Page 15
“Frieda brought her four graham crackers
on a saucer and some milk in a blue-and-white
Shirley Temple cup. She was a long time with the
milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley
Temple's dimpled face. Frieda and she had a
loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley
Temple was. I couldn't join them in their
adoration because I hated Shirley. Not because
she was cute, but because she danced with
Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my
daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it
and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying,
sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of
those little white girls whose socks never slid
down there heels. So I said, 'I like Jane Withers.' ”
Context
This part of the story is told from the point
of view of Claudia. It takes place while Pecola is
staying with the Macteer family, and Claudia and
Frieda try to be nice to her, to keep her from feeling
'outdoors.' Frieda and Pecola start to discuss how
cute they find Shirley Temple to be, but Claudia
does not join the conversation, claiming to hate
Shirley Temple. Claudia, later in the chapter goes
on to describe how this hatred is for most white
girls, even white dolls. She finds Raggedy Ann
dolls, “physically revolting.” She even goes so far
as to dismember a white doll she was given.
Analysis
This is one of the first signs of Claudia's
hatred toward the Black community's idealization
of white beauty standards. Frieda and Pecola, who
are closer to adolescence than Claudia, have
already allowed their view of beauty to be
corrupted by the outside world. Claudia, on the
other hand, has yet to learn the self hatred the other
girls have. Though Claudia feels some form of
jealousy towards Shirley Temple, it is not beauty
she envies, but that Shirley Temple got to dance
with Bojangles. Bojangles is a nickname of Bill
Robinson, an African American tap dancer. Claudia
feels like Shirley Temple doesn't deserve to dance
with Bojangles because Shirley Temple is white.
Bojangles should be dancing with black girls, like
Claudia, whom he has more kinship with. The
italics in, “my friend, my uncle, my daddy,”
emphasize this feeling of possession Claudia has
for Bojangles. This could be seen as a metaphor for
how the Black community, Bojangles, appreciates
white beauty, Shirley Temple, more than black
beauty, Claudia. Claudia knows the other girls
won't understand, so she doesn't voice her opinion,
merely states that she, “likes Jane Withers.”
 Page 46 Context

“It had occurred to Pecola some time ago This part of the story is in Pecola's point of
that if her eyes, those eyes that held pictures, and view. Pecola is unliked at school and her parents
knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were are constantly fighting at home. She has very few
different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would ways to cope with her miserable life. She envies the
be different. Her teeth were good, and at least her lives of white girls with their blue eyes, thinking
nose was not big and flat like some of those who that being beautiful is the key to being loved by the
were thought so cute. If she looked different, world. In only she had blue eyes the world would
beautiful, maybe Cholly would be different, and find her beautiful and love her. But she doesn't
Mrs. Breedlove too. Maybe they'd say, 'Why, look have those pretty blue eyes, she thinks of herself as
at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in ugly, and that ugliness is why the world hates her.
front of those pretty eyes.' ” The only solace she has is thinking all her problems
would be solved if she had blue eyes.

Analysis

This may be the first sign Pecola's obsession

with white beauty is unhealthy. The constant hatred
Pecola receives from her schoolmates and abuse
from her parents made her mind incredibly fragile
and delicate. She doesn't know why the world hates
her, and is only able to rationalize the reason is
because she is ugly. That is why she wishes for
blue eyes. She rationalizes that blue eyes would be
the solution to all of her problems, the world would
find her beautiful, therefore love her, and no longer
abuse her, “Why, look at pretty eyed Pecola, we
mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes.”
But when Pecola finally does get her pretty eyes it
is after the world has abused her so much that her
fragile mind has snapped. For the cost of her
sanity, she finally perceives herself as beautiful.
 Page 57 Context

