Superiority

During the chapter where we learn about Cholly’s background story, Cholly’s need to feel dominant pops up in our class discussion. Following his scene with getting caught with Darlene by the two white men, “sullen, irritable, he cultivated his hatred of Darlene” (Morrison 150). Why couldn’t he direct his anger towards the white men? Because in this era, the white were superior to the black.  Cholly is fully aware of this and feels a sense of hopelessness because what can he do to the white men? So unable to do anything, he turns his anger towards Darlene, who is socially and legally less powerful than him.

This can be related to present day too. This attitude he is expressing is similar to the superiority complex; a defense mechanism in which a person’s feelings of superiority conceal his or her feelings of inferiority. It does not represent Cholly’s case exactly, but we could say that his blame towards Darlene is essentially covering up his inferiority of being black.

There has actually been this research project on how acting superior masks inferior feelings. Led by a developmental psychopathologist named Kristin Valentino, she and other researchers study young children who have been neglected and see how this affects their attitude. They found out that if the child was malnourished, they were more likely to act more superior to the other kids. This also meant they had more insecurities. We know that Cholly had a neglected childhood due to the absence of his parents. Even his Aunt wasn’t that affectionate towards him so it’s possible that this lead him to have insecurities and later lead to the demise of his relationship with Pauline.

This subject also is shown in the earlier chapters, where we see Pecola being bullied by some boys of her own kinds. A popular reason-popular being what the presenters say during those bullying presentations-why they bully is that they are trying to release their pent-up frustration or so that they can feel superior in a community where they are the lesser people. This can be traced back to Cholly’s situation, where he wanted to channel his anger towards something harmless. Pecola, similar to Darlene, is seen as weak and on the bottom of the social status just because she is a girl. To the boys, she is the perfect prey.

Source: www.psychologytoday.com