Dick and Jane and the Shirley Temple Sensibilty in the Bluest Eye

Dick-and-Jane and the Shirley Temple Sensibility in the Bluest Eye

In Dick-and-Jane and the Shirley Temple Sensibility in the Bluest Eye author Phyllis R. Klotman writes about the use of the children’s reader Dick and Jane to show the different perspectives in the breakdown of the ideal family in the African American community. As the text becomes more blurred together, the more jumbled the lives of the characters, particularly Pecola, becomes. While Dick and Jane have all the love and attention they could ever want in their perfect white house, Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda long for the attention from their parents that the perfect white children received. While Dick and Jane’s mother is loving and supportive and their father has leisure time, the characters do not perceive that they have anything like this in their lives. According to Klotman this is especially true for Pecola. For her entire life Pecola wants desperately to be loved. Because her mother cannot show Pecola the love she craves, choosing to lavish her attention on the perfect blond haired daughter of her employers, the Fishers. The only attention Pecola receives is from the whores who live in the apartment above her storefront home, not exactly the greatest role models, and the unwanted sexual attention from her drunken father. Pecola longs to be Shirley Temple because, in her mind, everyone cannot help but love Shirley Temple.
This essay is helpful towards my future paper because it supports my theory that the social climate, with the lack of a support system from family and community, causes Pecola to lose her sanity, especially when compared to Maya Angelou’s I know Why the Caged Bird Sings.