This document provides plot summaries for chapters 5-8 of Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye. It outlines key events such as Geraldine mistreating Pecola, Claudia and Frieda worrying that Frieda has been "ruined," and backstories for the Breedlove parents Pauline and Cholly that provide context for Cholly's rape of Pecola.

1. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye Part 2
A presentation by
SungHyeog Park, Jackie Scher, and
Dylan Fowler

2. Plot Summary
Winter: Chapter 5
•This chapter introduces Geraldine.
•Geraldine is married to Louis, and they have a son names Junior
•Although Geraldine takes good physical care of Junior he is aware that she
loves the cat more than him
•Junior wants to play with the black kids, but his mother only allows him to
play with neat, quiet, and well dressed “colored people” and not the dirty
and loud “niggers”
•One day in the Playground he picks on Pecola. He brings Pecola home and
torments her and the Cat
•He eventually kills the Cat and blames it on Pecola. Gerladine calls Pecola
nasty names and kicks her out of the house.

3. Plot Summary
Spring: Chapter 6
•Claudia comes home to find her mother acting strangely
•She goes upstairs and sees Frieda crying because Henry had touched her breasts
•The neighbor Miss Dunion suggests that Frieda might be “ruined”
•Frieda and Claudia worry about what ruined means and think that Frieda will get fat
•They decide to ask Pecola to get whisky from her father in order to keep Frieda from
getting fat
•They eventually find Pecola behind this beautiful house where her mother works
•A small white girl comes in calling for Polly
•Pecola accidentally pulls a freshly baked pie off the counter and the pie splatters on
the floor and burns her
•Pecola’s mom beats Pecola and comforts the little white girl, who has begun to cry

4. Plot Summary
Spring: Chapter 7
•This chapter details Mrs. Breedlove’s story
• When she is two years old, she steps on a nail and forever afterward; she walks with a slight
limp  She believes this event determined her “general feeling of separateness and
unworthiness”
•She often dreams of a stranger who will take her away with him.
•Then one day, a stranger arrives, Cholly Breedlove. They fall in love and decide to marry and
move up north to Lorain, Ohio.
•Pauline began to feel lonely and argued with Cholly about money and Cholly begins to drink a
lot.
•When Pauline realizes she is pregnant, their marriage improves, but Pauline still feels lonely.
She develops destructive ideas about physical beauty, equating beauty with virtue.
•However, she loses one of her front teeth chewing on a candy bar and feels ugly.
•She has a second baby Pecola, and while giving birth in the hospital a doctor insults her by
telling some students that Black women are like horses and don’t feel pain while giving birth.
•After joining the Church and getting a job working for the Fishers, Pauline begins to neglect her
own house and family.

5. Plot Summary
• Spring: Chapter 8
• This chapter recounts Cholly Breedlove’s story.
• His mother abandons him, but his Great Aunt Jimmy rescues and takes care of him.
However, his Aunt Jimmy dies later dies.
• After that, her brother, O.V., plans to take care of Cholly.
• When Cholly is having sex for the first time with Darlene two white men shine their
flashlights on him. They make him continue while they watch.
• He is embarrassed and mad and wants to strangle Darlene but pretends to finish having sex
with her. He knows he can’t be mad at the hunters because a hatred of white men would
consume and destroy him.
• He worries that Darlene might be pregnant and decides to run away and look for his father.
• After a painful encounter with his father, he runs to the river and hides under the pier.
• After this Cholly is “dangerously” free. He beats women, goes from job to job, drinks heavily,
and has killed three white men.
• He eventually meets Pauline and marries her. He later feels trapped by the marriage and
doesn’t understand how to relate to his children.
• Cholly comes home drunk and finds Pecola doing the dishes. He rapes her and then covers
her with a quilt when she faints. She wakes to find her mother looking down at her.

6. Key Words
• Ruined: When a girl loses her virginity
• Holler: To yell
• Clark Gable and Jean Harlow: Famous 1930’s actors
who appeared in six films together which were
mainly romantic comedies.

7. Themes
• Whiteness as the Standard of Beauty
• The Ways Race and Class affect positions in
Society
• Sex and Love
• Perception vs. How One is Perceived

8. Modern Relevance: Double Eyelid
Surgery
Video

9. Discussion Questions
• What drew Chollie and Pauline to each other?
• After reading the backstories of Mr. and Mrs.
Breedlove, how has your opinion of them
changed?
• Why did Morrison choose to describe the rape
of Pecola from Chollie’s perspective?

10. Discussion Questions
• What drew Chollie and Pauline to each other?
• After reading the backstories of Mr. and Mrs.
Breedlove, how has your opinion of them
changed?
• Why did Morrison choose to describe the rape
of Pecola from Chollie’s perspective?