To begin with, there are many reasons, that Morrison shows us, as to why Pecola thinks she is so ugly. From the moment she is born her mother tells her how ugly she is. Instead of comforting her child and telling her that she is beautiful the way she is, right from the start she incessantly tells her that she is ugly. She shows her no warmth or love as a mother should do and the only thing she presents her with is negativity. The fact that Pecola doesn't even refer to her as "mother" and instead calls her "Mrs. Breedlove" shows the distance between the two. Then, there is also the same case with her father, Cholly. He is basically drunk all the time and doesn't pay any attention to her or give her the father figure that she needs. At

In talking about this, it leads to another explanation as to where Pecola derives this idea of ugliness. She looks around her and sees other people, and that shows her everything that she is missing. This idea is that language and culture has a drastic effect on her thinking. One example is when the three young girls are talking about Shirley Temple. Pecola idolizes her and wants to look like her, and even further, wants to be her. The ideas that she has are the ideas that she internalizes from her culture. Culture has a radical effect on the way people think about beauty, and that includes Pecola because that is what others consider to be beautiful. She sees Shirley Temple and knows that everyone thinks she is the most beautiful thing alive and therefore comes up with the idea that if she looks like her, then people will think the same thing about her. When Morrison is talking about the Breedlove's sense of ugliness, she says, "They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance." (Pg. 39) This shows that Pecola simply sees everything that's around her and gets the idea that she is an ugly person.

Another major cause of Pecola's thinking derives from her family's poverty. The effect of being put outdoors and coming "with nothing", as Morrison puts it, is very serious. In the novel Morrison says that being put outdoors leaves you with no place to go and the fact that Pecola has no belongings with her shows their situation and why she is always praying to be different. Just imagine how she sees others live and compares it to what she has. It hurts her inside and adds on to why she wants to be like the white girls with blue eyes. She sees them getting all the attention, having fun and being calle

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Approximate Word count = 1240
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)