Question: I destroyed white baby dolls Discuss the significance of this statement in relation to the themes in the novel.

. Claudias statement I destroyed white baby dolls brings out the theme of Whiteness being set as a beauty standard. This story provides an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards distort the lives of black girls and women. Implicit messages that whiteness is superior are everywhere, including the white baby doll given to Claudia. It had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blued-eye Baby Doll. From the clucking sounds of adults I knew the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish She has not yet learned that beauty is a matter of nothing but cultural norms and that the doll is beautiful not in and of itself but rather because the culture she lives in believes whiteness is superior. Claudias hatred of white dolls extends to white girls, and through this Morrison explains the complex love-hate relationship between blacks and whites. She connects white beauty standards with being loved and believes that if she possesses blue eyes, the cruelty in her life will be replaced by affection and respect. Another theme brought out by Claudias statement I destroyed white baby dolls is Absence of feeling of being loved. When asked by Claudia, how to make babies, Frieda replies Somebody has to love you. There is a long pause after Frieda makes this statement. The pause shows us that Frieda is thinking if there could even be one person to love her and the answer to it is no. This got Frieda frustrated and made her jump to the conclusion that Women are not able to make babies, because men leave them before they can make one. This makes her pass her hatred to men as she is missing the feeling of being loved. For her, issues of racism, poverty, and standards of beauty are intimately connected to her inevitable entrance into womanhood. Additionally the theme of Isolation is also brought out by Claudias statement I destroyed white baby dolls. There is an abandoned store on the southeast corner of Broadway and Thirty-fifth Street in Lorain, Ohio. They lived there because they wee poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly. Morrison produces a great deal of meaning from small details. Almost every object in the scene can be interpreted symbolically. The ugliness of the abandoned storefront and its refusal to blend in with the other buildings that surround it symbolize the ugliness of the Breedloves storya story not only about the ugliness they create but also about the ugliness perpetrated against them. Just as the storefront has now been abandoned, they have been abandoned by one another and by the world around them. This sad isolation is somewhat lightened by the description of the other inhabitants of the storefront: