This novel was very...pessimistic. It is written through several different characters voices, yet the main protagonist never speaks. The novel centers around the idea of what is beautiful. The protagonist, Pecola Breedlove, is African-American but believes herself ugly. She wants blue eyes because she believes that is all beauty is. I, for one, understand how, in Pecola's situation (a truly sad one), she would end up going crazy. Yet that does not mean that I do not believe Pecola is weak. She lets her situation take hold of her and she does not fight back.
Her parents, on the other hand, are not weak. Her father is twisted yet the author manages to have the reader feel sympathy towards him. His past was painful, but that still does not justify what he does during the course of the novel. Pecola's mother stops loving her family because she wants to be "white-skinned". She pretends that the rich persons house she cleans is her house, and that their kids are her kids. She gets lost in a fantasy and in turn, forgets about her own children and husband.
Throughout this book, much pain takes place, and yet the authors voice is beautiful. The way the novel is written is purely ecstatic. There are good things to learn and take away from this novel, underneath all the pain and suffering within it.
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