UGLYUGLYUGLYUGLYUGLYUGLY

That was the only word that stood out in the text. While I was reading I took the job of a word watcher and decided that there was no better way to analyze the characters than by their lexicon. If I were to classify the usage of this word it would be lined up like this:

“You are ugly people.”

“Their ugliness was unique.”

“They wore their ugliness.”

“Why were they so ugly?”

The narrator has the most disgusted perception of the Breedloves, she expresses the fact that they inherited or perhaps were born into their ugliness, “…they took the ugliness into their hands” (38). Even though she emphasizes every despicable detail of the character’s physique, at the same time she acknowledges the way they adjust to their identity. Mrs. Breedlove takes hers for support of a role she frequently plays, Sammy uses his as a weapon to inflict pain upon others, and Pecola simply hides behind hers as if were a mask that shielded her from life (ironically it is the same thing that haunts her). 

Morrison believes their ugliness does not belong to them, in other words they were convicted to eternal discrimination and still they did nothing to contradict the statement! This can only mean that the author’s true purpose is to demonstrate the true beauty of the family by doing the exact opposite: calling them ugly. It is almost as if he were tempting the reader to agree with his vivid descriptions when in reality he is showing that they can choose to accept their racial background and embrace who they are, but instead they lower their heads and accept to hear that they are branded as uniquely ugly. They fall victims of the imposter syndrome. The human tendency to self-doubt your potential and brand yourself as INCOMPETENT. The Breedloves yearn for the return of their mask.