990s beauty had become a commodity; it constituted a marketable product, which benefitted the American economy. The beauty industry based its financial success on fashion supermodels who not only acquired widespread popularity but also became the beauty icons of the decade. In The Bluest Eye and
God Help the Child, Morrison comments on these two time periods and demonstrates the ways the notion of beauty has influenced the lives of some dark-skinned African American girls and their transition from girlhood to womanhood. Through her fictional female characters, the author conveys that dark skin continues to affect the way young black girls perceive their femininity and that the stigma of ugliness attached to blackness continues to make the transition to womanhood a traumatic experience.
Showcasing the damage beauty ideals inflicted upon black girls who grew up in the
1930s, Morrison depicts Pecola being traumatized by her racist social environment and suffering from a mental breakdown. Deprived of her sanity, Pecola descends into madness from which there is no return. Morrison presents Pecola as the scapegoat of white American culture and of
33 the Black community. It is Soaphead Church (a mulatto) who convinces her that she has blue eyes. The blue eyes represent the canon, the beauty standard of white American society. Pecola assesses her external appearance according to this standard, and assumes that having blue eyes is the only way she can fit in society. The blue eyes that Pecola believes she has symbolize her imprisonment into a distorted self-perception. Jan Furman states that “Pecola’s sad fantasy expresses Morrison’s strongest criticism of a white standard of beauty that excludes most black women and that destroys those who strive to measure up but cannot” (19). Through Pecola’s predicament, Morrison tries to show that it is futile for a black girl to imitate the image of the ideal young American girl with pale white skin, bright blue eyes, and straight golden locks. Not being able to meet the desired and socially acceptable image of beauty, Pecola undergoes an identity crisis. Morrison underlines the severity of society’s impact on a young black girl’s psychological condition. Throughout the novel Pecola is muffled; she appears to lack voice, opinion and objective. Being an emotionally fragile black child, she cannot do otherwise but accept the imposed burden of ugliness. She, like the other members of the Breedlove family, is given “a cloak of ugliness to wear” by “some mysterious all-knowing master” (TBE 37). This stigma of ugliness imposed upon her by the social environment she accepts without question.
Morrison emphasizes that poor, illiterate members of the African American community are helpless and do not reject the stigma that white American society forces upon them. In particular,
Pecola takes her lack of beauty for granted and wears her ugliness “as a mantle over [her]” (TBE
37). She is forced to remain in the social margins “[c]oncealed, veiled, eclipsed—peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the return of the mask” (TBE
37). Therefore, Pecola represents every dark-skinned African American girl who suffers the consequences of colorism. The author uses the image of the mantle as a symbol of the
34 psychological pressures imposed on the young black girl’s psyche. Having internalized the dominant discourse of beauty, Pecola lives a life filled with racial misconceptions and damaging stereotypes.
In addition, through her interactions with other members of her community (both children and adults), Pecola bitterly realizes that she is not considered a pretty girl. She thinks nobody loves her because she is ugly. In the racist American society it is not only the dark skin which marginalizes a young black girl but also her distinct African features. Morrison describes her external characteristics: Pecola has “small eyes set closely together under narrow forehead; she has a “low, irregular hairline” and“straight, heavy brows which nearly met” (TBE 36). In addition, she possesses a “crooked nose with insolent nostrils”; her “ears [are] turned forward”
(36), and her lips are shapely. In other words, although she possesses the normal features of someone with African heredity, Pecola is too young to understand that these features are not a problem.Through Claudia, the narrator, Morrison exposes Pecola’s obsession with her physical appearance.We are told that Pecola sits for many hours “looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of her ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised” (TBE 43).
