The forms of otherness in Medea and Bluest Eye

Hi, I havent posted anything to the blog yet, but I thought it would be interesting, in this point in the year, to make a comparison between the different "types" of "otherness" we find in the books we read, and more explicitly, compare Pecola's otherness to Medea's otherness. Indeed, otherness doesn't need to follow certain norms, like a tragic hero. For me, Medea and Pecola's otherness is completely different. In my opinion, Pecola's otherness is much more severe and important. She is ostracized from the beginning of her life, and she is an other in her own home. Medea, on the other hand, follows much more conventional forms of otherness. She is an other because she has left her home, and lives in a foreign land.

Pecola has never known what its like to feel accepted in society. She was born an outsider not only to the white people, but to her "own" black society, to which she is supposed to inherently belong. Medea, on the other hand, is ostracized directly stemming from her actions. Let's face it, she a freak. She murders in cold blood and she's a total which. She is ostracized because she is frightening while Pecola is ostracized because she is weak: she is a woman, she is a child, and she is black.

While I do feel their forms of otherness are completely different, in my opinion, there still exists some similarities. They both wish they could be accepted and they both desire to leave their current home. In the end of the Bluest Eye, Pecola tries to "fly away", flapping her arms in a maddening desire to possess wings to leave this "foreign" place which she calls home. Medea, on the other hand, has the tools and the means by which to, literally, fly away from the scene of the murder of her children. This sort of elevation is what both characters desire to possess.

While Medea successfully manages to travel onwards to try to find a different home, Pecola is forever prisoner of her society.