The Bluest Eye

Cholly struggles against cultural standards when he is having sex in the woods with Darlene, and two white men approach them. Instead of making them leave, they tell him to keep going. Instead of Cholly getting mad with the white men, who were obviously provoking him, he gets really upset with Darlene. "He hated her. He almost wish he could do it-hard, long, and painfully, he hated her so much" (148).

When Frieda and Claudia show up at the house where Mrs. Breedlove works and Pecola is present, Pecola raises commotion, and the little girl in the household starts crying for Polly. Claudia has a thought and she cannot believe she called Mrs. Breedlove Polly, when even Pecola doesn't call her mother that, and that is reason enough to scratch her.

"She be lucky if it don't live. Bound to be the ugliest thing walking."
"Can't help but be. Ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly. Be better off in the ground."
(190).