Additionally, she prays for blue eyes every single night because she is convicted “that only a miracle could relieve her” (TBE 44). Claudia also tells us that Pecola is begging God to make her disappear every time she sees her parents fight. Pecola thinks that if her eyes were blue she would be beautiful and that her parents would stop fighting. It is undeniable that a young girl who imagines her body parts to gradually disappear suffers from an unstable mentality, and is tormented by the pressures of a racist society. Apparently, Pecola regards blue eyes as a panacea, a means of protection, since in her view they would prevent her parents from “do[ing] bad things in front of those pretty eyes” (44). Pecola deeply desires a different domestic environment and
35 loving parents. Her need to be loved and respected by the members of her own family is never satisfied. She attributes this lack of love to the wrong color of her eyes. As a young, ignorant, black girl on her way to womanhood, Pecola feels insecure because she has no adult, not even her own mother, to protect her from a brutal and unwelcoming society. As Madonne Miner explains, Pecola thinks that if she “were to see things differently, she might be seen differently; if her eyes were different, her world might be different too” (96). She is desperate to have a different world, in which she would fit and feel accepted. She specifically yearns for blue eyes
“because in [her] experience only those with blue eyes receive love: Shirley Temple, Geraldine’s cat, the Fisher girl” (97). Pecola’s fixation with blue eyes is highlighted through the incident with the Mary Jane candy. The process of enjoying the sweetness of the candy is immediately replaced by the idea that to “eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane” (TBE 48); and eating Mary Jane for Pecola means becoming Mary Jane. Her obsession with the candy and with the little girl on the wrapper results in envy. Pecola desires what the little white girl on the candy wrapper stands for. In this white girl, she sees the beauty ideal that is out of her reach.
Morrison has Pecola taste the candy and take every moment to savor it, in order to show this young black girl’s desire to come into contact with what she cannot have. By eating the candy the child wants to taste what it would feel like to be Mary Jane and be treated by everyone kindly and affectionately. By eating Mary Jane and her blue eyes, Pecola assumes that she is incorporating herself in the image of the ideal beauty. Blue eyes are beautiful eyes and come with privileges.
Maltreated by her mother, ignored by the members of the African American community, and mishandled by white Americans, Pecola lapses into a fantasy world. Her emotional and mental health is damaged beyond repair when she finally persuades herself that she has blue
36 eyes. Towards the end of the novel, Morrison creates a scene in which Pecola reassures herself and her imaginary friend that “[e]verybody’s jealous” (TBE 193) of her blue eyes. The little black girl thinks that her mother and all others avoid looking into her eyes because they envy her.
However, Morrison shows that Pecola’s life is one of misery and pain because the “damage done was total” (TBE 202). We are told that she wanders around with “[e]lbows bent, hands on shoulders, [flailing] her arms like a bird in an eternal, grotesquely futile effort to fly” (TBE 202).
Her fall into madness is irreversible. Unlike the children’s fairytale, “The Ugly Duckling” which has a happy ending, Morrison’s novel ends in a very pessimistic mood. The ugly duckling does not turn into a beautiful swan and cannot embody the ideal image of beauty. Through Pecola’s character, Morrison exposes the negative effects of the western beauty myth. Branded as ugly, the black-skinned girl becomes trapped in a futile struggle to acquire the ideal feminine beauty but since this is impossible she ends up living a wretched life. As Otten points out, “[o]stracized from the American dream by virtue of her blackness and from a black community too much corrupted by the values of the white culture, she can only succeed in her insanity, having borne the effects of a devastating fall” (9). Vulnerable and fragile, Pecola makes the transition from girlhood to womanhood when she begins to menstruate. However, her womanhood is destroyed when her father rapes her and makes her pregnant. Abandoned by her family and spurned by her community Pecola retreats to a fantasy world to find refuge. Her naïve belief that she has acquired blue eyes is her only consolation, a way to cope in a world that brands black-skinned girls with ugliness.
In God Help the Child, Morrison offers a different outcome. Her black heroine Lula Ann manages the transition from girlhood to womanhood without being deprived of her mental health. Lula Ann grows up to be a determined, self-assured, and independent woman. The fact
37 that she is African American does not stand as an obstacle to her professional career. She becomes the owner of a cosmetic line called YOU, GIRL and sells beauty products “for girls and women of all complexions from ebony to lemonade to milk” (GHC 10). Working within the beauty industry, Lula Ann is naturally interested in success, in money, in beauty, and in a sellable self-image. She develops self-centeredness and self-confidence after she discovers that people stare at her with “adoring looks” (GHC 34). Having left her mother’s house, Lula Ann also changes her name to Bride, a name linked to the white color of innocence, purity and goodness.
