oat for his deep rage against the prejudiced society which hates, fears and torments them. Morrison does not merely show that whites doubly judge Pecola as a black female, but also that lighter-skinned blacks, such as her self-hating father, judge her perhaps even more harshly. Just as white society torments Cholly, her father, so does he torment and finally rape her. She is darker, weaker than him, and her gender deepens that weakness, allowing him to victimize her just as he has been victimized.
Pecola has been raised in a society in which females are submissive and inferior to men, in which blacks are inferior to whites, and in which dark-skinned blacks are inferior to light-skinned blacks. White males are at the top of the cultural mountain, with the darkest-skinned black females at the bottom. Soaphead, a con-man, is one rare male character who is moved by Pecola's tragic situation to recognize this fact and sympathize with her wish to have blue eyes:
A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. . . . For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles (Morrison 174).
However, Soaphead is notable because he is such an exception to the world of men who see it as practically their right to abuse and violate Pecola.
The father's rape of the child is perhaps the most evil violation, but it is preceded by a near-rape by Junior, who traps Pecola and makes it clear to her that he was able to do whatever he wanted with her. As Miner writes, this trapping of Pecola by Junior symbolizes her oppressive relationship with men in general as they systematically violate her:
Male realms expand as those of the female suffer an almost fatal contraction. Junior does not actually rape Pecola. Morrison,. however, duplicates the dynamics of the scene between Junior and Pecola in a sc
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