The southern United States in the Jim Crow era was a tragic time for African Americans still living there. Even more tragic was that mind set followed the persons, who lived through it, everywhere they went. Growing up in that environment made the individual think they were less in their fates than their adjacent white man. Claudia MacTeer and Pecola Breedlove did though have control over their fates. Not in how they were treated, but in how they took and internalized the opinions of others that were cast upon them.
First, to understand these two little girls, we need to look at their surroundings and what voices they heard daily. The Jim Crow era they lived in was a southern states group of laws that made life as hard as possible on the African American population in the post-Civil War slag. Now Claudia and Pecola never lived in the south, but their parents, the voices they heard every day, did. When they left the Jim Crow south, they brought with them the mentality, as stated in class, of taking their frustrations with themselves out on the weakest of the people like them (11/28). Also surrounding these two girls was the image of white Hollywood beauty and the unattainable bar it set for them. Claudia received a white baby doll for Christmas and “I destroy white baby dolls” was her response to adults thinking she wanted to be a mother (22).
Now Pecola had a different white experience, it was because of her mother’s obsession with the white actresses on the silver screen. She worked as a house maid for an upper family and forbid her family to visit her while at work. She loved the cleanliness the white house provides her and the beautiful little white child that called her Polly. Pecola came one day to pick laundry up from this house and in an unfortunate series of events knocks a piping hot berry pie off the counter. Mrs. Breedlove’s first response is to calm and clean the white child. Then she scolds Pecola, her own child, and doesn’t even check to see if she is ok from a hot pie splashing on her. “In one gallop she was on Pecola, and with the back of her hand knocked her to the floor” (109). These were the conditions two little innocent black girls were reared in Lorain, Ohio.
127 our experts are availableright now
Next, sadly we must look at how the family environment shaped these two girls very very differently. They both are lower class families, as said in class on the hem of society, that the father works an industrial job and the mother works away from the house (11/26). However, that is where similarities stop. Claudia has a care and love in the house that is masked by the coarse external shell of a weather black woman. “I did not know that she is not angry at me, but at my sickness” exemplifies this, during Claudia’s run with the sniffles she is well cared for while chastised for throwing up on the bed and “for letting the sickness ‘take holt’” (11,12). Pecola alternately after getting raped by her father, a whole other psychological blow, is beaten by her mother. Not shown the sympathy or kindness a victim needs, but blamed and beaten for what has happened to her, “Well it probably won’t live. They say the way her mama beat her she is lucky to be alive herself” (189). Claudia’s sister Frieda was molested by their house guest Henry Washington, their father chased him into the street and shot at him to protect his little girl and their mother consoled Frieda. Yet neither of them told here what had really happened to her, merely that she didn’t want to become “ruined” like the prostitutes were. In these two families, Claudia is cared and protected for even though it is not a overly friendly time, while Pecola is blamed and put down on actions that weren’t even up to her own decision. By this young age already we can see the pattern of Pecola having her choices and therefore future being taken away from her while Claudia is being taught how to tough is out with some assistance.
Lastly, these prior two factors play into how these girls see themselves, how they developed their sense of the individual. The most obvious scene is when Claudia and Frieda are walking from school and they witness Pecola being picked on by a group of black boys. This scene exemplifies the idea brought up before of the strong picking on the weakest like them. “Thrilled by the easy power of a majority… they had extemporized a verse made up of two insults about matters over which the victim had no control”. Claudia in this case is able to step in and defuse the situation through her strength of will alone and through some well-placed insults, “I’m calling you Bullet Head, Bullet Head” (66). Pecola on the other hand is only able to lie there allowing this all to happen to her, the insults and dirt kicking.
This scene shows the true nature of both these girls, Claudia isn’t afraid to stand up to someone and is strong in her own self, while Pecola due to the stress and constant tear downs in her own home is mentally unable to deal with the hatred that these young boys are giving to her.
In conclusion, did have control over their fates because they had the agency to control the way these actions taken against them effected their mental states. While due to their home situations they were predisposed to different coping methods which eventually allowed Claudia to rise and Pecola to fall to the ashes.