In an attempt to detach herself from her traumatic childhood, she reinvents herself; she refashions her identity as a young black woman. She wants to prove her mother, Sweetness, and her schoolmates wrong because they did not believe that she “would grow up to be this hot, or this successful” (GHC 11). As a child she was treated like a freak. As a woman she became “a deep dark beauty who doesn’t need Botox for kissable lips or tanning spas to hide a deathlike pallor” (GHC 57). Thus, she received the acknowledgment and acceptance she craved for by her social environment. Aware of what it feels like to be seen only as a “nigger girl,” the adult Lula
Ann has her revenge by selling, as she says, her “elegant blackness to all those childhood ghosts” who now “pay [her] for it” (57). Additionally, she feels glorious when she thinks that her tormentors now “drool with envy when they see [her]” (57). Her success in the beauty industry boosts Lula Ann’s ego and makes her feel that she is irresistible and desirable.
By turning her blackness into an advantage, Lula Ann secures a career in white American society and becomes a respected businesswoman. Affected by beauty standards of the 1990s that favored an exotic look, Lula Ann cannot see beyond her physical appearance; she focuses on her body, her clothes and her makeup. She becomes self-conscious of her external image because she is complimented constantly at parties about “how beautiful, how pretty, so hot, so lovely” (GHC
38 51) she is; everyone says so. Lula Ann does everything in her power to live up to the beauty industry’s standard of the exotic black beauty. In order to incarnate the “panther in snow” (GHC
50), she dresses in white clothes only. During shopping she discovers that there are many shades of white: “ivory, oyster, alabaster, paper white, snow, cream, ecru, Champagne, ghost, bone”
(GHC 33). White clothes enhance her blackness and satisfy the requirements of the American beauty industry. Even her mother, Sweetness, admits to have forgotten “just how black [Lula
Ann] really was because she was using it to her advantage in beautiful white clothes” (GHC 43).
To maintain her status and popularity in the beauty business, Lula Ann imitates the image of the exotic, luscious, curvy, dark-skinned African American woman, who at the time was represented by iconic celebrities and models, such as Beyonce and Naomi Campbell. Apparently Morrison finds these beauty idols problematic, because they seem to interfere with a black woman’s identity. When Lula Ann changes her name to Bride, she distorts her real identity. She embodies a marketable image of black beauty; she turns her blackness into it a commodity and falls into the trap set by capitalism. Morrison includes in her narrative a minor character called Jeri, who is a designer, (and probably a white male), who advises Lula Ann and insists that “black is the new black” (GHC 33). He tells Lula Ann to wear “[o]nly white and all white all the time” (GHC
33) in order to accentuate her “licorice skin” and her “wolverine eyes” (GHC 34). Through the story of Lula Ann, Morrison criticizes the “Black Is Beautiful” movement because of its
“obsession with establishing blackness and its beauty [as] a reaction to a white idea, which means it is a white idea turned inside out, [but] still a white idea” (Heinze 20). Similarly, the
“black is the new black” motto has been generated by the white American beauty business, fashion industry, and mass media. Alongside the blond, blue-eyed, pale-skinned woman as idol, the unique and mysterious ebony beauty becomes another trend. Consequently, the image of
39 exotic black femininity and beauty that Lula Ann embodies is but another way the dominant culture enforces its beauty standards upon aspiring young black women who must turn themselves into commodities if they want to be accepted. It is obvious that Morrison does not reject natural black beauty, but she criticizes the American culture’s exploitation of dark-skinned beauties and its reinforcement of the notion that blackness is linked both to animalistic traits and exotic looks. The author opposes the notion that black femininity should be sold as commodity.
The new black may have become a hot trend but it distracts young African American women for what matters in life. Looks are temporary and no amount of make-up or various types of cosmetics can hide physical blemishes or annul the Negro blood running in one’s veins.
Accepting the norms of the beauty and fashion industries can only be harmful and damaging to black women. It creates a vicious cycle of trying to live up to an iconic image, and when the black woman (like Lula Ann) finds that her own life and her sexual relationship with the black man are not like the models promoted by magazine spreads, by popular music and by TV shows she feels disappointed and disgruntled.
