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Essay / The idea of confusion as depicted in The Bluest Eye and I Want to Be Miss America
Identity crisis defined as a period of uncertainty and confusion during which one's sense of identity a person becomes insecure, usually due to a change in their expected goals or role in society. Identity crisis influences the way women of color perceive beauty by making them act differently and try to assimilate. The Bluest Eye published by Toni Morrison uses the character of Pecola who is African American and other people of color to expose the identity crisis, as well as I Want to Be Miss America published by Julia Alvarez uses a young Dominican girl for the 'expose. Both Pecola and the Dominican are stuck in an identity crisis and can't find a way out. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Morrison uses her character “Pecola” to represent identity crisis, stating: “Long hours she sat looking in the mirror trying to discover the secret. of ugliness” (45); Pecola has not yet recognized her beauty or her reason for being because she has been told “you are ugly people” (39) and society has imposed this label on her that she cannot shake off. Jenkins corresponds that society traps her "The body is surrounded by an atmosphere of uncertainty" (423), with Pecola being uncertain of her beauty and the fact that she can only bring in the negative energy created by the society and cannot escape. . Pecola “Every night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes” (Morrison 46), Morrison's Miltonic style shows that Pecola is trapped and blinded by her beauty because she is not the perfect one known as “white beauty” and that she prays out of ignorance knowing that it is possible. This won't happen. Jenkins states, “We have millions of people who degrade their own physical characteristics and seek the ethereal form of whiteness” (423). Pecola is deteriorating because she doesn't clearly have white features to the point of making a prayer. The antagonist used to expose the black woman's identity crisis in the novel The Bluest Eye, although they were minor characters. Morrison's paradox "That they themselves were black... It was their contempt for their own blackness..., their deliciously learned self-hatred" (65), the sole purpose is to show that people of color will degrade others because their own self-hatred, because they also suffer by suffering from the identity crisis." Jenkins states "In the white world, the colored man finds difficulty in the development of his schema bodily" (423), notes Morrison's paradox because the black man does not see that he is suffering from an identity crisis while degrading someone of his own color. The Dominican girl from I Want to Be Miss America Julia Alvarez struggles with cultural identity crisis, Alvarez includes "As young teenagers in our new country, my three sisters and I searched for clues to seem like we belonged here... Where we discovered the Miss America pageant” (91) The young Dominican girl neglects her culture, because she is not considered a beauty in America. Fong agrees: “They can pursue social interactions with cultural and ethnic groups with which they identify… (20),” explaining that the Dominican girl wants to interact with American beauty culture, while neglecting it. Fong explains that members of a minority want to feel accepted rather than rejected... (21), and will therefore do anything to be accepted, even while rejecting their identity.