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inferiority feelings of Pecola and the way she strives for superiority caused by her physical appearance, family condition, and social milieu. The next researcher is
Deborah Kartika Sari 2007. She wrote an undergraduate thesis entitled African American’s Struggle for Self-identity and Its Psychological Effects in Tony
Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. She focused on the ways African American’s struggle to find self-identity. Winny in 2008 wrote an undergraduate thesis entitled The
Influence of Pecola’s Parents on Her Abnormal Behaviors as Reflected in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. She analyzed the abnormal behaviors of Pecola
influenced by the treatment from her parents. Meanwhile, this study is different from the studies mentioned before. The
researcher focused on how racism is portrayed in The Bluest Eyes. Besides, the researcher also analyzed the main character in the novel, Pecola Breedlove, and
her ways of seeing herself as the impacts of racism that happened toward her. The researcher used socio-cultural historical approach and psychological approach in
this study.
B. Review of Related Theories
The theoretical review consists of four theories from experts. First, the researcher provides the theory of perception. The second one is the theory related
to discrimination. The next is a review of theories on race and racism. The last one is the theory related to social indicator of black people.
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1. Theory of Perception
In this study, perception is the way of Pecola sees herself as a girl who comes from the black race. This theory helps the researcher to analyze how she
looks at herself and how she can survive with her own perception in her suffering life.
Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts 1985 define perception as the way of how stimuli are selected and grouped by person so that they can be meaningfully
interpreted. Moreover the way we perceive the stimuli that bring information depends on several factors. It includes the contributions and familiarity of the
stimuli, our physical characteristics, our needs and values, knowledge, feeling, and also our past experience. Thus
, someone’s perception can be influenced by four important factors. They are selection of stimuli, organization of stimuli, the
situation, and the person self concept pp. 85-86.
a. Selection of stimuli
There are many stimuli in our surrounding, but we must focus on the small number only. This process is called as selection. In the process of selection,
people will select and filter some specific stimuli. The result of this process will be different from one another. That is why people will perceive things differently
based on their process of selecting the specific stimuli. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
