The sisters go to visit Pecola, who now lives in a drab downstairs apartment the top floor is home to three prostitutes - Marie ("Miss Maginot Line"), China, and Poland. Henry for touching Frieda's tiny breasts. Geraldine suddenly arrives home, and Junior immediately blames the cat's death on Pecola.Ĭlaudia's narrative resumes with Spring, and she tells us about painful whippings and about her father beating Mr.
The bluest eye full#
Trying to save the cat, Pecola grabs Junior, who falls and releases the cat, letting it fly full force against the window. Junior grabs the cat and begins swinging it in circles. The blue eyes in the cat's black face mesmerize her. She is momentarily distracted by the black cat rubbing against her. Scratched and terrified, Pecola moves toward the door, but Junior blocks her way. Once inside, Junior hurls his mother's big black cat in her face. Neglected by his aloof and status-conscious mother, Junior wickedly lures an unsuspecting Pecola into his house under the pretense of showing her some kittens. The omniscient narrator now describes Geraldine, her son Junior, and her much-loved blue-eyed black cat. " Deeply hurt, Pecola curls her shoulders forward in misery. Maureen runs across the street and screams back at the three girls, "I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly. Claudia and Frieda quarrel with her, and during the squabble, Claudia swings at Maureen but hits Pecola instead. The world seems wonderful until Maureen begins to talk about Pecola's father's nakedness. Maureen then links arms with Pecola and buys her some ice cream. Maureen moves quickly and stands beside Pecola, and the boys leave. On the playground, Frieda rescues her from a vicious group of boys who are harassing her. She is enchanting and popular with both the black and white children. She remembers the arrival of Maureen Peal, a new girl in school, whom Claudia calls "the disrupter." Despite Maureen's protruding dog-tooth and the fact that she was born with an extra finger on each hand (removed at birth), Maureen seems to embody everything perfect she has long, beautiful hair, light skin, green eyes, and bright, clean, pretty clothes. Maybe everything would be beautiful.Ĭlaudia's narrative returns with Winter. Each night Pecola fervently prays for blue eyes, sky-blue eyes, thinking that if she looked different - pretty - perhaps everything would be better. We see Pecola and her brother, Sammy, bracing themselves for the ordeal of listening to their mother quarreling violently with their drunken father, Cholly, as he tries to sleep off the effects of the previous night's whiskey.Īgainst a backdrop of grinding poverty, with her parents locked in an ugly cycle of hostility and violence, Pecola seeks hope in her prayers for beauty, which she feels will lead to her being loved. She describes the house where the Breedloves lived (before Cholly burned it down), and she points out the antagonistic relationship between Pecola's parents. The second narrator offers us her memories about Pecola's family. Pecola and the MacTeer girls share childhood adventures, and what Claudia remembers in particular is the startling onset of Pecola's puberty when the eleven-year-old girl unexpectedly has her first menstrual period. The family soon has another roomer - Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl whom county officials place in the MacTeer home after Pecola's father burns the family house down. Henry as a roomer because his rent money will help pay bills. Claudia and her older sister, Frieda, have just started school. We then segue into a lengthy flashback, to Autumn 1940, a year before the fall when no marigolds bloomed. She tells us that Pecola's father, Cholly Breedlove, is now dead, the baby is dead, and the innocence of the young girls also died that fall. She was only a child then, but she remembers that no marigolds bloomed that fall, and she and her friends thought it was probably because their friend and playmate, Pecola, was having her father's baby. Claudia MacTeer is now a grown woman, telling us about certain events that happened during the fall of 1941.