In Morrison’s novel, the black character, Lula Ann, is the icon of an exotic black beauty that has been turned into “the hottest commodity in the civilized world” (GHC 36), into a marketable good with a price. Lula Ann’s persona called Bride follows the 1990s beauty standards regarding blackness and femininity, standards that are imposed by the American cosmetics and fashion industries, as well as the mass media. However, Morrison makes clear that to be a captivating and luscious woman of striking beauty does not guarantee one’s happiness and fulfillment. In addition, Lula Ann’s business project, selling cosmetic products, is a response to the American beauty myth, “because adornment is an enormous—and often pleasing—part of female culture” (Wolf 75). As an entrepreneur, who sells the illusion of beauty to female
40 consumers, Lula Ann is aware that at a time when “[b]lack sells,” and “[w]hite girls, even brown girls have to strip naked to get that kind of attention” (GHC 36), her success cannot be marred by the old racist treatment she received as a child. But soon she finds out that her exotic blackness does not prevent her from being used as a sex object. With this reference to female nudity as the first step to professional success, Morrison implies that not much has changed in the beauty industry. The author has Lula Ann confess that when men “leaped” and she “let” herself “be caught,” she soon ended up being treated by her casual boyfriends “like a medal, a shiny quiet testimony to their prowess” (GHC 36). Thus, Morrison makes clear that the beauty industry continues to associate black femininity with sensational eroticism and to infest African American women’s sexuality with promiscuity. In the American culture, the stereotypes of the past “are revived by the disseminated images of the mass media” (Collins 182); the image of a dark- skinned young woman as a sensual black panther “links a commodified ‘beauty’ directly and explicitly to sexuality,” undermining “women’s new and vulnerable sense of sexual self-worth”
(Wolf 11). Morrison’s protagonist awakens to the realization that she has been victimized by the beauty game and the sex game (which pervade her life) when her “fairy-tale castle collapsed into the mud and sand on which its vanity was built” (GHC 135). The shock of awareness comes when the black man, Booker Starbern (her future-husband-to-be), tells her that she is not the woman he wants and disappears.
It cannot be denied that the concept of beauty has functioned as a kind of lens through which Lula Ann used to see herself and judge other women as well. Morrison constructs a scene in which she brings the white teacher Sofia, who was convicted for child molestation, face to face with her former student Lula Ann. The first thing Lula Ann does is to assess the teacher’s thin face. She thinks of the beauty products Sofia should use in order improve her looks and
41 “give color to the whey color of her skin” (GHC 16), such as GlamGlo, Wrinkle Softener, and
Juicy Bronze. Lula Ann is consumed by Sofia’s external appearance and even believes that “[a] little Botox and some Tango-Matte, not glitter, would have softened her lips and maybe influenced the jury in her favor” (16). So, from Lula Ann’s perspective a beautiful face and a set of soft lips could influence even the justice system. What is more, Lula Ann equates femininity and beauty with women’s happiness when she says that a “woman could be cobra-thin and starving, but if she had grapefruit boobs and raccoon eyes, she was deliriously happy” (GHC 80).
Morrison lets Lula Ann present her ideas so that the reader can understand how easily African
American women in the 1990s had accepted the norms of femininity imposed on them by the beauty and fashion industry. By adjusting her image to the iconic black femininity, Lula Ann perpetuates the marketability of black beauty and allows her identity to be distorted.
Her dependence on the beauty myth is highlighted after she suffers injuries during her encounter with Sofia. Her external appearance provides Lula Ann with security, confidence, and reassurance. Without her mesmerizing black looks, she is not able to meet the standards of black femininity. When she is physically assaulted by Sofia, Lula Ann can no longer rely on her exotic beauty, since “the whole side of [her] face is scraped of skin; [her] right eye is a mushroom”
(GHC 21). Morrison describes her regression to childhood, to her past self, when she was still the ugly, traumatized, nigger girl trapped in her mother’s home. Lula Ann discovers that she has lost her voluptuous bust, the hair in her underarms, and her pubic hair; she has even stopped menstruating. In short, she has undergonea “crazed transformation back into a scared little black girl” (GHC 142). Lula Ann’s physical transformation symbolizes “the pleasure of shedding self- consciousness and narcissism and guilt like a chainmail gown; the pleasure of the freedom to forget all about it” (Wolf 285). Only then does she realize that she “had counted on her looks for
42 so long” (GHC 151) and that her beauty had functioned as a mask to cover her shallowness and cowardice. Consequently, Lula Ann’s superficial perception of herself and her focus on the surface of things are the evidence that she has embraced the dominant culture’s ideology that women are the fair sex and have no need for brains; they would do anything to maintain their external appearance, even suppress their mind in order “to fit the myth by flattening the feminine into beauty-without-intelligence” (Wolf 59). By regressing to a state of childhood, Lula Ann permits her blackness to resurface. Finally, Lula Ann shakes off the distorted beauty standard of the exotic dark-skinned beauty. She no longer chooses to maintain a fabricated identity. She learns to care for others rather than think only of herself and her job. Lula Ann’s transition to a healthier womanhood is complete when she is reunited with her black lover and informs him that she is expecting a baby. Through Lula Ann’s life story, Morrison exposes the trauma hidden in the psyche of dark-skinned African American women who are raised by unaffectionate mulatto mothers and who are seduced by the mass-disseminated images of commodified black beauty.