“Pecola went to the window and looked Pecola is talking to the prostitutes that live
down at the empty street. A tuft of grass had forced next door, when she learns that Miss Marie once
its way up through a crack in the sidewalk, only to had a lover called Dewey Prince. They had been
meet a raw October wind. She thought of Dewey teen aged lovers who had run away from home.
Prince and how he loved Miss Marie. What did That was before Miss Marie learned she could sell
love feel like? She wondered. How do grown-ups herself for sex and make money. It isn't revealed
act when they love each other? Eat fish together? why they broke up, apparently they had children,
Into her eyes came the picture of Cholly and Mrs. but after confirmation of this fact the topic is
Breedlove in bed. He making sounds as though her immediately dismissed. Pecola is left to wonder
were in pain, as though something had him by the what love truly is, and what it is like to be loved
throat and wouldn't let go. Terrible as his noises since no one she knows has a healthy relationship.
were, they were not nearly as bad as the no noise at
all from her mother. It was as though she was not Analysis
even there. Maybe that was love. Choking sounds
ans silence.” Pecola doesn't know what love feels like,
she only knows what others tell her about love.
This relates back to when in bed with Frieda and
Claudia she asked, “How do you do that? I mean,
how do you get someone to love you?” (page 32)
Pecola's mother doesn't love her, thinking herself to
be a self made martyr for her bad marriage. When
Cholly and Pecola's mother make love, they don't
do it as a bond between two people who love each
other, but as an form of utter submittal from the
wife to Cholly. “Maybe that was love. Choking
sounds and silence,” represents how warped
Pecola's view of love is. She has no way of
knowing any kind of love that isn't perverted in
some way. Why should she? No one has ever
purely just loved her because she's Pecola. Her
mother doesn't love her. Cholly doesn't know how a
parent should love a child, since his parents never
loved him. Cholly expresses his love for Pecola in
the completely wrong way when he rapes Pecola.
The only kind of love Pecola will ever know is
perverted, selfish love, not pure love.
 Page 86 Context

“Geraldine did not allow her baby, Junior, to Geraldine is a Mobile girl. She is a black
cry. As long as his needs were physical, she could woman who learns to act as a proper white house
meet them—comfort and satiety. He was always wife, and marries a white man to gain security, but
brushed, bathed, oiled, and shod. Geraldine did not this is a hollow, loveless marriage. She feels
talk to him, coo to him, or indulge him in kissing nothing during sex, she merely submits to her
bouts, but she saw every other desire was fulfilled. husband. When she does have a child with her
It was not long before the child discovered the husband she doesn't love it, she will take care of its
difference in his mother's behavior to himself and needs physically, but not emotionally. She loves her
the cat. As he grew older, he learned how to direct cat more than she loves her own son, which is why
his hated of his mother to the cat, and spent some Junior hates the cat.
happy moments watching it suffer. The cat
survived, because Geraldine was seldom away Analysis
from home, and could effectively sooth the animal
when Junior abused him.” Geraldine's hollow, loveless marriage
parallels Pecola's parents' marriage. Both wives just
submit to their husbands during sex, neither truly
loving their husbands, nor the children they have.
Junior's lack of loves leads him to develop into a
cruel child, thriving on bullying those he perceives
weak. He especially likes to pick on girls, because
he can get an emotional reaction from them. Junior
feels good being able to emotionally affect a girl,
even if it is making her cry, since he can't evoke an
emotional response from his mother. Pecola
contrasts Junior, where Junior has developed
aggressively from his lack of love, Pecola has
developed passively. Pecola doesn't take he misery
and pain out on others like Junior, she merely takes
the abuse, and focuses it internally rather than
externally, which fuels her self hatred, desire for
blue eyes, and eventually causes her mind to snap.
 Page 116 Context

