More Than Candy

I am pretty sure everybody has those bad moments. When you simply don't like ourself very much or regret something you did. That icky feeling that puts you in a bad mood and makes you despise everything that surrounds you. It's fine to have those moments sometimes but for Pecola, it seems to happen too often.

It is clear that Pecolas' living situation is not good and that her social life isn't that great either, but I think she has been brainwashed to think the worst of herself. Not only that but her community pushes for her, a child, to not change her mentality. From personal experience, whenever I looked at myself negatively or doubting my abilities, the people that surround me would root for me to change those negative thoughts.

In psychology we learned about reinforcers. There are positive reinforcers and negative reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is that which praises a good action or behavior and pushes the person to keep doing whatever they are doing. A negative reinforcer is that which takes something negative away, like a "sal de frutas lua" removes a stomach ache. As weird as it sounds, Pecolas ways and how she views herself is reinforced by her environment and the people in it.

A clear example of this is when Pecola goes to buy candy. The store keeper acknowledges her presence but not as something he wants there. You kind of notice a hierarchy of superiority since the old man seems to have a negative attitude towards Pecola. It is interesting how Morrision describes Pecolas' view on the mans view on her:

"She looks up at hum and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition- the glazed separateness. She does not know what keeps his glance suspended.... But she has seen interest, disgust, even anger in grown male eyes. Yet this vacuum is not new to her. It has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So, the distaste must be for her, her blackness." (pg 49)

A person senses these things, but the fact that there is distaste towards a little girl is confusing to me. I guess that is what makes this story so raw and real. It might sound weird but all these details in what Pecola sees, sets the condemnatory tone of the novel that makes the reader uncomfortable. The way Pecola makes blackness sound like some sort of disease is reinforced because that is what she sees in all the white people that surround her. 

The reason I posted a picture of that candy is because that is what she buys from the funky candy man. These candies are called Mary Janes and once again help reinforce Pecolas' want to be a blue eyed beauty. And probably the most awkward description of eating a candy I have heard since apparently Pecola thinks "three pennies had bought her nine lovely orgasms with Mary Jane." (pg 50). Still, that description once again highlights that mentality of what society wants her to think is beauty and what is correct.