Only when young black women learn to accept their dark skin can they shed the influence of the beauty myth and find fulfillment in raising a black child with two dark-skinned parents.
43 I
Have Things Changed? Morrison’s Restrained Optimism about theFuture
Despite the strong commentary on how white American culture dictates the contours of
African American womanhood, Morrison indirectly offers hope for changes in the future.
Through the strategic choice of characters, the author allows the readers to explore her perspective regarding the evolution of the African American community and white American society. However, this does not necessarily mean that the post-Depression segregated American society in The Bluest Eye, which is shown to negatively influence and oppress members of the black community, has not dramatically changed, as depicted in God Help the Child. What
Morrison attempts to do in both novels is to demonstrate the contradictory aspects of the African
American community. On the one hand, some of its members blindly accept the stereotypes that are imposed by white American culture and try to imitate the images of white beauty. On the other hand, other blacks reject these images and fight for independence and individuality.
Therefore, Morrison in both novels points out very clearly that “not all outsiders go mad or otherwise surrender”; the author includes “characters who refuse to become images, to submerge themselves in a role” (Davis 14). Morrison’s fictional characters represent members of the
African American community; they are divided into two categories: those who abide by the norms of the dominant culture, and those who refuse to merely play the role assigned to them or become the embodiment of a widely circulated image.
The character who embodies Morrison’s hope and appears to be different, less fragile, and vulnerable in The Bluest Eye is Claudia MacTeer, the narrator. Undeniably, Claudia stands for the black critical thinkers, who struggle “to break with the hegemonic modes of seeing,
44 thinking, and being that block [the] capacity to see [themselves] oppositionally, to imagine, describe, and invent [themselves] in ways that are liberatory” (hooks 2). Opposing herself to the dominant racist as well as materialistic discourse, Claudia is a confident and self-assured young girl, aware of who she is and who she does not want to be. In the first pages of the novel, Claudia is introduced to the readers through a comparison with Pecola. The two girls talk about Shirley
Temple. Not sharing Pecola and Frieda’s adoration for “Shirley Temple’s dimpled face,” Claudia admits that she hates her “because she danced with Bonjangles, who was [her] friend, [her] uncle, [her] daddy” (TBE 17). Even though she sees Shirley Temple as American society’s preferable image of a little girl due to her skin color, Claudia is not driven to madness, but to
“unsullied hatred” (17) and anger “for all the Shirley Temples of the world” (17). Therefore,
“[u]nlike Pecola, who cuddles the images of blue-eyed and blond-haired girls that dominate her world, Claudia rejects them all and the model of socialization they represent” (Samuels and
Hudson-Weems 22). Looking back at her childhood, the adult Claudia has the ability to explain and justify her hatred towards Shirley Temple. She describes a hostile attitude towards the “big, blue-eyed Baby Doll” she gets as a Christmas gift, whereas black adults think that the doll “was
[her] fondest wish” (TBE 18).Claudia tells the reader that she had no such wish. Timothy Powell makes an accurate assessment when he says that “Claudia rebels against the dictates of the white mythology, destroying and dismembering the dolls she is given for Christmas” (50-51). By destroying the doll Claudia desires “to discover the dearness, to find the beauty” that “every girl child treasured” (TBE 18). She even abuses the doll by twisting the head around, breaking the fingers, loosening the hair, cracking the back. Later on, she admits that “[t]he truly horrifying thing was the transference of the same impulses to little white girls” (20). As Braxton and
McLaughlin explain Claudia releases her anger and exposes “how Western culture inspires
45 hatred toward and among people of African descent, inducing destructive behaviors and an equally adverse disconnection from anything not western” (170). Although this violent behavior is not appropriate for a young girl, it accurately demonstrates Claudia’s enraged psyche, which refuses to abide by the white American standards of beauty. She does not submit to the dominant culture and is infuriated by the images of ideal beauty that her own family and community try to impose on her.