“And then she lost her front tooth. But there At this point in the story, Cholly and
must have been a speck, a brown speck easily Pauline are still in the early stages of their
mistaken for food but which did not leave, which marriage. They are still very much in love. Pauline
sat on the enamel for months, and grew, until it cut is still hoping for a happy marriage, a happy
into the surface and then to the brown putty ending. After the couple heads up north, Pauline's
underneath, finally eating away to the root, but tooth falls out. It is a sign of the friction that will
avoiding the nerves,so its presence was not start between the two lovers, eventually creating
noticeable or uncomfortable. Then the weakened the ruined relationship Pecola knows them to have.
roots, having grown accustomed to the poison,
responded one day to severe pressure, and the tooth Analysis
fell free, leaving a ragged stump behind. But even
before the little brown speck, there must have been The tooth is a metaphor for Pauline and
conditions, the setting that would allow it to exist inCholly's marriage. The brown speck represents the
the first place.” flaws they both have, and the doubt in Pauline's
mind that everything will work out. The spot also
represents the issues she begins to have with
Cholly, but they don't try to solve their relationship
problems, the problems just get worse and worse
over time, “sat on the enamel for months.” Like the
spot that grew until finally eating away at the root,
so do the problems in their relationship until
Pauline has lost all hope. The tooth falling out by,
“having grown accustomed to the poison,”
represents when Pauline snaps after putting up with
Cholly for to long, and starts to consider her
marriage a form of martyrdom. The conditions for
the brown speck to grow would be the bad qualities
and histories they both have that would eventually
end in an unhappy marriage. Pauline parent's
neglected her. Cholly didn't have any parents at all,
so he never learned how a husband should treat his
wife, nor for that matter, how a father should treat
his children. Cholly also enjoyed the freedom he
had when he was young and single, when he
realizes he's trapped in him marriage he starts
drinking. The conditions for an unhappy marriage
were set up from the start, just as the tooth was
always going to fall out.
 Page 134 Context:

“The father of the family lifted the melon This part of the story is told from the point
high over his head—his big arms looks taller than of view of Cholly. Cholly still lives with his Aunt
the sun. Tall, head forward, eyes fastened on a Jimmy and has he dropped out of school to work at
rock, his arms higher than the pines, his hands Tyson's Feed and Grain Store. He works with a nice
holding on a melon bigger than the sun, he paused old man, Blue Jack, who acts as a father figure for
an instant to get his bearing and secure his aim. Cholly. This passage is one of the memories Cholly
Watching the figure etched against the bright blue has of Blue Jack, where they are at a church picnic
sky, Cholly felt goose pimples popping along his on the fourth of July. The father of a family is about
arms and neck. He wondered if God looked like to crack open a watermelon, and all the kids are
that. No. God was a nice old white man, with long gathered around in anticipation. After the
white hair, flowing white beard, and little blue eyes watermelon is split, Blue Jack gets the heart and
that looked sad when people died and mean when splits it with Cholly.
they were bad. It must be the devil who looks like
that—holding the world in his hands, ready to dash Analysis
it to the ground and spill the red guts so niggers
could eat the sweet, warm insides. If the devil did Cholly view of God is parallels the black
look like that, Cholly preferred him. He never felt communities idealization of white beauty, but
anything thinking about God, but the idea of the instead of beauty it's white religion. It is especially
devil excited him. And now the strong, black devil important that God has “little blue eyes,” because
was blotting out the sun and getting ready to split this relates to the idealization of white beauty.
open the world.” Because Cholly has been taught to picture God as a
white, judgmental old man, he feels nothing toward
him. He can't relate to other people who worship
God and want God's love, since why would Cholly
want an old white man's love? He feels more of a
kinship with the Devil. This may be a sign that
would later lead to Cholly's rebellion to society's
standards, with the drinking, beating his wife,
raping, etc. Cholly's view on God sharply contrasts
his wife's view. His wife believes Jesus is salvation,
going so far as to think herself a martyr for their
marriage. Cholly feels more kinship with the devil
because the devil rebelled, the devil is free just like
he wants to be. Cholly's view of God and the devil
can be a more subtle metaphor for how in society,
people have the instinct that black is bad and white
is good. As children we learn right from wrong,
black from white. When we're young everything is
oversimplified, there's pure good, white, and there's
pure bad, black. As we grow older we learn this not
to be true, the world is not made up of blacks and
whites, but shades of gray. Though Cholly does feel
more kinship with the devil, he is not pure black,
nor pure white . He a man with morals, and some
good intentions, and as such is a shade of gray.
 Page 148 Context

