Character Analysis Pauline After she has been fired by a white employer and treated like an animal by white doctors, she begins perversely to treat her daughter, Pecola, with the same contempt. She is often cruel, cold, and aloof to Pecola as she looks at her daughter’s eyes and sees only ugliness.

Why does Pauline beat Pecola?

Pecola’s mother, also known as Polly and Mrs. Breedlove. She beats Pecola when she learns of Cholly’s rape of her. …

What nickname do the Fishers give Pauline?

Nevertheless, she is able to have “beauty, order, cleanliness and praise” at the Fishers’ home, which is something that her own family has apparently never given her. The Fishers appreciate her and their little daughter calls her “Polly”; this familiarity and respect is what Pauline has always wanted.

Who called Pauline Polly?

They know it is Pauline’s own child who needs comforting most. In this scene, note that whereas Pecola calls her mother “Mrs. Breedlove,” the little Fisher girl, assuming a superior attitude toward an adult servant of the family, condescendingly calls Pecola’s mother “Polly.”

Why does Mrs. Breedlove stay with Cholly?

Cholly’s immorality allows her to feel superior and self-righteous, and those are the feeling on which she props herself up, on which she survives. Likewise, Cholly stays with Mrs. Breedlove because he needs someone to unload the hatred instilled in him as a boy by two racist men.

Who is Pecola's imaginary friend?

Alone, with no one to turn to, Pecola creates her own imaginary friend, someone who will listen while she talks about her new blue eyes. Everyone, we hear, is jealous of how pretty and “really, truly, bluely nice” they are, so perfect and powerful that not even strong sunlight can force Pecola to blink.

Who is Cholly Breedlove?

Pecola’s father, Cholly is a violent and severely damaged man. From a young age Cholly has been free—his mother left him on a trash heap as an infant, and his caretaker dies when he is an adolescent—but his freedom is both isolating and dangerous, allowing him to commit heinous acts without remorse.

Why does Claudia want a baby alive?

Claudia can picture the baby in the womb, with beautiful eyes, lips, and skin. She thinks that wanting Pecola’s baby to live is a way to counteract everyone else’s love of white dolls and white little girls. … They will bury the money by Pecola’s house and bury the seeds in their own yard so that they can tend them.

Who hates white dolls in The Bluest Eye?

Claudia hates the white doll that is given to her. Her hatred for this comes from her hated of Shirley temple. When her sister and piccolo would play with the Shirley temple cup Claudia would get annoyed.

Who is blamed for killing geraldines cat?

At this moment, Geraldine comes home, and Junior tells her that Pecola has killed the cat.

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What happened to Pecola's baby?

Pecola wanders the street jerking her arms as if trying to fly. Claudia and Frieda feel like failures because their flowers never grow and Pecola’s baby is prematurely stillborn. Cholly dies in a workhouse, and Pecola and Mrs. Breedlove move to a house on the edge of town.

What is symbolic of Polly's rotten tooth?

While she blames her lot in life on her injured leg, the narrator indicates that the blame lies with her tooth. … Such a statement indicates that if Pauline had not become obsessed with actresses in movies, she would not have broken her tooth and could have better self-esteem.

What prevents Pauline from viewing her daughter as beautiful?

Pauline’s lame foot is a constant source of humiliation for her. Once she moves to Ohio, she must contend with regional and social class barriers to normative beauty that she had never imagined.

Who is Claudia MacTeer?

Claudia MacTeer The narrator of parts of the novel. An independent and strong-minded nine-year-old, Claudia is a fighter and rebels against adults’ tyranny over children and against the black community’s idealization of white beauty standards. She has not yet learned the self-hatred that plagues her peers.

Why does Morrison give Pauline a voice?

By giving Pauline a “voice,” Morrison enables us to hear Pauline and to see through her eyes and with her perceptions. Why does Morrison do this?

What does Pauline's rotten tooth symbolize for her?

Cholly pokes fun at Pauline’s missing tooth, and they begin fighting the way they did before she’d found out she was pregnant. Losing her tooth symbolically represents the loss of her dreams of attaining whiteness and her acceptance of ugliness.

What is in the front room of the breedloves apartment?

The narrator supposes that no one remembers the time when the Breedloves lived there, back when the storefront was divided into two rooms by some wooden planks. In the front room, there are two sofas, a piano, and an artificial Christmas tree that has not been taken down for two years.

Is Soaphead church black?

The narrator tells the history of Soaphead Church, a self-declared “Reader, Adviser, and Interpreter of Dreams” in Lorain’s black community. A light-skinned West Indian, he was raised in a family proud of its mixed blood. His family has always been academically and politically ambitious, and always corrupt.

Why did the breedloves live in the storefront?

The narrator announces that the Breedloves live in the storefront because they are black and poor, and because they believe they are ugly. They are not objectively ugly.

Why do the breedloves have a broken couch?

The couch in particular is a source of pain and anger. … The rip in the upholstery connects to the perceived ugliness of the family, and also reveals the couch’s cheap frame, an image that alludes to the Breedlove’s frail family structure.

What was Cholly childhood like?

An unnamed narrator details Cholly’s childhood. At four days old, Cholly’s mother abandons him on a junk heap. His Great Aunt Jimmy rescues him, and later beats his mother with a razor strap. … Cholly has never had a sense of home and family, which sheds light on his inability to be a father.

Why does Darlene hate Cholly?

We learn that Cholly hated Darlene only because his subconscious knew that directing his hatred towards the white men would have consumed him, and while having an explanation does not make the action any less inexcusable, we are told the emotions and thoughts that lead him to rape his own daugther.

Who is Pecola's father?

She loves this home and despises her own. Cholly, Pecola’s father, was abandoned by his parents and raised by his great aunt, who died when he was a young teenager. He was humiliated by two white men who found him having sex for the first time and made him continue while they watched.

Who lives above the Breedlove's apartment?

• Rosemary Villanucci.
• Henry Washington.
• China, Poland, and Miss Marie.
• Maureen Peal.

Why did Pecola's mother beat her?

Pecola’s mother beat her when she found out what happened, and Cholly run’s away. Some community members believe Pecola is to blame for the horrible situation. Some believe she should be pulled out of school. Others hope the baby dies.

What happened to Pecola's eyes?

She is raped by her drunken father and self-deceived into believing that God has miraculously given her the blue eyes that she prayed for. She loses her baby, and shortly afterward she loses her sanity.

Why is Claudia jealous of Frieda?

Claudia is jealous for a number of reasons. She is upset about having to hear the big news from Frieda, and complains that she “always misses stuff.” She also considers Frieda to be lucky to have been pinched by Mr. Henry, since she is so flat-chested she has “nothing to pinch.”

Why did Claudia destroy white dolls?

why does Claudia destroy the white baby dolls? Claudia destroys the white baby dolls because she is so curious to figure out what specifically makes these white dolls so special ,desirable, and loved by everyone. She also destorys the baby dolls as a source of empowerment.

What does Claudia hope to discover by taking apart or dismembering white dolls?

Claudia explains that she has always hated Shirley Temple and also the blonde, blue-eyed baby doll that she was given for Christmas. She is confused about why everyone else thinks such dolls are lovable, and she pulls apart her doll trying to discover where its “beauty” is located.

What is the only thing Geraldine feels true affection for?

She keeps her house immaculately clean and is obsessed with the physical appearance of her home and family. As a mother and wife she is cold, and feels true affection only for her cat.

What happened between Mr Henry Frieda?

It turns out that Henry touched Frieda’s breasts. Frieda ran from the house to find her parents, who were in the garden, and told them what had happened. She returned with her parents to the house, but Henry was gone.