Copyright©2019 P-ISSN: 1978-8118 E-ISSN: 2460-710X 257 Lingua Cultura, 13(4), November 2019, 257-263 DOI: 10.21512/lc.v13i4.6138 THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CONTEXTS TOWARDS THE IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT OF THE MAIN CHARACTER IN THE BLUEST EYE BY TONI MORRISON Nana Sofiani1; Sabarti Akhadiah2; Emzir3 1, 2, 3 Faculty of Language Education, Universitas Negeri Jakarta Jl. Rawamangun Muka, RT.11/RW.14, Jakarta, 13220, Indonesia 1nanasofiani_pb07s2@mahasiswa.unj.ac.id; 2sabartiakhadiah@yahoo.com; 3emzir.unj@unj.ac.id Received: 28th June 2019/Revised: 12th July 2019/Accepted: 18th July 2019 How to Cite: Sofiani, N., Akhadiah, S., & Emzir. (2019). The influence of social contexts towards the identity development of the main character in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Lingua Cultura, 13(4), 257-263. https://doi.org/10.21512/lc.v13i4.6138 ABSTRACT This research aimed to show how the social contexts influencing the main character of The Bluest Eye, Pecols’s identity development, and the stage of her identity development with the help of Erikson and Marcia’s theories. The research used qualitative research through the literary psychology approach. The data collection had been taken from the novel entitled The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, selected and sorted to find out how many among them were supporting the research. The steps were data analysis and data validity. The results show that social contexts greatly affected Pecola’s life, and therefore her identity cannot be developed.; racism, thus, has an influence on all aspects of the black people. Pecola undergoes multiple oppression and abuse as a result of racism, which leads to her self-loathe. She, thus, believes that having blue eyes is the only hope to escape from the suffering she undergoes. It is a warning of identity confusion since she wants to change her identity and becomes white. It pushes her to insanity. Racism and abuse ruin a person’s life by creating hatred and damaged to a person’s soul, and segregate society into groups. It results in the division of groups through the use of terms such as ‘them’ and ‘us’, implying that they are not equal. Keywords: social context, identity confusion, identity development INTRODUCTION Identity formation is related to growth and development (Panahi, 2015). The development in adolescence is more complicated as it consists of three changes. The first is the biological process that involves physical changes. The second is a cognitive process which involves changes in a person’s mind and intelligence. They will have a clearer picture of what is right and what is wrong or and critically examine their surroundings. Furthermore, identity is a part of the cognitive mind. The last is the socio-emotional process which involves a change in their emotions, personality, relationship with others where they live (Santrock, 2012). The identity development is a human lifespan process that begins since he/she was born until he/ she dies; thus, it does not begin or end at adolescence. Adolescence is a turning-point of lifespan development, the transition time from a kid to adulthood. The range of adolescents’ age is various because it depends on culture and history, but it is generally around 10 to 13 years old (Santrock, 2012). The adolescence is the development from the comfort zone as a kid to the world; they have to think like an adult. Santrock (2012) has said that adolescence is a period full of problems in the life of human being like G. Stanley Hall, portrayed as a ‘storm-and-stress view’. Facing the problems is not easy if they do not have self-confidence because they are easily influenced by the situation as they are not an unstable condition. Self-confidence during adolescence is crucial as they like observing and exploring new things to search for their identities, which are suited for them. Supporting and guidance from parents and teachers are a booster for adolescents to get self-confidence as well as their identities (Beyers & Çok, 2008). They prefer spending their time with friends to stay at home and more thinking about their appearance. The feeling of being liked and accepted by their friends is a salient point for adolescents. This research focuses on finding problems in the social contexts that influence the development of Pecola’s identity, and on identifying the stage of her identity used Erikson and Marcia’s theories. Identity is a predominant issue during adolescence because it is the perfect time to 258 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 13 No. 4, November 2019, 257-263 ask their identity by asking ‘who I am’. It is a deep question relating to self because many pieces of research have shown that the formation of a carefully constructed identity is related to mental soundness and general well-being (Wijaya, 2016). Identity is not only what people know commonly like something attached to oneself, as seen in the ID card. Identity is an awareness of one’s own uniqueness that comes from self- assessment, and self-observation (Dalami et al., 2009). Awareness of oneself uniqueness makes him/her proud of himself/herself and realizes that everybody is unique and different from each other. The outcome of self-observation gives an idea of his/her strengths and weaknesses. Identity cannot be interpreted in words; therefore, the researchers have to explore the identity by