“ 'Get wid it, nigger,' said the flashlight one. Cholly's Aunt Jimmy has just died and the
'Sir?' said Cholly, trying to find a buttonhole. extended family is over for the funeral. When the
'I said, get on wid it An' make it good, nigger, make funeral is over they go back to the house and eat.
it good.” Cholly eats greedily and trues to get to know his
There was no place for Cholly's eyes to go. cousins. Through second marriages and half-
They slid about furtively searching for shelter, siblings its not too clear whether they are
while his body remained paralyzed. The flashlight biologically his cousins. Cholly and Jake try to pick
man lifted his gun down from his shoulder, and up girls. Cholly, Jake, Suky and Darlene go for a
Cholly heard the clop of metal. He dropped back to walk through several backyards and open fields
his knees. Darlene has her head averted, her eyes until then happen upon a white vineyard and eat
staring out the lamplight into the surroundings grapes. Cholly and Darlene then find themselves
darkness and looking almost unconcerned, as along, flirt for a little bit, and start to have sex, but
though they had no part in the drama taking place before Cholly can get into it, two white men with
around them. With a violence born of total flashlights and guns show up. The white men force
helplessness, he pulled her dress up, lowered his them to have sex as they laugh and watch.
trousers and underwear.
'Hee hee hee hee heeeeee.' Analysis
Darlene put her hands over her face as
Cholly began simulate what had gone on before. Being forced to have sex as someone
He could do no more than make-believe. The watches and laughs negatively affected Cholly's
flashlight made a moon on his behind. sexual development, to say the least. Having his
'Hee hee hee hee heeee.' first act of sexual intercourse perverted in such a
'Come on, coon. Faster. You ain't doing manner, lead him to associate bad feelings with the
nothing for her.' action. The sweet taste of grapes becoming rotten,
'Hee hee hee hee heeee' is a metahor for how the passionate act of love
Cholly, moving faster looked at Darlene. He making loses all love, “sweetness,” after this
hated her. He almost wished he could do it-- hard, incident to Cholly, and becomes “rotten.” Cholly
long, and painfully, he hated her so much. The hates his first sexual partner because he is
flashlight wormed its way into his guts and turned humiliated, he is doing all the work while she just
the sweet taste of muscadine into rotten fetid bile. lies there and does nothing. This incident would
He stared at Darlene's hands covering her face in later affect Cholly's sex life with his wife, who also
the moon and the lamplight. They looked like baby lets Cholly have his way with her while she
claws.” remains completely silent. Since Cholly's view of
love makes him twisted, he can't teach his children
to love properly, which is why Pecola think love
might be, “choking sounds and silence.” Cholly is a
warped lover, made so by his first sexual
experience, so any loves he gives is also warped.
Cholly may love Pecola, but with his warped love,
and he expresses that love when he rapes her,
warping her as well.
 Page 159 Context

