Racism and Teenage Psychology in The Bluest Eye and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Essay Example

Comparison and Contrast between “The Bluest Eye” and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Racism and Teenage Psychology Both Tony Morison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Maya Angelou’s “Why the Caged Bird Sing” deal with the ‘coming-of-age story’ on the black teens, Pecola and Maya, in particular, but in a broader context with the overwhelming psychological impacts of color-based racist segregation on the black community. Both Pecola and Maya are the victims of their families and society. But in a broader context, the families in which Pecola and Maya live are greatly determined by the white society. Indeed the family itself is shaped by the adversaries of existing in a white dominated society. The families are segregated and discriminated by the dominant society and pushed to take resort to isolation. It is the isolation that makes the parental characters violent, neglectful and careless to their children. In return, the children also are forced to isolate themselves from the family as well as from the society. The most haunting theme that both of the two novels contain is the association of whiteness with every sphere of a black’s life in a white dominated society. It is not a mere phenomenon of life; rather it is the prerequisite for love and romance; the standard of beauty, symbol of decency for Pecola. In the same manner, whiteness, especially, blond hair is the symbol of beauty. Since she is a fat black girl, she is in constant self-admonishment that she is ugly. Both of the two novels deal with the devastating impacts of color-based on the growth of teenage psychology as well as on the whole black community. The color-based racism misguides them to find their worth in color, that is, the beauty or whiteness of their skin. Whereas Pecola finds relief from this color-based beauty in her service a white woman’s home, Maya seeks relief and feels confidence in herself by learning to challenge the white dominance. Both of them feel that they are ugly and longs for beauty. But neither of the two can surpass the stern reality that they are black and therefore ugly by birth. Maya describes the unbearable pain of being segregated and humiliated by the whites in the following lines My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. . . . This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. (Angelou 58) Indeed their tragic flaw lies in the fact that they taught by the society believe that beauty lies in whiteness. But when Maya learns about the insidious nature of racism and finds her worth in being able to revolt against this racism and learns that white beauty is nothing but the racial discrimination of the white society in which she lives, Pecola’s relief in working for the white woman dooms her further by deeply rooting the belief in her mind that she is cursed by birth and she can never have Caucasian blue eye and whiteness. Indeed Pecola blindfolded by her romantic notion of love that if she does not have the blue eye, she will not be loved, as the narrator says, “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different” (Morison 89). But she cannot perceive that the white definition of beauty and blue eye is essentially the result of racial discrimination. Therefore she further becomes vulnerable to an eternal depression. Indeed whereas Maya gets vigorous support from her grandmother, Pecola is deprived of such familial support. In this regard, Pecola is in utter contrast with Claudia and Frieda who are mentally strong in the face of racial adversaries. They vigorously and actively take a stance against the discrimination as well as any adversaries of life. They continued to support Pecola against adversaries and racial discrimination, as Claudia says, “We had defended ourselves since memory against everything and everybody, considered all speech a code to be broken by us, and all gestures subject to careful analysis; we had become headstrong, devious, and arrogant.” (Morison 112). Also since they are blessed by parental love, unlike Pecola they are not affected by the white standard of beauty. Both Pecola and Maya are victims of insidious racism of their society. At a first glance, it may seem that they are victims of family violence and crisis. But a deeper analysis of the plots of the novel will reveal that the parental relationships of the novels are also affected by racism. Maya’s parents get divorced and leave her under her grandmother’s care. Pecola also comes from a troubled family relationship. Indeed the troubled family-bonds in the novel indicate the common crisis of the black families, segregated by the white society, who commonly undergo financial crisis, lack of education, lack of employment, etc. The loose family-tie among the black families is essentially the reflection of the blacks’ poor socioeconomic conditions in the white dominated society. Both Maya’s and Pecola’s parents are the violent reflections of what they receive from their society. The sexual frustration of Pecola’s father essentially grew from his humiliation by the two white men who forced him to do sex in front of them and Pecola is the poor victim of this frustration. Segregation and loneliness are another two sub-themes that are directly related the theme of racism in both novels. On the surface level, both authors tell the stories of two teenage girls with who were deserted by their parents and who do not get the support of their families during their teenage emotional crisis. But at the inner level their novels purport that it is the black community that have been segregated and rejected by the parental white society. It is the white society that have enslaved the blacks until the Civil War and then freed them without ensuring any opportunities that would facilitate the healthy and healthy growth of the black community. Consequently, the community shows symptoms of blatant violence such murder of Mr. Freeman, Cholly’s house-burning, family quarrels and crisis, divorce, parental aggressiveness, incest, etc. Instead of taking care of these problems of the black community, the dominant white society segregates them from the mainstream development and discriminates on the basis of color. Aptly the authors show that the former black slave community can fairly be considered as infants in comparison with the white society; but the white society has shrunk from their duty of nurturing and fostering the black community. As result, the black people has been derailed from the right course of maturity and development in the same way Maya and Pecola have been derailed from the course of proper teenage growth by their families and society. Works Cited Morison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Bentham Publishers. 2001 Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Haynesville: Pelican. 1998 Read More