building its continuity in various contexts (Erikson, 1968). One will have a feeling of being the same person in various places and situations; therefore, others realize the continuity of his/her character. The self-identity is about the belonging (Wijaya, 2016), and reflecting one’s self-concept. A person who has a positive self-concept, he/she will have a positive identity and good self-perception as well as his/her emotions (Haerunisa, Taftazani, & Apsari, 2015). Identity versus role confusion is Erikson’s fifth psychosocial stage in which addresses to adolescents who are searching the identity. It is an adaptive outcome and a symbol of maturity, but the maladaptive outcome presents identity confusion describing the adolescent, who deals with crisis identity. Abusive experiences in childhood can contribute to identity crisis heavily because of feeling traumatic and stressful (James & Rajan, 2015). This experience can curtail the development of self and contribute to the high maladaptive identity formation because of the prominent of confusion and mistrust (James & Rajan, 2015). The main character of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a depiction of an adolescent who is struggling with a crisis identity of experiencing abuse and racism. Marcia has developed Erikson’s ideas about identity into four identity statuses based on the level of identity exploration (i.e., the degree to which one has looked at and tested alternative beliefs), and commitment (i.e., the degree to which one displays continuity in his or her values) that an individual participates in during the identity. The identity statuses that Marcia has described as identity diffusion (low exploration/low commitment), foreclosure (low exploration/ high commitment), moratorium (high exploration/low commitment), and achievement (high exploration/high commitment) (Selvam, 2018). The adolescents who suffer from identity diffusion will have a lack of self-esteem and anxiety. The contexts are the settings in which development occurs that are influenced by historical, economic, social, and cultural factors (Santrock, 2012). To know how important the contexts of identity development is by looking at the adolescent’s surroundings. Erikson has marked the role of the context and defined identity development during adolescence as a process of person-context interactions (Beyers & Çok, 2008). There are six factors of the contexts that affect adolescent life (Santrock, 2012; Ramdhanu, Sunarya, & Nurhudaya, 2019). The first part of the context is the family. Parents play a vital role in the family because their parenting style is very influential to the development of their children’s identity. Ratner (2014) has stated that there are four parenting styles; authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent/permissive parenting, and uninvolved/negligent parenting. The authoritative (high responsiveness/high demandingness) educates the children independently and supportively; the children are allowed to participate in the family decision. The adolescent who is raised in this parenting style will more quickly reach identity achievement. The authoritarian (low responsiveness/ high demandingness), tends to wield absolute power in the household and the restrictions that they set to be closely followed. It encourages the occurrence of identity foreclosure in adolescents. The indulgent/permissive parenting (high responsiveness/low demandingness) is encouraging the expression of the child’s autonomy but do not set boundaries. Moreover, the uninvolved/negligent parenting (low responsiveness/low demandingness) is negligent parents that are likely to practice a hands-off approach to parenting. The second is peers. Peers are children or adolescents who are about the same age or maturity level (Selvam, 2018). Wentzel and Asher in Selvam (2018) have discussed five types of peer statuses; they are popular children, average children, neglected children, rejected children, and controversial children. Popular children are frequently designated as a best friend and liked by their peers. Then, average children usually receive an average number of both positive and negative nominations from their peers. The neglected children are infrequently nominated as a best friend but are not liked by their peers. Rejected children are infrequently nominated as some one’s best friend and are actively disliked by their peers, and the last is controversial children, who are frequently chosen both as some one’s best friend as well as being dislike. Adolescents who have a positive relationship with their peers often report a greater sense of well-being than those who have been neglected and rejected by peers (Beyers & Çok, 2008). The third is the school. School is also contributing to the student identity development by giving guidance, building discipline, and creating a positive school climate. This need for a school role is to create a positive school climate and learning environment since the background of students is different; ethnicity, social class, and intelligence. The teacher helps adolescents to develop positive self- images by accepting them unconditionally, conveying their interest in, and sympathetic attentiveness (Panahi, 2015). It will encourage the students to have a good performance at school and reduce aggressiveness. The fourth is social class. Social class is also called social status; the economy refers to a group of people