“Only a musician would sense, know, All of Cholly's family has abandoned him at
without even knowing that he knew, that Cholly this point in his life; his father rejected him, his
was free. Dangerously free. Free to feel whatever mother abandoned him and now that his Aunt
he felt—fear, guilt, shame, love, grief, pity. Free to Jimmy is dead he has no ties to anyone. He is truly
be tender or violent, to whistle or weep. Free to alone. But with this isolation comes a feeling of
sleep in doorways or between the sheets of a freedom that he has never felt before. It is in this
singing woman. Free to take a job, free to leave it. state that he meets Pauline, who he would marry
He could go to jail and not feel imprisoned, for he and lose his freedom to.
had already seen the furtiveness in the eyes of his
jailer, free to say, 'No, suh,' and smile, for he had Analysis
already killed three white men. Free to take a
woman's insults, for his body had already When Cholly became free he also became
conquered hers. Free even to knock her head in, for dangerous. The feeling of freedom he gets is
he had already cradled that head in his arms. Free overwhelming and he loves it. He can do whatever
to be gentle when she was sick, or mop her floor, he wants with no one to tie him down. He could die
for she knew what and where his maleness was. He and no one would care. Cholly wants this feeling of
was free to drink himself into a silly helplessness, freedom to last forever, and when he marries
for he had already be a gandy dancer, done thirty Pauline, he doesn't think how marriage will restrict
days on a chain gang, and picked a woman's bullet his freedom. He is used to putting himself first, he
form the calf of his leg. He was free to live his can't love his wife properly because he is a warped
fantasies, and free even to die, the how and the lover. When the marriage starts having issues, he
when of which held no interest for him. In those feels entitled to be able to drink himself into a
days Cholly was truly free. Abandoned in a junk stupor, and hit his wife if she doesn't agree. Cholly
heap by his mother, rejected for a crap game by his doesn't know how to care or love his wife and kids
father, there was nothing more to lose. He was because he is used to being free where no one loved
alone with his own perceptions and appetites, and him, nor cared for him and he wasn't held down by
they alone interested him. anything. But when Cholly finally realizes that his
family is weighing him down, he starts drinking
because he has lost his freedom, and he has to love
his family, even if he doesn't know how.
 Page 188 Context

“During summer of the seed selling we The story shifts back to Claudia's point of
thought about the money, thought about the seeds, view, as it was in the beginning. Pecola has been
and listened with only half an ear to what people raped by her dad and the girls are slowly learned
were saying. In the houses of people who knew us what has happened to Pecola by over hearing other
we were asked to come in and sit, given cold water people's conversations.
or lemonade; and while we sat there being
refreshed people continued their conversations or Analysis
went about their chores. Little by little we began to
piece a story together, a secret, terrible, awful story. This passage shows that Claudia and Frieda are
And it was only after two or three such vaguely growing up. They are no longer as innocent as
over heard conversations that we realized that the they were in the beginning of the book. I say this
story was about Pecola.” because it reminds me of my own childhood.
When I was little I didn't know bad things
happened to friends or family, because adults tend
to glaze over the details they don't deem kid
friendly. As I grew older I began to piece together
stories from adult's conversations, much like
Frieda and Claudia, that proved my family had a
few skeletons in the closet that they kept from me
when I was younger, like that my aunt was raped
as a teenager, and that one of my uncle's
committed suicide. There comes a time in
everyone's childhood where they learn of the
skeletons. It is on that day that we loose a bit of
that childlike innocence that let us view the world
in, well, such an innocent fashion. This passage
may not contribute much to the meaning of the
book overall, but I think it embodies that loss of
innocence where we learn bad things can happen
to people we love, and that the world isn't as
innocent as a child sees it.
 Page 206
“Oh, some of us 'loved her. The Maginot
Line. And Cholly loved her. I'm sure he did. He, at
any rate, was the one who loved her enough to
touch her, envelope her, give something of himself
to her. But his touch was fatal, and the something
he gave her filled the matrix of her agony with
death. Love is never any better than the lover.
Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love
violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people
love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never
safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover
alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is
shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover's
inward eyes.”
Context
It is the last chapter of the book, and
Claudia attempts to reveal to the reader what
Pecola's story means. This is after the girls have
grown up and Pecola's gone insane after being
raped. Sammy has left town. Cholly is dead. Mrs.
Breedlove still does housework, and lives with
Pecola on the far side of town.
Analysis
Claudia describes love as a potentially
damaging power. She thinks that Cholly really did
love Pecola. Cholly was warped from his first
sexual experience, and according to Claudia, “Love
is never any better than the lover.” Since Cholly
was warped, the love he gave Pecola was also
warped, so it ended up damaging her more that
helping her. All the broken human beings in this
story can't love properly, because their love mirrors
themselves. Romantic love can also be damaging if
it creates the need for beauty, the kind black girls
will never be able to have because of the racist
standards of society. But Claudia hopes that a kind
of pure love exists in the world. Love that is a
sincere gift for the beloved, and not some
perversion of love mixed with other emotions.