Interestingly, the hope for social change with regards to the future of the African
American community, especially the future of young black girls and women is expressed through the presence of babies. In both novels, Morrison uses the birth of a baby as a sign of new life and different future. In The Bluest Eye, Claudia’s strong opinion and determination are evident towards the end of the novel, where she expresses her fondness for Pecola. Claudia hopes that
Pecola’s baby will live “just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley
Temples, and Maureen Peals” (TBE 188). From her point of view, Pecola’s baby could be an omen of a better life, a regeneration of the whole community. The fact that Pecola’s baby, a product of sexual abuse, does not survive signifies Morrison’s pessimism in the late 1960s. The author portrays a bleak future for black girls like Pecola. There’s no future in American society for black babies who are the products of rape and incest.
On the other hand, in her latest novel, Morrison offers a different perspective regarding the future of African American women who are the discriminated members of American society.
First of all, she includes other blacks who accept and see as equals the black-skinned individuals because most of them share similar traumas. Morrison has Booker, Lula Ann’s lover, claim that a person’s black skin is not a curse or a sin. When Lula Ann (now Bride) reminds Booker that there are people who think racially, Booker offers a counterargument and tries to convince her that
46 people choose to be racists. In his words, “[s]cientifically there’s no such thing as race, Bride, so racism without race is a choice. Folks who practice it would be nothing without it” (GHC 143).
Booker stands for the African American man who rejects the racist ideology and racist stereotypes prevalent in the dominant culture. Through Booker, Morrison expresses the hope that
African Americans, especially black women, will break the shackles of white American beauty ideals that lead them to self-hatred and alienate them from the black community. For Lula Ann her unborn child symbolizes “New life. Immune to evil or illness, protected from kidnap, beatings, rape, racism, insult, hurt, self-loathing, abandonment” (GHC 175). In an ideal world, such hope can bring renewal. Black parents like Booker and Lula Ann imagine that the lives of their black-skinned children will be free of racism. However, Morrison, aware of the traumatic experiences and stigmatized childhoods, is somewhat less optimistic than her characters. That is why she ends her novel with the words “so they believe” (175), and with the prayer-like wish
“God help the child” (178).
Furthermore, Morrison uses the character of Sweetness in order to comment on the effects of colorism, a form of racism inflicting the black community. Sweetness is the personification of the fragmented, tormented, dichotomized, and poisoned African American psyche, belonging to a community that lacks unity. As a mulatto who has a hard time accepting the fact that she has given birth to a dark-skinned child, Sweetness wavers and later completely alters her views with regards to the presence of African Americans in American society. To be more specific, sixty-three-year-old Sweetness says that “[t]hings have changed a mite from when
[she] was young” (GHC 176). Her daughter, Lula Ann, should not worry if her baby is born as black as she is. According to Sweetness, in the contemporary American society “Blue blacks are all over TV, in fashion magazines, commercials, even starring in movies” (GHC 176).
47 Nevertheless, she admits that “mothering is [not] all cooing, booties and diapers” (GHC 178).
She remembers how tough she had to be with her own daughter because “[she] couldn’t let her go bad” (GHC 178). For Sweetness, being a mulatto mother raising a dark-skinned female child
“was a burden” (GHC 178). When Lula Ann became a rebellious teenager, the only thing
Sweetness could think was to “be even tougher” (GHC 178) to the child that repelled her.
Overall, there are some hopeful signs of resistance and change in Morrison’s novels.
Through the characters of Claudia and Booker, Morrison provides encouraging gender examples.
