“’What about your eyes?’
‘I want them blue.’
Soaphead pursed his lips, and let
his tongue stroke a gold inlay. He thought it was at once the most fantastic
and the most logical petition he had ever received. Here was an ugly little
girl asking for beauty. A surge of love and understanding swept through him,
but was quickly replaced by anger. Anger that he was powerless to help her. Of
all the wishes people had brought him- money, love, revenge- this seemed to him
the most poignant and the one most deserving of fulfillment. A little black
girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world
with blue eyes .His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he
honestly wished he could work miracles. Never before had he really wanted the
true and holy power- only the power to make others believe he had it.”
Soaphead Church is a religious
hypocrite. He previously just did what he was told and believed all requests,
at least to some extent, to be frivolous and pointless. Pecola’s request throws
him off. For once, he believed the request was “the most fantastic and the most
logical petition he had ever received.” The fact that Pecola’s request actually
instilled in Soaphead Church an actual want or desire to “work miracles” really
highlights the importance of beauty as a standard that is presented in this
novel. Beauty is encompassed into blue eyes, which are closely linked with ‘whiteness’
as opposed to ‘blackness. Blue eyes, or beauty, are very important in this
society, perhaps for ‘happiness.’
Why else does Pecola desire this ‘beauty’
so strongly? Why is ‘beauty’ so important? And why does Morrison choose blue eyes?
It seems like Pecola really just longs for the ‘happiness’ of the white-middle
class. Why doesn’t Pecola just wish for white-skin?
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