how do u account for pecola's low self esteem and her quest for blue eyes?

How do you account for Pecola’s low self-esteem and her quest for blue eyes in The Bluest Eye?
Pecola’s family never gives her the love and support a child needs. Her mother is abusive and negligent, concerned only with her own lack of self-esteem. Pecola’s father rapes her, thinking she is her mother at a younger age. Like her mother, Pecola wants to be beautiful, defining beauty according to the white world’s standards. Having blue eyes is at the core of feeling beautiful to Pecola. She is consumed with having blue eyes, feeling this will bring her the love she has never received. Her obsession leads to her madness.

In the book "The Bluest Eye" Pecola has grown up in a society that values everything white. In the school setting, the lightest skin girls are thought to be the most attractive. When the children compare their features they are compared to the features that a white girl has.
In the book Pescola's low self-esteem has derived as much from the sexual and physical abuse that she has received as a child. She was raped by her father, constantly belittled, and in the community berated and treated as a victim. She can not even escape the terrors ad humiliation in the school setting or neighborhood.
When she becomes pregnant and te child dies, she reverts back to her thoughts that having blue eyes would make her beautiful like the girls in the white world. She wants to be of value and beautiful. She has descended into a mentally damaged state.
Pescola's behavior is not uncommon for black girls. Studies were performed in the 1960's that had children choosing between two dolls, a black doll and a white doll. When asked which doll was the good doll the black children chose the white doll. It has taken many years to surpass the degradation of the days of blacks being treated like nothing or dirt so it stands to reason that in a society of such that Pescola who is a dark skinned girl, would feel lowly about herself. She has no one to guide her or teach her any different.

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