What role does social class play in the novel? Pecola first comes to stay with the MacTeers because her family has been put “outdoors” owing to her father’s drunken violence and carelessness. The threat of “outdoors” focuses families like the MacTeers on upward mobility. “Being a minority in both caste and class we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the folds of the garment.” What do you see as some of the results of this upward striving Morrison describes?
Morrison shows the effects of social class when she describes what happens when the women move from South to North. She gives a moving description of the places they leave and tells how they try to bring those roots with them in the way they decorate their new homes. They adapt to the new life; sing in the choir (but never solo), sit in the second row in church, use the products whites use for cleanliness, and control their hair to look more acceptable.
They attend land-grant colleges to learn skills needed to take care of white people, and to learn how to “get rid of the funk.” They hide who they are to conform to the whiteness that surrounds them.
Social class shapes the character’s sense of self-worth, relationships, and opportunities. Economic hardships exacerbate racial oppression. The results of the upward striving reveal a psychological and emotional toll on internalized racism and class aspirations.
Social class is everything in this novel. Each social class looks down on the strata below it. The Breedloves are seen as scum. The mother believes that she elevates herself by working in the home of white people and caring for their child, but has no qualms about sacrificing Pecola.