The Bluest Eye: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

An unnamed narrator describes a particular type of black woman. These women come from small southern towns surrounded by natural beauty, where people are gainfully employed. They are beautiful, clean, and sweet smelling. They soften their skin with Jergens lotion, and straighten their hair with Dixie Peach, parting it to one side. These women are educated at land grant colleges, and trained to work for white people. They are often sweet and moral on the outside, but internally they detest the "funkiness" of nature, passion, and human emotions.

These women are hyper-conservative when it comes to sex, referring to sex as "nookie" into adulthood. These women do not enjoy sex, and give their bodies to their husbands sparingly. To engage with them sexually, their husbands must "enter them surreptitiously," and during the act these women are more concerned with the curlers in her hair or the sounds their bodies make during sex than their own pleasure. Occasionally, these women will find a connection to another living being—a cat, for example—who will appreciate the effort she puts into the home. These women will spend time during the day with the cat, until their husbands, "the intruder", comes home expecting dinner. Even after having children, the cat remains the primary focus of her affections.

Geraldine is one of these black women. She moved with her husband and her cat to Lorain, Ohio from a southern town. In Lorain, she gives birth to a son she names Louis Junior. Geraldine meets Junior's physical needs, but refuses to coddle him emotionally. She does not talk to him, allow him to cry, kiss, or coo him. As Junior grows up, he notices his mother directs her love toward her cat. He directs his hatred of his mother toward the cat, and is happy when he is able to watch it suffer.

Junior lives next to the playground at Washington Irving School. He considers the playground his own, and the other children envy him for dominating it after school. He hates seeing the playground empty, so he tries to get children to stay after school to play. At first he longs to play king of the hill with black children. He wants to feel their bodies against him as they tumble down the hill, smell their blackness, and curse casually with them, but his mother calls them "niggers" and only allows Junior to play with "colored" children. Geraldine explains to Junior that there is a difference between colored people like himself and "niggers". Geraldine makes Junior wear clothing worn by white children, cuts his hair short to avoid any suggestion of wooly black hair, and puts lotion on his skin to keep it from becoming ashen as a way to distinguish him from other black children.

One day, Junior sees Pecola walking home through the playground. He has seen her before, always alone and walking with her head down. He thinks nobody plays with her because she is ugly. Junior asks Pecola if she wants to see the kittens he has at home. Pecola agrees and they walk to Junior's house.

Once inside, the beauty of Junior's house amazes Pecola. Junior pulls her into another room, and throws his mother's cat at Pecola's face. Junior laughs after the cat scratches Pecola's face and chest. When Pecola tries to leave, Junior gets in the way, telling Pecola she is his prisoner. After he leaves and shuts Pecola in the room, the cat, which is black with blue-green eyes, begins rubbing itself against Pecola's ankles. When Junior stops hearing Pecola crying, he comes back into the room and sees Pecola petting the cat. In a fit of anger, he picks it up by the back legs and begins swinging it around his head. When Pecola tries to intervene, Junior lets go of the cat, which hits the window and slithers down onto the radiator before dying.

Immediately after the altercation, Geraldine arrives home and Junior accuses Pecola of killing the cat. Geraldine picks up the cat's body and pulls it toward her face, looking over its back at Pecola. As she stares, she notices Pecola's ragged clothing, and matted hair. She thinks about all of the things that separate children like Pecola from "colored children", how they sleep together, six to a bed with pee mixing together as they wet their bed, and take seats in church that belonged to "colored children". Eventually, she calls Pecola a "nasty little black bitch", and tells her to get out of her house.