In the two texts, “The Bluest Eye” written by Toni Morrison and “The Complete Persepolis” written by Marjane Satrapi, delve into the developments of the vital characters. Formation of the self is a central concern because in both of the texts the principal characters are both on journeys to discover their true selves. Both Pecola Breedlove (The Bluest Eye) and Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) experience dissimilar journeys when attempting to find their identity. Both characters are held back by their individual societies in the texts as they feel unable to express themselves openly.
Pecola Breedlove is on a journey of learning to love herself and accepting who she is. Breedlove has multiple insecurities and “each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes” (P46). Breedlove’s insecurities mainly revolve around her dark skin colour because it forces her to deal with social exclusion and racism each day. The “suffocating environment” (Salvatore, 159) is dangerous to Breedlove as her classmates constantly tease her and her mother and father are not supportive of her internal issues. The physical and mental abuse in her home put the label on her household of being “relentlessly and ggressively ugly” (Salvatore, 158).
This environment creates it to be extremely difficult to “create an authentic identity” (Salvatore, 154) for Breedlove as society is not entirely accepting of her. There are some similarities for Marjane Satrapi as it is difficult for her to love herself as in Iran she is unable to express herself freely. There were so countless restrictions in Iran in this time period which restricted people in society to attain any music, magazines or clothing from Western societies. Satrapi tested society by wearing a denim jacket with Malcolm X stitched to the ront pocket and a pair of Nike sneakers.
The women’s branch of Iran mistook Malcolm X for Michael Jackson called it a “symbol of decadence” (page 183). Satrapi loved western culture and so it created it hard as society was not accepting of a part of her that she loved. Society not being able to accept Breedlove and Satrapi for who they are and what they loved plays a large role in the characters formation of themselves as they both had to suffer through hardships. The time period in each text played a large role in the restrictions in their lifestyles. “The Bluest Eye” is set in the Autumn of 1941 in Lorain, Ohio.
According to http:// tuskegeeairmeninthesky. weebly. com/segregation-in- the-1940s. html “the 1940s was an era of widespread racial discriminations and segregation”. The biggest issue affecting Pecola Breedlove’s self esteem was because of the way society treated her for her dark toned skin colour. At school one particular afternoon “a group of boys [were] circling and hold at bay a victim” (page 65) which in fact was Breedlove. They were insulting “the colour of her skin and speculations on the sleeping habits of an adult – her father” (page 65).
For this to occur in a school ground, it reflects how her environment is “suffocating”(Salvatore, 159) for her as no adults were around to protect her. The negative stigma and stereotype surrounding dark skinned people was highly active in this time period which caused social exclusion to occur to Breedlove. “The Complete Persepolis” was set in 1979 through the Islamic Revolution in Iran. According to Britannica the Islamic Revolution occurred because the Pahlavi dynasty was attempting to overthrow Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, whom was supported by the United States.
As the country was ttempting to get rid of Pahlavi also meant the western culture was banned from the country as the United States was the support country of Pahlavi. Growing up throughout this revolution would have been extremely difficult for Satrapi particularly because she loved the western culture. Satrapi was often challenged the society and still chose to wear clothes and listen to western music because of her love for it even though it was highly disapproved in society.
One major difference between Breedlove and Satrapi is that, Breedlove cannot change the way society perceives her but Satrapi can. Satrapi hooses to challenge society because she knows what she likes and who she wants to be, society is just restricting her from being this person. Whilst on the other hand, Breedlove cannot accept who she is because society cannot accept who she is which creates her to feel like she has lost her “selfhood and have no place in the world” (Frye 102 Salvatore). Pecola Breedlove’s family is abusive and unloving which causes many issues for Pecola as she has no support system.
Cholly Breedlove (Pecola’s father) is not a good role model for Pecola as he would often “come home drunk” (page 40) and abuse amily members, in particular Mrs. Breedlove. Cholly found that if he continued to hate Mrs. Breedlove, “he could leave himself intact” (page 42). Mrs. Breedlove strangely “needed Cholly’s sins desperately” (page 42). She found that “the more irresponsible he became, the more splendid she and her task became” (page 42) which represented how this family needed each other but also could not support each other in positive ways.
