The Bluest Eye Notes

The Bluest Eye

Chapter 1:

·         Claudia and Frieda McTeer are expected to pick up coal from a fallen train

·         Live in a spacious, old, drafty home

·         Henry moves in with McTeer family and the kids immediately love him

·         Pecola Breedlove lives with them temporarily because her father burnt their home

·         Claudia explain that Pecola always hated Shirley Temple and destroyed her doll

·         Pecola starts her period and Mrs. McTeer trues explaining what happened to her and gives her a pad

·         Pecola asks Frieda how babies are born and she responds by saying you must find someone to love you first

Chapter 2:

·         Once Cholly Breedlove, Peocla’s dad, gets out of jail the family moves into a home that was once a store

·         Was a home of a gypsy home then a Hungarian bakery and then a pizza parlor then store then their home

·         Has a bedroom where all the beds are and then a kitchen which is a back room

·         Narrator focuses on the furniture

*feels it’s all meaningless except for the couch that has a split, makes the owner mad

·         The coal stove only works when it wants to

·         The fire would never work in the mornings

Chapter 3:

·         The Breedloves live in the store front because they are black and poor

·         They believe they are ugly but have some nice aspects

·         Mrs. Breedlove is making breakfast and wakes Cholly to fetch coal but he refuses

·         She says that if she sneezes whole getting the coal he is in trouble

·         Mrs. And Mr. Breedlove need each other, he uses her to take all his painful memories away

·         Their fights have a usual routine, Sammy her brother either joins the fights or leaves home

·         Mrs. Breedlove sneezes and she knocks Cholly out then Sammy urges her to kill him

*She quiets Sammy

·         Pecola feels sick and wants her body to dissolve

·         She always hopes for blue eyes because she feel all of her problems will disappear with them

·         She goes to the grocery store to buy a candy and the owner speaks to her harshly

·         She walks home ashamed of how she looks

·         Pecola visits the “whores” who live above her

·         They tell her about their “boyfriends” Clients and that makes her wonder what love truly is

Chapter 4:

·         New Girl named Maureen Peal joins the school, she is wealthy and light skinned

·         Claudia and Frieda dislike her and they look for flaws in her

·         Claudia, Frieda, and Maureen walk home together and they find some boys picking on Pecola

·         They try to help her and the boys leave when Maureen joins because they don’t want to fight with her around

·         They go out for ice cream but Maureen only treats Pecola for ice cream so Claudia doesn’t get any

·         Maureen asks Pecola if she has seen a naked man and Pecola says no

·         Maureen tells them that they are black and ugly

·         Henry gives Claudia and Frieda money to go but candy and when they return they find him with prostitutes

·         They decide to keep his secret and not tell their mom

Chapter 5:

·         They talk about a black woman that lives in a  rural area of town and takes good care of herself

·         She marries a man and bares children

* She does not enjoy sex and is only passionate about her cat, not her family,

·         Junior, Gerdalines son, picks on Pecola at the park

·         He lures Pecola into his home and throws a cat at her

·         She is frightened at first but then plays with the cat, and he gets jealous

·         He then throws the cat and kills it

·         His mom walks in and he blames Pecola for the cats death she yells at her and makes her leave

Chapter 6:

·         Claudia gets a home and finds her mom singing and repeating the same chore twice

·         Frieda is upstairs crying because Henry touched her breast

·         The McTeers attack Henry when he returns home and a neighbor hands Mr. McTeer a gun

·         A neighbor suggest they take Frieda to the doctor because she might be “ruined”

·         Frieda and Claudia think that whisky will help her jot be ruined

·         They go to Pocola’s home to ask her to get some from her dad but she isn’t home

·         One of the “whores” throws soda and them, because they tell her she’s ruined

·         They find Pecola working in a white neighborhood and her mom days they can wait for her to be finished

·         Pecola ends up dropping a pie and her mom beats her and sends the girls away

Chapter 7:

·         Mrs. Breedlove grew up in Alabama and she walks with a limp because when she was younger she stepped on a nail

·         She raised her younger siblings in Kentucky and enjoyed it

·         At the age of 15 she dreamt of a stranger coming to rescue her

·         Cholly falls in love with her

·         They get married and move to Ohio where the woman who live there are not nice

·         Soon they argue about  money and his drinking becomes a problem

·         She gets her first job as a housekeeper

·         Cholly shows up to her work drunk and the boss refused to pay her until she leaves Cholly but she doesn’t wan to leave him

·         She becomes pregnant and marriage improves for a while

·         Baby doesn’t fill the hole in her heart and they have a second (Pecola)

·         She knows the baby is ugly

·         Obtains a job with the Fishers and she loves it because they appreciate her work

·         She begins to neglect her own family and things are not the same with Cholly

Chapter 8:

·         Cholly was abandoned by his mother at 4 days old

·         Aunt Jimmy saves him and beats his mom who leaves

·         He obtains a job and meets Blue Jack who is very kind to him

·         Aunt Jimmy gets sick but is cured for a while until she eats a Peach Cobbler

·         Everyone is kind to him during the funeral and it is planned that he will now live with Aunt Jimmy’s brother

·         Tries impressing his older cousin by taking him to girls

·         They both get girls to walk with them

·         He ends up having sex with Darleen and white hunters see them and force him to keep going while they watch

·         He grows anger towards Darlene instead of the white men

·         Thinks Darlene might be pregnant so he ;leaves town to find his father

·         When he finds his father he curses at him and rejects him

·         Cholly ends up loving g and beating woman, taking and leaving jobs, and killing three white men

·         Likes Pauline’s sweetness and innocence but feels trapped din marriage

·         Cholly comes home and rapes his wife, she faints and wakes with her mother over her

Chapter 9:

·         Soaphead church- reader, adviser, and interpreter of dreams

·         Mother died when he was born and family is mixed in race

·         Soaphead married Velma who left him two months after

·         Then goes into ministry but it isn’t for him

·         Moved to Lorain and rents a room with an elderly lady

·         Pecola asks him for blue eyes and he says if she gives the dog meat “poisoned” her dream, will come true

·         The dog dies and she runs away

·         Writes a letter to god where get shares he is sad that Velma left him, feels rejected

·         Talks about his love for young girls, he is a pedophile

·         Lady discovers dead dog while he is asleep

·         Pecola will not have blue eyes but she will believe that she does

Chapter 10:

·         During summer time Claudia and Frieda sell marigold seeds to raise money for a bike

·         Go door to door and when invited in overhear adults conversations

·         Discover that payola got pregnant from her dad and he has run away

·         Mother beats her almost to death when she finds out

·         Pecola believes the baby will be beautiful

·         Claudia and Frieda want to help her by praying and planting the money they earned by her home

Chapter 11:

·         Pecola and her imaginary friend are talking and the voice judges her constantly for staring at herself

·         Pecola admirers her blue eyes

·         Imaginary friend accuses her of liking sex with her dad which happened multiple times

·         Pecola continues to bring up her eyes and wonders if anyone gas blue eyes

·         Her friend gets annoyed and leaves

·         Pecola goes crazy and her baby dies prematurely

·         Cholly dies in a work house

·         Mrs. Breedlove and Pecola move to the edge of town

·         Everyone feels ugly now that Pecola is gone because they would compare themselves to her

·         Claudia and Frieda feel like failures because their plans never grew