“How do you do that?” I mean, how do you get someone to love you?' But Frieda was sleeping. And I didn’t know it” (Morrison 32). The innocent question asked by Pecola from Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is representative of a recurring theme in the novel: love. However, even though Pecola feels anxiety about finding someone who will love her, she doesn't even realize how many horrible things have already happened to her and how many more will happen. Each atrocious and brutal event takes away a little more of Pecola's sanity, giving rise to the empty shell of a long-lost little girl who has lost everything, especially her only fragment of original "beauty" that is her. 'innocence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Pecola's main victimization is the constant reprimand that she is ugly by the white definition of beauty. The first example of Pecola's feeble attempt to gain knowledge on how to become beautiful is the abnormal amount of milk she drinks just to see the bottom of the Shirley Temple glass. Mrs. MacTeer's "agitated soliloquies were always irritating and depressing...they were long-winded, insulting and, although indirect (Mama never named anyone - she was just talking about people and certain people), extremely painful in their thrust" (24). Mrs. MacTeer thinks Pecola drank all the milk because she was selfish, even though Pecola obviously doesn't learn anything about beauty. The second person to hurt Pecola's sense of beauty was Mr. Yacobowski who, by refusing to even touch her, reinforced her idea that white people hated her ugliness. On page 48, a quote succinctly sums up Pecola's thoughts: “She looks at him and sees the void where curiosity should reside. And something more. The complete absence of human recognition – the glass separation… This has an advantage; somewhere in the lower eyelid is disgust…the disgust must be for her, her darkness” (48). Although these passive situations negatively affected Pecola's self-image, they did not directly damage her like some characters do. One character who has openly hurt Pecola is her own father, Cholly Breedlove. Cholly's drunken stupors destroy the family from the inside, resulting in the house fire that destroyed their home and her lack of care for Pauline and her own children. These drunken fits also result in the rape of Pecola's body, heart and mind. Cholly even thinks she's ugly, but he drunkenly believes that this rape is an act of demonstration of love, his tangled mass of emotions exposed in a quote from page 161: "The sequence of his emotions was revulsion, guilt, pity, then love. . Her disgust was a reaction to her young, helpless, desperate presence... Why did she have to look so whipped? She was a child, without burden, why wasn't she happy? The feelings of guilt and pity came from the feeling that he could not give her anything and that she needed to feel such love. The loving feelings he displayed in his acts of rape irreversibly damage Pecola's mind in such a way that she is unable to regain her sanity. Cholly's act of love, while perverse, is the only example of someone actually trying to love Pecola. In comparison to Cholly's action, Maureen Peal tries to befriend Pecola in order to dig into Pecola's brain. Maureen is described as "a bright yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back...theBlack girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls' bathroom, and their eyes were bulging under the sliding lids. » (62). This description of Maureen illustrates the respect black girls had to give her simply because she was supremely beautiful, even though she wasn't even white, just "bright yellow." Maureen even has the immorality to pretend to be Pecola's friend just to ask her about her naked father. A fight then ensued between Claudia and Frieda and Maureen where “Pecola tucked her head in a funny, sad and helpless movement. A sort of curvature of the shoulders, drawing in the neck, as if she wanted to cover her ears” (72). This evokes the image of a turtle instinctively tucking its head into its shell to protect itself. This incident shows the contrast between Pecola's helplessness against Frieda's hardened exterior and Claudia who vehemently defends herself against Maureen's barrage of insults. Pecola is also raped by many other characters, although differently in that they do not directly involve insults. Pecola's self-respect and beauty are already low. Although she is physically and emotionally shattered by her experience on the playground with Bay Boy, Woodrow Cain, and Junie Bug, this event pales in comparison to the trauma associated with Pecola's mother. Pauline works hard in the fishermen's house, but when Pecola visits her and knocks over the berry cobbler, Pauline becomes so violently angry that she beats Pecola severely even after being burned by the cobbler. The irony of the situation is that after beating Pecola, Pauline or "Polly", as she is cheekily called, soothed and mothered the crying Fisher girl. As Claudia and Frieda witness this, they realize that Pecola needs her mother's attention. Claudia and Frieda were at the fishermen for their own selfish reason. They wanted to find alcohol because they thought it would make Frieda, who had been "ruined" by Mr. Henry, skinny. Claudia thinks they need whiskey for Frieda because “Mama says the whiskey ate them [the prostitutes]” (101). They took their mother's words literally and thought the whiskey would eat the fat off Frieda's ruined appearance. They thought the only place they could get whiskey was Pecola because Cholly was a drunk. For these selfish reasons, even Claudia and Frieda weren't really Pecola's friends. The MacTeer sisters' selfishness is only matched in the Soaphead Church program. Elihue Micah Whitcomb exploits Pecola's innocent request for blue eyes. Following her request, Soaphead Church wishes she could actually help her and is angry that she can't. He then forces himself to try to be as honest as possible and let the Lord make the decision about his wish to have blue eyes. Then Elihue tells her that she must sacrifice Bob the dog so that “a simple creature… will be the vehicle through which He will speak” (175). Although Soaphead seems genuinely sorry for his lack of power, he does not recognize that he lied about his exploitative profession. Furthermore, he is not sorry that Pecola thinks she is ugly, but he pities her because he actually believes that she is ugly and will stay that way. This reinforces Pecola's idea that she is ugly. Louis Junior also took advantage of Pecola by inviting her into the house to play with kittens. Geraldine loves the cat and for this reason, Junior is jealous of the attention the cat receives. Since his middle-class black mother does not allow him to play with other black children and he is not white, he vents his anger by mistreating the cat. When Pecola enters the house, Louis Junior throws the cat at him then..