with similar employment, education, and economic characteristics (Santrock, 2003). The social layer of society is divided into three parts, namely the upper, middle, and lower classes. The consequences of poverty are difficulties in social adaptation, depression, low self-esteem, and conflict with peers, and delinquency is common in poor adolescents compared to those who are more (Santrock, 2003). The fifth is ethnicity. Ethnicity is a cultural heritage, characteristics of citizenship, race, religion, and language (Santrock, 2003). Ethnicity is part of racial identification, so ethnic identity emerges. The history of African–American slavery has created on inferiority complex and negative perspective. They are described as dark, dirty, dumb, and nigger (Erikson, 2010). The adolescent who has achieved ethnic identity will feel positive about his/her ethnic identity. However, the adolescent who perceives a negative stereotype about his/her ethnic-racial group is called identity self-denial in which there is an attempt to hide or minimize one’s ethnic-racial background, including being afraid to express feelings about the in-group (Aldridge, Ala’i, & Fraser, 2016). 259The Influence of Social Contexts.... (Nana Sofiani, et al.) The sixth is gender. Gender refers to a person’s socio- cultural dimensions as men and women and is an important context during adolescence. Gender stereotypes reflect a broad category that reflects the attitudes and behavior of men and women (Santrock, 2012). Man is described as aggressive and strong, but the woman is depicted as weak and gentle. Not surprising, there is violence in the household where the victims are mostly women and children, while the perpetrators are the husbands or the father. Brajannoto, Rasyid, and Lustyantie (2018) have discussed the female main character in Arrival movie by Eric Heisserer, Dr. Louise Bank, by using the literary psychology approach. She is a linguist who works for the military to communicate with the alien. This research focuses on the form of personality, desire, the fulfillment of desires, and to find out psychic conflict that is experienced by her by using the theory of Freud and Lacan. Besides, Maleki and Haj’jari have studied on the feeling of Negrophobia and anti-negritude among the blacks on themselves and the whites. Pecola obsesses with having light skin, and blue eyes symbolize crisis identity. While Arora and Parkash (2017) have studied about racism and beauty are the two dominant themes in The Bluest Eye. Pecola, who is eleven years old, has to face the reality of racism and the beauty standard of whites. It causes psychological trauma to her. Her wish of having blue eyes damages the mind. There are four types of abuse; physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Those abuses will influence a person’s mental and psychological mind. The effect of abuse forms a significant portion of the global burden of disease, including psychiatric disorders and suicidal behavior. Next, the novel is one of the literature works talking about imaginary figures and plot. Analyzing the extrinsic elements of the novel needs to cooperate with other fields such as psychology. Literature and psychology are two branches of science that study the human soul (Emir, 2016). Literature is media and psychology is ‘a scalpel’ that both can be used to explore human behavior and their reactions, perceptions of the world, miseries, wishes, desires, fears, conflicts and reconciliations; individual and social concerns, by means of varied concepts, methods, and approaches (Aras, 2015). This research is using the literary psychology approach and analyzing the contexts and the impact on identity development. The novel uses the second-person point of view or narrator. The problem of this research limits in finding the stage of the identity development female character since the story begins when Pecola is eleven years old. So this research focuses on two stages, the first and the fifth stage. This research is divided into two sub focuses: (1) the influence of the context to the identity development of the main character; (2) the stage of her identity development. METHODS The research is a qualitative research which is based on library research and using content analysis techniques. The novel that will be analyzed is The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and will be focused on the identity development of an eleven-year-old girl, Pecola. To get understanding and deep insight relate to the research, some steps will be taken, such as data collection and data analysis methods. The data collection technique contains words, phrases, clauses, paragraphs, or events from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. After reading the novel carefully, the researchers mark and determine the collected data, then choose and sort the data out which of them to support the research. Miles and Huberman describe the process of analyzing data (Rijali, 2018) that can be seen in Figure 1. Figure 1 The Process Analyzing Data Figure 1 shows the interactive nature of data collection with data analysis. The data collection is an integral part of data analysis activities. The data reduction is an attempt to deduce data, then sorting them in certain conceptual units, categories, and themes. The process, not once, but interacts back and forth. The last is an examination of data validity. This research applies a literary psychology approach to reveal how the contexts influence Pecola’s identity and find out how much the effect on her identity development. If she has a positive self-reflexion or self-image, she will have self-confidence and self-worth and describe that she has already found her identity. To find out the status of her identity formation, it will be explained by using Erikson’s theory and strengthened by Marcia’s theory. The fifth stage of Erikson’s psychosocial is identity and identity confusion. The identity is for the adolescent who successfully passes the crisis, and the opposite is identity confusion. The identity confusion refers to the adolescent who has not involved the crisis or commitment. