Critical Research Analysis Essay – Kristhen's Portfolio

Society Let Me In!

The 21^st century is a major time and place to live in and experience. It mostly revolves around social media which takes up a lot of a person’s time. They are constantly spending their time on their phones digging through social media viewing and analyzing these models. They’re making themselves go crazy over wanting to have this so called “special” figure and appearance. There are many factors that ties with the whole concept of having the “perfect” appearance which means that people are judged based on their race, skin color, body size, etc. In many cases, people are constantly getting picked on and judged because of how they look which is why they feel the need to change drastically in a short amount of time. Many people don’t understand the impact this has on people’s lives which later results in depression, anger and much more. People are extremely insensitive about other people’s feelings and criticize them on everything. Throughout, The Bluest Eye, Morrison focuses and insinuates that physical beauty has unfair standards that limits people from expanding themselves into society but more importantly as a person which is why Pecola demonstrates displacement and fixation due to society have so many regulations on how someone should appear or act like clouds and affects people’s minds.

Who knew that the world was going to be this bad of a place that has so many regulations? You’d think it’s safe but people these days are extremely harsh on each other which makes everything ten times harder. Society as a whole, is extremely picky which means that you need to have certain qualifications just to feel like you’re welcome and safe in this environment that you think you know most about. People are always looking for many reasons to judge and that’s not right. We all have to help each other out because deep down that’s the right thing to do and we are all pretty much the same. Many people are not fully aware that once you mess up in life, it’s hard to recover from it. Things like this pretty much sticks to you for the rest of your life which definitely isn’t good for your image. We all tend to feel many emotions when it comes to this whole idea of not loving yourself which is where these psychoanalytic concepts come into place. These concepts take up a huge chunk of a person’s life. People most likely don’t realize that they’re going through something major which then affects them badly and negatively. Lots of people undergo many obstacles in life and some might be too challenging for them to face off and conquer. Also, most people take encounter other people’s opinion about themselves and this is what makes them go crazy and want to drastically change their image or act a certain way.

After reading, “The Bluest Eye,” Toni Morrison, the author, incorporates many Freudian concepts one being displacement. The protagonist of the story, Pecola surely undergoes these concepts very harshly and critically because she wants to feel pretty and get accepted into society. It seems like there is this barricade that limits Pecola from presenting her true self to the world and everyone. Pecola is a young black girl living in the era where the Great Depression had ended a couple years back. It may seem that people don’t get her which is why things for Pecola it’s ten times harder for her. It also looks like she’s scared but there’s more to it. She’s mainly focused on other’s interpretation about her. One major factor that revolves around this idea that she has glued to her mind is that since she is a person of color, she has to be extra careful and more cautious about other people who may want to hurt her intentionally.

When people displace their feelings, they are putting their emotions and anger towards someone else or something, like an object. In the text that Ariela Freedman constructed she states, “This distortion or displacement does not replace the previous meaning but adds additional meaning” (Freedman). People displaces their anger and pain they have inside of them towards something else. What Freedman is trying to make her readers understand is that even if people displace their rage and anger, it’s presents will still be there. Displacing something will not make it vanish or go away. In the story, Pecola constantly has anger built up inside of her which is why Morrison states, “Anger stirs and wakes in her; it opens its mouth, and like a hot-mouthed puppy, laps up the dredges of her shame” (50). This demonstrates that Pecola is going through a tough time and doesn’t know what to do with herself or how to approach the situation. Anger can potentially cloud a person’s mind and may make them do something bizarre in life. Morrison also states, “Anger will not hold” (50). This shows that all of the anger Pecola has will eventually come out, but this is the result of always being rejected into society.

In some cases, Pecola seemed annoyed that people pitied her a lot and felt sorry for her. In the text, Morrison states, “we were embarrassed for Pecola, hurt for her, and finally we just felt sorry for her” (190). This shows how people were embarrassed for another person and not themselves. They’re too worried and focus on another person which is what this world consists of and makes people not be able to mind their own business. Nothing can’t be kept private anymore because news can travel as fast as lightning. There also comes the fact that once you do something in society, it will probably stick around even if it was a good or bad action.

Another psychoanalytic concept that is represented throughout, The Bluest Eye, is fixation. At one point of the story, Pecola wants to make sure and has a slight bit of an obsession that she wants to be the prettiest girl amongst all of the other girls. She has this image glued to her mind on how she should look like. Most of this thinking is the result of her oppression with Shirley Temple which influenced Pecola greatly. Shirley Temple is well known for being many young women’s inspiration. All they want in life is too be like her and have her features. Shirley Temple has blue eyes, blonde hair and a slim figure which is the ideal appearance that most of us girls would kill to have. Pecola believes that being white will help her entry into society since she’s black. Shirley Temple’s look is the key for her happiness. Pecola constantly is stating whether or not if her eyes “are prettier than the sky,” and “prettier than Johanna” (Morrison 201). Morrison is insinuating that Pecola wants to make sure that after if she gets the opportunity to have this “gift,” which are the blue eyes, she wants to be the only person but more specifically, the only girl, with blue eyes or at least with the bluest eyes. Morrison states, “The blue eyes in the black face held her” (90). Pecola believes that these blue eyes can be one of the many ways to get the “golden ticket” into society and to feel good about herself.

In Freud’s lecture, he talks about the meaning of fixation and how it can change a person mentally. He states, “This fixation of mental life to pathogenic traumas is one of the most significant and practically important characteristics of neurosis” (Freud 2206). This relates to Pecola because she has this mentality of wanting to be like her idol/role model and she wants to make sure that this envision she has in her mind will get accomplished. Not only does she want to change but she needs to change in order to feel like she’s apart of society. This is the only way that she will be happy and live the life she knew she was meant to always have. In the article that relates to fixation, Longe states, “These early stopping points would be analogous to the fixations people develop in early life, attaching themselves to a period of safety and security before the entire journey of life is fully accomplished” (426). What this means is that when a person has a fantasy since they were little, it creates an illusion which then results in this obsession about being like someone they have always wanted to be like. Morrison states, “We had just started elementary school. She said she wanted blue eyes” (2). This shows that ever since Pecola was a little girl, she has always known what she wanted, and nothing could change that.

Appearance will always be a major factor in people’s lives. People need to catch up with the latest trends or else they’re just a loser and no one wants to be that type of person. Pecola feels ugly in comparison from the rest of the girls. She is somewhat traumatic with the idea of not completing her fulfillment about her appearance. Once I finished reading, The Bluest Eye, I got more of a gist about Toni Morrison’s point of view of how society really works. She insinuates that Pecola goes through a tough time accepting herself. In order to be accepted into society, you have to accept yourself first. The psychoanalytic concepts, displacement and fixation, manifests the idea of beauty having all of these standards and rules that people must follow so that they can be welcome into society.

Work Cited Page

The Gale Encyclodpedia of Psychology, “Fixation.” 2016, pp. 425–426.

Freedman, Ariela. “Gifts, goods and Gods: H.D., Freud and trauma.” English Studies in Canada, vol. 29, no. 3-4, 2003, p. 184+. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A169457976/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=caa6b0ae. Accessed 3 Dec. 2019.

Freud, Sigmund. “Five Lectures on Psycho-analysis.” (1909): 1-45