The Bluest Eye

1
The Bluest Eye

• Sexual Initiation and Abuse.

2
Pecola

• Pecola, Frieda and Claudia are innocently trying
  to decide what to do with the afternoon, when
  Pecola stands up in horror to discover she is
  bleeding. Frieda is the only one who has a vague
  knowledge of what is happening, and calls it
  ministratin. They try to clean her up, but
  Rosemary, the next-door neighbor, thinks theyre
  playing dirty and their mother is appalled until
  she realizes what is actually happening.
• We trooped in, Frieda sobbing quietly, Pecola
  carrying a white tail, me carrying the
  little-girl-gone-to-woman pants

3

• In bed later, Pecola asks Frieda if she can
  have a baby now, and Frieda says yes. However,
  Frieda falls asleep before Pecola can ask
• But how do you do that? I mean, how do you get a
  somebody to love you?
• - to which, she gets no answer.

4
Mr Henry

• Mr Henry seems like a wonderful and nice man to
  the girls, but when he is looking after them, he
  sends them out to buy sweets, and they return
  early to discover him with two prostitutes. The
  girls are surprised to discover him like this,
  and they cant help thinking about it afterwards.
  Theyre still young girls, so learning about sex
  this way, is inappropriate.
• Those women she repeated, Who just left, who
  were they?
• Oh He laughed the grown-up-getting-ready-to-lie
  laugh. A heh-heh we knew well.

5
Frieda

• Frieda thinks she is ruined because Mr Henry
  inappropriately touches her. Mr Henry used to be
  a wonderful figure to the girls, but now that
  image is ruined. Proving that they are innocent,
  they believe that ruined means you get fat -
  because one of the prostitutes their mother calls
  ruined is fat.
• But Frieda, you could exercise and not eat..
• Thats because they drink whiskey. Mama says
  whiskey ate them up YOU could drink whiskey

6
Cholly

• Cholly Breedloves first sexual experience was
  interrupted horrifically, and is what causes him
  to take his anger out on women. Its with a girl,
  named Darlene. When they first begin to have sex,
  its described as very soft, and un-violent.
  However, when the two white men come with
  flashlights and force him to finish it, his anger
  and frustration isnt directed at them, its
  directed at Darlene. He feels humiliated and less
  of a man.
• With a violence born of total helplessness, he
  pulled her dress up..
• Darlene did not move, Cholly wanted to
  strangle..

7

• Sullen, irritable, he cultivated, his hatred of
  Darlene. Never he did once consider directing his
  hatred towards the hunters. Such an emotion,
  would have destroyed him. They big, white, armed
  men. He was small, black, helpless. His
  subconscious knew what his conscious mind did not
  guess

8
The Rape

• The story finally arrives at the incident that it
  has been leading up to, and one we were
  forewarned of. Pecolas rape is viewed through
  Chollys eyes, and is in 3rd person narrative, so
  we understand what Pecola does not. He does not
  understand how she cannot be happy, as a child,
  and how she can love him when he is such a
  failure. For Cholly, it isnt about the sex, its
  about the power he has over his daughter - he
  felt so helpless when he was with Darlene.

9

• She was a child, unburdened, why wasnt she
  happy?
• Her grayish panties, so sad and limp around her
  ankles
• Effectively, now Pecola is ruined.