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The purpose of this research is to compile the data, which are believed as the source of the contexts which influence the main character’s identity in the novel of The Bluest Eye. Next is the sub-focus to identify the stage of her status identity by using Erikson and Marcia’s theories. The first part discusses the family. The Breedlove family is African-American that consists of Charles Breedlove/Cholly (father), Pauline Breedlove/Polly (mother), Sammy (older brother), and the youngest is Pecola (the main character/protagonist ). They live in Lorain, Ohio. Pauline is working as a maid in Fisher’s house. She loves working there and admires the Fisher so much because her condition is contrary to them. The Fisher is rich, white, and an ideal family, but Pauline herself is black, ugly, poor, and having a deformity on her foot. The conflict in the family is rising when Pauline’s admiration of the white people make her forget her family. 260 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 13 No. 4, November 2019, 257-263 Realizing that her wish is impossible then she diverts it by giving her love for Fisher. Working with Fisher gives her energy and fills a role all of her needs, and even she thinks that she is a part of Fisher. It can be seen from the way she treats her daughter and the Fisher’s. Pecola calls her mother, Mrs. Breedlove is different from Fisher’s, who calls her, Polly. Pauline is proud because of their giving her a nickname. It can be seen from this excerpt; “Pecola, like Sammy and Cholly, always called her mother, Mrs. Breedlove.” When Pecola comes to Pauline’s work, her mother asks her to go to the kitchen, by chance, she drops the cobbler of pie on the floor. Her mother is furious, then she slaps and asks her to get out. However, to Fisher’s, she hugs and whispers very gentle and loving. It is a totally different treatment. Her mother treats her daughter and the white girl of her employers as superior to her. She does not give unconditional love to Pecola since she was born because she is ugly with black skin, as she has said, “She looked like a black ball of hair. But I knowed she was ugly. Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly.” She puts a dangerous concept of beauty to her daughter’s mind by blaming of having black skin. She wears a torn dress with a messy appearance. If her mother cared about her, she would pay attention to the dress she wears and her appearance. Pauline buys dresses only for herself because she wants to show them off to her neighbors. It can be seen in this excerpt. Saw the dirty torn dress, the plaits sticking out on her head, hair matted where the plaits had come undone, the muddy shoes with the wad of gum peeping out from between the cheap soles, the soiled socks, one of which had been walked down into the heel of the shoes. The family problem is increasing as Cholly becomes a drunkard and likes beating her wife. She thinks that she is martyrdom in her marriage, and Cholly is a sinner and a failure man. She hates what she has, such as her family, blackness, ugliness, and poverty. It makes her becoming more neglected to her family. She always sees her family lives from the negative side. The Breedlove believes that their poverty comes from their blackness and ugliness. Actually, their ugliness comes from their conviction that is the result of watching many movies starred by the beautiful white female actresses. Then, they are comparing their appearance with them. Cholly never shows his affection or loving to his children either to his wife because he does not know how to raise children and cannot even comprehend what such a relationship because of the impact of his dark life as an unwanted child. Both of his parents reject him; he was raised by his auntie, Jimmy. The way he shows his tenderness is fatal; it happens when he is drunk, he goes home and sees her daughter, whom he thinks that she is his wife. He rapes his daughter twice until she impregnated. He burns his house until his family does not have a place to live, so the local government decides to put Pecola in her neighbor’s house. He has been in jail for what he did. Cholly is a dysfunctional and evil father. Family is the first school for children to learn many things. The role of parents is also needed to guide children to build their future. Combining those reflects in the parenting style that will sharpen children’s characters. An adolescent, who has a good and safe relationship with parents, will be easy to socialize with peers, easy to control themselves, reducing anxiety and depression, and they will have better self-esteem (Ratner, 2014; Santrock, 2003). However, there is no love or attachment in the Breedlove family between