Comparison Of Frederick Douglas And The Bluest Eye: The Pathing Of Identity

The Pathing of Identity is a vague concept, so easily persuaded by our experiences. These experiences would either change our identity to make it stronger, or make it multitudes weaker. This is showcased in the Novels The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass and The Bluest Eye. In Frederick Douglass’ autobiography The narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, both authors explore the idea of societal constructs and how they aid in creating one's identity by revealing how racist beliefs can either positively or negatively affect it.
In the autobiography The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass there is a consistent showing of how racism exploits slaves' identity and image of themselves, making their

Rather just force them to focus on basic survival at all times. “By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday.”(Douglass 1) This is an example of how racist societal constructs weaken African Americans. Slave Owners manipulate their minds into submission, deny their education, and separate them from all connections. Most African Americans at this time would fall to this and accept their identity as a slave, which was not their fault at all as they had no knowledge of any other way to live. But there were a few who didn’t allow themselves to be overcome by the manipulation and constructs, rather this would only make them more motivated to become free and educated. Frederick Douglas himself is one of the slaves who saw how horrible he was being treated and the opportunities he was being denied, he realized that he did not deserve to live such a way. He first realized this when his master Hugh Auld told his wife Sophia

Toni Morrison demonstrates this through the classic American dream oriented book Dick and Jane, which is used to manipulate black families into a perfect white american family. Dick is a perfect young white boy who loves to play outside with his friends and play sports, Janes is a quiet, ever inspiring girl who loves to help her mother in the kitchen and play with her friends, Mother cooks and clean in the kitchen, and Dad is big, strong, and provides for the family. They live in a big white house and are extremely happy. This is juxtaposed with Pecola and her family within who are dysfunctional and abusive towards Pecola and each other. This echoes in Pecola's mind because she is surrounded by items and people who discriminate against her because she does not have the ideal American family. These influences lead to even her parents discriminating against her calling her ugly, abusing her, and her father even raping her. Making her life filled with no love and nothing coming her way but discrimination. "But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly" (p. 126). When Pecola was just being born she was being called ugly by the person who she needed the most, her mother. This is because the same thing happened to her Mother, and her Grandmother. Racist Societal constructs broke their family