odrow Cain, Buddy Wilson, and Junie Bug are teasing Pecola, Freida and Claudia defend her. The boys are going to bully Claudia and Frieda too until they notice that they are under the watchful gaze of pretty Maureen Peel and the boys stop ¡§...reluctant to continue under her springtime eyes so wide with interest¡ (66). In this example, Pecola¡s belief that beauty brings happiness is reinforced. She believes that if her eyes were blue, her parents would stop fighting. They would think, ¡§Why, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn¡t do bad things in front of those pretty eyes¡ (46). Pecola is also alienated in her classroom, she always seems to end up sitting alone, segregated from the other children in her class: ¡§[s]he was the only member in her class who sat alone at a double desk¡ (45). Her teachers fail to acknowledge Pecola in class, she is invisible to them and ¡§[t]hey tried never to glance at her, and called on her only when everyone was required to respond¡ (45-46). The unresponsiveness she encounters from her teachers contributes to her feelings of worthlessness and inferiority.
             Victimization is also shown through characters like Maureen Peel, who is portrayed as ¡§[a] high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back.¡ (62). Morrison illustrates that she is ¡§lynched¡ by the American standards of beauty. Samuels and Hudson-Weems convey that she believes she is superior to Pecola, Claudia and Frieda because America embraces her light skin and sloe green eyes (12). In an encounter with them that ends in a disagreement she runs off but not before yelling out, ¡§I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute!¡ (73). She is also a victim of this conditioning and, in turn, becomes the victimizer of her own race. This is also apparent in the teasing of Pecola by the four boys (Bay Boy, Woodrow Cain, Bud...