parents-children and brother-sister. From Pecola and Frieda conversation, she does not know what love is because she never receives it from her family, as she has said: Then Pecola asked a question that had never entered my mind. “How do you do that? I mean, how do you get somebody to love you?” But Frieda was asleep. And I didn’t know. When her parents are fighting, she hides and prays to God to make her disappear. When she is raped by his father, her mother, who finds her unconscious does not believe what she tells instead of beating her. Nobody trusts her, even her mother. Both of her parents are culprits of the conflicts in her family. Pauline and Cholly do not care about their children, and they do not give parental love and care to their children. The Breedlove raises their children in uninvolved/ negligent parenting. The conflict in the family is rising when Pauline’s admiration of the white people make her forget her family. The family atmosphere affects to their married and their children, Sammy and Pecola. Pecola becomes desperate, lack of self-confidence, and arousing a feeling of anxiety. She never goes anywhere in what condition the family is. She thinks that she belongs to her family because she is ugly by having darker skin than anybody else. She needs attention and love from her family. On the contrary, Sammy becomes destructive and a rebel; he will do anything violently to get what he wants. He hates his family and likes running away from them. He cannot control himself. The relation between Pecola and her friends is not good either. Because of the impact of the adverse family atmosphere, it is difficult for her to make acquaintance with her peers and to handle this difficult situation. She does not know how to behave and face of rejecting of the environments. She gets bullied by her friends. Both of neglected and rejected adolescent is frequently an easy target of bullying. Bullying is any unwanted aggressive behavior by another youth or group (DeLara, 2018). No one wants to sit next to her in the classroom. They prefer sitting with others sitting with her. For her friends, she does not exist, and she is often a victim of group boys who mock her by saying, “Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepsnekked. Black e mo black e mo ya dadd sleeps nekked. Black e mo...” She is also teased and insulted by her friends by calling on her when they want to get an immediate angry response from one of the boys from the accused and getting peals of laughter of others, by saying, “Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove! Bobby loves Pecola Breedlove!” It is different from her classmate Maureen Peal, a half white and wealthy, popular girl. Everybody wants to sit with Maureen Peal. She is fascinated and admired by boys and girls in school because of her beauty and the quality of the dress she wears. Pecola’s friends neglect her and sometimes reject her to make her sad. It makes the experiences abuse not only from her family but also from her friends. She believes this happens because of her skin and ugliness. It is because her mother, her friends, and her surroundings say so. The impact of bullying can be seen in anxiety, depression, dropping out of school, psychotic symptomatology, suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation (DeLara, 2018). It makes Pecola feel anxiety and self-worth by seeing her negative self-image. 261The Influence of Social Contexts.... (Nana Sofiani, et al.) Like her friends, she is also alienated and humiliated by her teachers. They take a glimpse at her and call on her when everyone is required to respond. They do not give protection when Pecola is teased by boys or create a positive school climate or reduce her friends’ aggressiveness and seemingly let those happen to her because they think that Pecola is ugly. Not like Maureen, who is a light-skinned and rich girl. When they call her, they will smile encouragingly. They treat their students differently by looking at the beauty or the color of the skin or wealthiness. The relation of teacher-students and peers-adolescents will impact mental condition and behavior (Aldridge, Ala’i, & Fraser, 2016). Neither her family, peers, nor teachers give Pecola a secure condition that makes her depressed seeing this situation. The Breedlove is from the lower class because both Cholly and Pauline are blue-collar workers. They are living on the first floor of a two-story-abandoned building, which used to the storefront. Now, it is a partition into two rooms by beaverboard planks that do not reach to the ceiling with the aged furniture and no toilet. All the settings of Pecola’s house describe that she is poor. The lower class commonly relates to poverty. It is negatively related to educational, career, and health service aspirations, so the adolescents living with this situation are hard to get opportunities in their lives and to explore their identities. At first, Pauline and Cholly decide to go to the north with the hope that their condition will be better. However, the fact Pauline is working as a servant at white’s house and Cholly is working as a blue-collar worker at mine coal so that money becomes the focus of their discussion and a trigger to begin a quarrel. Their marriage is shredded with quarrels. Facing financial difficulties make the Breedlove run from reality. Cholly runs to the drink while Pauline runs off on her impossible dreams. As a result, she hates