Father Cholly, a habitual drunk, and Mother Pauline are locked into a violent marriage, while the children, Pecola and Sammy, daily brace themselves to endure their parents' fighting. In this dark world, Pecola prays fervently for blue eyes, believing that if she were pretty and had blue eyes, ugly things wouldn't happen.
However, what Pecola doesn't realize is that there are two kinds of ugliness here — real and imagined. The real ugliness of one character's words and deeds is juxtaposed to another character's imagined ugliness; for example, Maureen's behavior toward Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda could truly be described as "ugly"; on the other hand, Pecola no doubt imagines herself far more uglier than she actually is.
Pecola imagines that she is ugly because of the actions and remarks of people like Mr. Yacobowski, who owns the neighborhood candy store.
His unwillingness to touch Pecola's hand is reminiscent of the black dirt metaphor used earlier to describe her. The tension between the two people is taut. Pecola's palms perspire, and for the first time she is aware that she and her body are repulsive to another human being. Morrison emphasizes that the storekeeper does not touch her. Only his nails graze her damp palm, like disembodied claws scratching symbolically at the soft underbelly of a vulnerable target — a little girl's outstretched palm.
Once outside the store, utterly convinced of her ugliness, Pecola insatiably consumes Mary Jane candies, staring at the perfect and pretty, blond, blue-eyed girl on the pale wrapper. Not only Pecola but everyone in the Breedlove family imagines that they are ugly because they are black; they have accepted the slave master's dictum: "You are ugly people. Whereas Claudia reacts to her doll with anger and destruction, though, rejecting its presence, the Breedloves simply seem to harbor an internalized resentment towards their furniture, but nonetheless accept it.
She visualizes the ugliness contagion that originates from Cholly as a type of garment which each member of the family wears distinctly Pecola comes to truly believe that the ugliness belongs to her, and like her family does the sofa, accepts her ugliness as a fact of her existence. She was different from us now- grown-up-like.
Oftentimes in novels it feels like markers of physical development: reaching puberty or getting a first grey hair etc. Though gay herself, it seems as though her realization came at least in part from her idolization of masculinity—as in, Alison wanted to take on the role of the man in her house with all that would entail i. She laments that her coming out did not separate her from her family as she intended but it seemed destined to be that way.
For the majority of the novel, Bechdel is a pretty omniscient narrator, but not fully omniscient. She is omniscient in comparison with her younger self that she is describing because as she writes this novel, she now knows way more about her parents, especially her father, than her younger self knew.
Although she knows more about her father than she did back then, she still does not have the whole picture, so her narration of her own history is limited. When her diary entries come in, the narration switches from memory to actual primary accounts. These can verify the events and feelings she has been describing. However, most of the entries she includes do not say much; they certainly do not detail and analyze events the way she is doing as she is narrating the novel. I made popcorn.
I find it so interesting that she from the present is invalidating her own written account from the past. Does she really remember that she was lying about the dance in her diary? Pecola walks to the grocery store to buy candy. She wonders why people consider dandelions ugly. She decides to buy Mary Janes, but she has difficulty communicating with Mr. Yacobowski, the store owner, who seems to look right through her. He does not understand what she is pointing at and speaks harshly to her.
He does not want to touch her hand when she passes over her money. Walking home, Pecola is angry but most of all ashamed. She decides dandelions are ugly, whereas blonde, blue-eyed Mary Jane, pictured on the candy wrapper, is beautiful. Pecola goes to visit the whores who live in the apartment above hers, China, Poland, and Miss Marie.
Miss Marie tells stories about turning one of her boyfriends over to the FBI and about Dewey Prince, the one man she truly loved. The narrator tells us that these are not hookers with hearts of gold or women whose innocence has been betrayed. Quite simply, these women cheerfully and unsentimentally hate men. They feel neither ashamed of nor victimized by their profession. Pecola wonders what love is like.
This chapter portrays victimhood as a complex phenomenon rather than a simple, direct relationship between oppressor and oppressed. Instead, the narrator suggests, it seems.
Crime and Punishment Dr. Jekyll and Mr. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook.
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