This unhealthy family relationship affected Pecola largely because having no support at home whilst getting bullied at school meant she had “no one” (p158, Salvatore) to talk too and was nable to “communicate her story to others” (p158, Salvatore). Morison presented Pecola Breedlove as an “ironic heroines who failed to grow towards knowledge and freedom” (Salvatore, p157). Marjane Satrapi had the opposite of Breedlove, she had a warm loving family. In particular, Satrapi’s grandmother was very supportive of Satrapi whilst she was in Iran.
Her grandmother was the main family member Satrapi would talk to about her insecurities and issues. The main piece of advice her grandmother gave her was, “Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself” (150) and the main piece of advice her father ave her was “Don’t forget who you are and where you come from” (152). This advice came in handy when Satrapi left Iran to live in France because the war was becoming too intense. Moving countries meant starting over again and this made it difficult for Satrapi to have a close support system when trying to express herself.
There are issues for Breedlove and Satrapi with their family supporting them in their journey of finding and accepting themselves. Both characters had sections in their lives where they did not endure support from loved ones close to them. Although Satrapi’s support was still existent in Iran, as she was not able to be contacted in France for a period of time, this meant Satrapi had to deal with her issues alone which is similar to how Breedlove has to deal with her issues every day.
Being alone for a period of time strengthened their selves as they only had themselves to rely on with their issues. For Satrapi, being alone helped her find herself and find new friends and an entirely new support system. This created Satrapi to become an edgy and daring teenager with a mind full of new and creative ideas. Unlike Satrapi, not having support made life harder for Breedlove as she felt insignificant and unworthy of herself because of the way other people made her feel in society.
Breedlove did not have a large friendship group but she had two particular acquaintances Frieda and Claudia MacTeer. When Cholly Breedlove was locked up in jail for “burned up his house, gone upside his wife head and everybody, as a result, was outdoors” (page 23), Pecola was forced to be “temporarily” (Salvatore 158) cared for in the MacTeer household. Claudia and Frieda grew up in a very different nvironment compared to Pecola, in which they had learnt how to be “strong black females” who did not feel brainwashed by societal beauty standards of white and black women.
Claudia believes that to succeed in the world she must create her own self-worth of beauty. This mindset is important because being around Pecola she has such low self esteem issues in her journey to find her own self worth. This is vital because having friends like Claudia and Frieda to help support Breedlove in her journey because she needs all the help she can get. Claudia also narrates the text because Breedlove is unable to express her eelings and her story so she needs Claudia to tell her story for her.
Claudia is Breedlove’s only form of support in an indirect way. Claudia perceives Breedlove’s experiences and has a negative view on them but does not personally help her in any unwelcome circumstances. (unfinished) Marjane Satrapi support from her friends to help guide herself was entirely different, as in Iran Satrapi did not have any close friends whom she could gain support from to help achieve her growth in creating herself. This all changed drastically for Satrapi when she moved to France and found friends who can support er in her new journey to find herself.
The friends Satrapi made overseas were quite the radical type and were constantly pushing Satrapi to try new things. By testing new things that Satrapi may like or dislike, it created a stronger character and as she was able to gage new strong beliefs about important matters. Having friends that pushed her to her limits and contributed to her development of self worth. (example) By the time Satrapi moved back to Iran to support her parents lifestyle, it was difficult to go back to a country with less support from her friends.
Ultimately, both characters in the texts go through extensive journeys to help find themselves and create their identity. Breedlove and Satrapi have many similarities and differences between how they learnt to love and accept themselves. Formation of the self is proven to be a central concern in the texts as both characters receive limited support from friends and families at times which limits and assists the growth of their self love. Breedlove finds it extremely difficult to love herself because of society’s issues with the colour of her skin and her only support system is through her two friends Claudia and Frieda.
Unlike Breedlove, Satrapi challenges society’s traditional ruling system has a constant battle with her surrounding and succeeds in evolving into the person she wants to be. There are similarities in both their journey’s when they had to go through life without support but being alone seemed to strengthen their relationships with themselves. Both characters begun as weak unmotivated characters and then grew into strong determined females. The formation of selfhood is a major and vital fragment of these texts as it displays their development as self love and self worth to be a significant concern throughout their journey.