Claudia embodies the young black girl, who is confident and believes in herself. As a result, she refuses to succumb to the influence of white beauty standards. She expresses strong emotions, such as hatred and rage towards the standard of white beauty and criticizes both white
Americans’ and African Americans’ pressures on black girls to conform to something impossible.
As an adult woman Claudia realizes that to try to live up to the image of ideal beauty is to commit suicide. The character of Booker in Morrison’s latest novel embodies the black male who sits “on a throne” and identifies “signs of imperfections in others” (GHC 160). When he realizes his mistake he abandons his self-righteousness; he is then able to see more clearly and to embrace others as they really are.
If Lula Ann as Bride exposes the vulnerability of some African American women and their entrapment by the mass-disseminated images of iconic supermodels, the mother-to-be Lula
Ann stands for the mature black woman who no longer feels the need to maintain the appearance of a curvy, youthful, sensual, and exotic dark-skinned woman and who choses family and love over career and superficial relationships. Change can only come in the form of psychic regeneration. However, through Sweetness’s final words, Morrison indicates that social change is not that easy. Although American society has progressed and its black members feel the need to
48 move forward, members of the older generations still find it hard to shake off what they already know. Racism is still rampant and the world is still cruel. For Morrison, raising black female children in an environment that judges them according to the standards of the mainstream beauty industry and not doing anything to assure them that their blackness is not a curse or a sin makes
African American parents accountable for their traumatic childhood and for their later entrapment in a distorted and commodified image of black beauty.
49 CONCLUSION
Given the ways in which western beauty standards are engraved on the black mindset and psyche, the continuous oppression and torment of dark-skinned girls and women seem inevitable.
Unfortunately, many members of the African American community, both male and female, accept without question, and judge each other according to white beauty ideals. Thus, wearing the mantle of ugliness without making any effort to reject the white supremacist discourse, quite a few African American women despise themselves for their failure to live up to the myth of beauty. Even today, the mass media and entertainment industry promote the image of the thin, tall, light-skinned, blond-haired and blue-eyed woman as the norm of feminine beauty, thus constricting physical diversity among women in contemporary American society.
Through her fiction, Morrison examines the impact of white American beauty standards on dark-skinned African American females. Their transition from girlhood to womanhood is a painful one, because they bear the burden of a traumatic childhood and of racial stigmatization.
Their early life experiences scar them for life. In The Bluest Eye, Pecola, a young black girl, cannot stand the way white Americans and African Americans, children and adults, treat her based on her skin color. Thus, she falls into madness. She convinces herself that she has acquired blue eyes and, therefore she is no longer ugly; she expects to be loved and admired. In God Help the Child, Lula Ann has embraced contemporary American beauty culture and has made a career in the cosmetic industry. However, Morrison shows that she has become another victimized
African American woman, because she sells her dark-skinned beauty as a mere commodity, and uses her exotic looks for profit and success. Overall, The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child are
Morrison’s “indictment of twisted values and tangled lives,” emphasizing “the impossibility of love in a world that values looks in the expense of humanity” (Heinze 30). In particular,
50 Morrison focuses on African American mothers and on the ways they perpetuate white beauty values while raising their daughters. Inevitably, such conditioning affects the black girls’ self- perception and generates self-loathing. Morrison places childhood trauma and parental abuse at the center of the readers’ attention. The author demonstrates that in contemporary American society there is hope and possibility for change, but hope alone will not be able to dispose the distorted perception of beauty. According to Katherine Stern, Morrison’s interest in the beauty myth and her “unusual focus on cosmetics” (81) lead to the harsh critique, that “[t]he concept of physical beauty as a virtue […] is one of the dumbest, most pernicious and destructive ideas of the Western world, and we should have nothing to do with it” (77). African Americans should avoid integrating colorist ideas and racist values in their way of thinking. That the western ideal of beauty poisons the psyche of black girls and black women, distorts their self-image and damages their self-esteem is quite clear in Morrison’s novels. She sounds the alarm and illustrates the price African American females pay when they try to adjust themselves to it.
Despite the seeming progress in contemporary American society, white beauty standards are deep-rooted and continue to imprint the minds of impressionable and vulnerable young girls. As a result, colorism and racial hatred will continue to circulate and scar the generations to come.
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