her black image and her own culture, and Cholly becomes an alcoholic that is making their marriage gets worse. The sad thing is the effect on their children because they do not know what happiness, love, and attention since those never exist in the Breedlove. The black ethnic in America Africa is the largest ethnic minority in America (Santrock, 2003). The dark history of slavery labels African-American with a negative identity and creates racial discrimination. Pauline has told that she hates living in Lorain because she is feeling lonely and racism. Both of the whites and the colored are meanness to blacks, they despised blacks, as it is told: “Northern colored folk was different too. Dicty-like. No better than whites for meanness. They could make you feel just as no-count, ’cept I didn’t expect it from them.” Racial discrimination leads to the conception of superiority and inferiority by calling black people niggers or negroes, not blacks. The superiority of whites influences all the aspects of blacks living, including beauty, morality, and intelligence. All the black people believe that white is beautiful, clean, light, but nigger is dirty, black, and dumb. Pecola becomes a ‘scapegoat’. She experiences ‘internal racism’ from her mother and community, who are also black. There is another evidence of racism when Pecola meets a colored boy, Junior, whose mother, Geraldine, does not allow him to play with niggers instead of using blacks. She thinks that blacks are dirty and loud, but people of color are neat and quiet. She becomes prejudice to her people and tries to hide some part of her blackness, but her son wishes to play with them. Once, Junior sees Pecola walk in front of his house while his mother is not at home and asks her to get into his house, but by the time she is in his house, he locks her up in the room and throws his mother’s kitten to her face. However, suddenly, Geraldine comes home; she is furious to see Pecola is in her house. She speaks very rude and full of racist words, “Get out,” she said, her voice quiet. “You nasty little black bitch. Get out of my house.” She does not like seeing Pecola because of reminding her of something that she hates most is blackness. Pecola also gets ‘external racism’ when she wants to buy candy in Mr. Yacobowski’s store, a white man. He does not want to see and even to touch her hand to take the pennies because she is nothing for him. Whites have succeeded to build a negative image of blacks and ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to privilege their groups compared to the others; by using the terms ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, ‘inclusion’ or ‘exclusion’. Whites are not equal to Blacks. Blacks become marginalized so that they experience racism and prejudice; it can be seen in this excerpt. “...niggers were dirty and loud”; ’We reached Lake Shore Park, a city park laid out with rosebuds, fountains, bowling greens, picnic tables. It was empty now, but sweetly expectant of clean, white, wellbehaved children and parents who would play there above the lake in summer before half-running, halfstumbling down the slope to the welcoming water. Black people were not allowed in the park, and so it filled our dreams.” Pecola is not only marginalized in the white community but also her own people. Since her community has racial prejudice to blacks, it will be dehumanization the life of blacks. Unluckily she believes what they say that she is black and ugly. She perceives a negative stereotype about her ethnic-racial group; in other words, she turns down her black identity that is called identity self-denial. Pecola is described as a passive and weak girl as she accepts what people say and see. Though the white community is meanness to blacks, Pecola and her mother greatly admire white female movie stars. Unlike Claudia, who hates white people, her sister, Frieda and Pecola admire the beauty of Shirley Temple. Being woman is also a problem for her. The racism causes abusive behavior to the black men because they only dare to black women. When Cholly is trying to have intercourse with Darlene, they are caught by two white men. There is no resistance to them because he thinks whites are strong and armed. Cholly diverts his anger and resentful towards Darlene. Following the words of white people, he becomes aggressive to Darlene as if he raped her. Cholly becomes a sadist character who only loves to inflict pain on others because of his experiences of being abandoned by his parents, inability to fight back to whites, and the inability to show his love to his family. His feeling of frustrated becomes fatal for his family. As a father and husband, Cholly should take care of and respect his daughter and wife, instead of beating his wife and impregnating his daughter. Pecola’s weakness cannot fight back the aggressiveness of his father and the black boys at school. Cholly only shows his superiority in front of black women because he sees they are inferior. The culmination of the story begins when Pecola 262 LINGUA CULTURA, Vol. 13 No. 4, November 2019, 257-263 prays for blue eyes every night by thinking if she has them, her parents would love her and never fight again. Her friends and her teachers will love her, too. She has seen herself negatively that reflects her self-concept. She is delusional by having an imaginary friend and telling her that she is very happy to have them. Eriksson is famous for his