In Morrison's The Bluest Eye, shame and
internalized racial self-hatred are motivating factors for several characters. For example,
Geraldine is strictly motivated by her perception of the ugly side of blackness, an image that
she and others around her have been shown all their lives. Geraldine believes that in order to
be respectable, she must be clean, and her obsession with multiple forms of cleanliness takes
over her life. As a result, she becomes ashamed of her own physicality, and sex becomes a burden
that she must endure for the sake of being married.
When Pecola
enters Geraldine's home, she is repulsed by the sight of the girl who appears to be of a lower
economic class. Geraldine is not the first person to have shunned Pecola, and by this point,
Pecola has already internalized the community's hatred of her. Pecola's intense longing for love
and acceptance drive her mad by the end of the novel. So, shame and self-hatred are overwhelming
factors of motivation for these two characters.
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