Theme: Whiteness as the standard of beauty
Motifs: Whiteness and color

Manipulated by the social convention of racism, Pecola had a distorted standard of beauty which led her to be a racist against her own race. According to the standard established by the society, whiteness was superior to what she had, which was blackness. The distorted standard of beauty instilled inferiority on blacks’ physical beauty; vulgarity of culture, emotion, and sexual innocence; and unhappiness with the hopelessness in Pecola making her believe that the factor of those is her beauty.
Straightened hair and blue eyes, which were shown in the white doll, were unreachable standards of beauty for blacks. Due to the standards, whiteness was what black people could only admire, making them feel inferior to whites. The ugliness of Pecola was already decided since she had black eyes. When Pecola was born, Mrs. Breedlove said, “If they looks in her eyes and see them eyeballs lolling back, see the sorrowful look, they’d know…But I knowed she was ugly” (125-126). Even motherhood didn’t recognize the beauty of Pecola. Having the popular standard of beauty, people considered Pecola’s black eyes to be the source of her ugliness. This led Pecola to obsess about the inferiority of her eyes, which later made her insane. As well as blonde straightened hair, black people can not get blue eyes. When Mrs. Breedlove could not get along with other richer black women, the standard of beauty was focused on the hair of whites. She remembered, “They were amused by her because she did not straighten her hair” (118). Their admiration of strengthened hair was not from real beauty but from the desire of being white, which the society set up as the standard of beauty. Straightened hair symbolized their desire to be white. Having a feature of the blue eyes and straightened blonde hair, the blue eyed doll triggered the inferiority of the color of black. While comparing herself with the doll, Claudia indicated, “Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs-all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured” (20). A girl wanted a doll since it is beautiful; therefore, the beauty of the doll clearly showed how the standard of beauty was focused on the whites. A doll was similar to a means of a celebrity or a model to children showing what a trendy, pretty girl looks like. A doll taught both black and white children that the white, blue-eyed girl is what people preferred and adored. Black girls playing with the white doll could only learn the superiority of whites. Realizing the distance between the beauty of blacks and the preferred beauty of whites through the comparison of their hair, eyes, and the social preference revealed with a doll, black people became the puppets of the standard of the white society.
The corrupted idea of the social norm of beauty was transformed and developed into a stereotypical belief of blacks' vulgar deeds, inhumane emotions, and besmirched sexual innocence. When a white woman with a blue-eyed black cat, reminds her old days, she views the blacks with a single prejudiced story. She considered the culture and deeds of blacks vulgar, “The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature…” (83). She made all the blacks to have a nature of uncivilized cultural and personal characteristic since they were born. This stereotype initially came from the difference between their cultural view of the beauty. She should respect the different culture; however, believing in the superiority of whites’ attraction of their beauties, she could not break her single story, the standard of beauty. Vulgarity in blacks’ culture, ideal beauty even denied the motherhood of the black. When Mrs. Breedlove was giving a birth to Pecola, Mrs. Breedlove experienced a savage racism. The white doctors observed her and said, “They deliver right away and with no pain. Just like horses” (125). Due to the difference of the physical beauty, skin color, the mother’s sacrifice for her baby was humiliated. Having a lower status in the dominant belied principle of beauty, her identity of a mother and a human was degraded and compared as an animal. Her beauty as a mother was disregarded; furthermore, the social criteria of beauty led a sexual harassment to her. Just since she was an ugly black girl, after she was raped by Cholly, she had to face the real harsh society. Other neighbors of her made a rumor about her instead of having a compassion on her. They mostly said, “’What you reckon make him to do a thing like that?’ ‘Beats me. Just nasty…How come she didn’t fight him?” ( 189). Pecola was raped by her own father even before she got to middle school, yet no body tries to talk to her or feel compassionate toward her. They all hesitate to talk to her or even blame her that she might have wanted the rape. There was no victim but only the sexually impure black girl. If she was from the white wealthy family, this wouldn’t happen, and even if it happened, people would care about her more than how the people reacted at the incidence of Pecola getting raped. As the black was not what the standard of beauty had base on, the culture, motherhood, and the sexual innocence were all viewed distortedly and became as the stereotype of the black.
To the blacks, black was the antonym of the beauty as well as happiness and hope. Wealth and beauty were what white had and black lacked of. Whiteness was the beauty itself which wealth and happiness comes along with. When Frieda and Claudia went to the house of Mrs. Breedlove working in, they admired the whiteness saying, “The lakefront houses were the loveliest…It was empty now, but sweetly expectant of clean, white, well behaved children and parents who would play there…” (105). The blacks felt extreme superiority of whiteness. To the blacks, whiteness was a synonymous of happiness, while all of their unhappiness caused by their blackness. Claudia blamed Pecola’s blackness for Pecola’s unhappiness, “If she looked different, beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too” (46). Believing in the prejudiced standard of beauty, Claudia believed blackness hinders all her happiness. This strong inferiority got bigger as they blame their race more for any happening of unhappy incidents. This later even made the blacks to blame each other’s blackness. When the three little black guys were bullying Pecola about her race and her father, Claudia says to herself, “...their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness ...” (65) Claudia indicated that they bullied her because of their racism against their own race. Claudia knew that they were just expressing their own inferiority and hopelessness to Pecola to express their unhappiness. Thus, believing all their abject poverty, hopelessness, and the sense of inferiority toward their own race were all caused by their beauty, the blackness, they could only abhor their color.
Having the standard of beauty which white society preferred, blacks could only be more inferior and unhappy admiring the whiteness. The disparity between the whiteness and the blackness grew as they believed more in the distorted standard of beauty causing extreme inferiority to the blacks. As a standard depends on the features of the creator of the standard, whites produced the standard for themselves, which could only give extreme inferiority to the blacks.