theory about the psychosocial theory of development, which consists of eight stages. Those stages focus on life span, but the most popular one is the fifth stage; identity vs. identity confusion. He has written down that contexts influence one’s life. Like those stages of life span, the contexts are also relating. The identity development needs the support of the significant others and surrounding. The contexts prove that they influence Pecola’s life and her identity development. The first is the history of black people that attaches to their descendants, slavery. They have negative identities and a feeling of inferiority to face the superiority of the whites. The identity development begins since the baby was born. The first stage is about feeling security, whether her mother or caregiver fulfills all the baby needs, such as food and affection. It will arouse the feeling of trust. Consistent care and nurture enable the baby to gain self-confidence in the future (Erikson, 2010). The opposite outcome is mistrust. The process of Pecola’s identity development begins since she was a baby. Although this story focuses on her age of eleven and only one part tells about her past life, it may conclude that Pauline neglected her since she was a baby until she is eleven. Feeling abandoned and mistrust haunts her. She does not tell her mother of being raped by Cholly for the second time. It can be seen that there is no feeling of trust between mother-daughter. If she has a bond and trusts her mother, she would tell her everything happens to her without a feeling of hesitation or afraid. The result of those feelings it also creates a feeling of unworthy and despise. The results of the research show that a person’s childhood experiences greatly affect the development of his/her personality (character and emotional intelligence) (Afrilyanti, Herlina, Rahmalia, 2015). The formation of constructed identity is related to mental soundness and well-being (Ratner, 2014). The fifth stage is identity vs. identity confusion. The negligent parenting used by her parents is the main problem. The misconception of the beauty that her mother puts is deadly wrong, and rejection from the significant others like peers and her teachers worsens her condition. The way how someone sees himself/herself will influence psychological health. Pecola has the ideal self as having blue eyes that she thinks it is impossible to come true. She creates anxiety or neurosis for asking for the bluest eyes that are a sign of rejecting her identity. It can be concluded that the identity of Pecola cannot develop; she is in the status of identity confusion since she has a negative self-image, lack of self- confidence, and self-unworthy. Marcia’s theory also reveals that during the identity formation, Pecola does not make any exploration and commitment. The contexts show there are no positive signs of surroundings support or give affection. The impact of racism, abuse, and her desire to be loved by anybody lead her to madness. The experience that Pecola gets from the contexts is very devastating. Her identity development cannot develop properly. Because of wanting their love and attention, she thinks to have blue eyes that drive her crazy. One of the keys to having a positive identity is that people have to accept what they have, but she does not. This concludes that the identity of Pecola is diffusion. CONCLUSIONS The Bluest Eye describes an African-American girl who struggles to find her identity. Based on the findings and analysis, it is concluded that the contexts influence the identity development of the main character. The conflicts in the contexts that consist of family, peers, school, social class, ethnicity, and gender influence the Pecola’s life. They do not support Pecola to receive what she has. They force her to insanity. She becomes lost direction in her life that makes her thinks about changing her identity. Living under the multiple oppressions of high perceived parental neglect, external locus control, and rejection of her surroundings, negative identity, greatly influence her life and cause her state of mind damaged. In other words, it is very difficult for Pecola to develop her own identity because the influence of the contexts gives negative self-image, lack of self-esteem, anxiety, and trauma. The effects create of self-loathe. She does not do any exploration and commitment to finding her own identity. She wants to have blue eyes and white skin that drives her mad. So it is concluded that based on Erikson and Marcia’s theories that the identity of Pecola cannot develop, and she experiences identity confusion. The limitation of this research is to find the influence of the contexts to Pecola’s identity and the stage of her identity development. The Bluest Eye has been researched by many people; however, there are still some aspects that can be explored, such as the setting, the author’s life compares to her novel as known that the author is also an African American, or using other theories. The findings from this research still need further investigation. REFERENCES Afrilyanti., Herlina., Rahmalia, S. (2015). Hubungan pola asuh orangtua dengan status identitas diri remaja. Jurnal Online Mahasiswa, 2(2), 1–9. Aldridge, J. M., Ala’i, K. G., & Fraser, B. J. (2016). Relationships between school climate and adolescent students’ self-reports of ethnic and moral identity. 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