The description of the mangy dog that torments Soaphead Church in this chapter contrasts markedly with the description of the dog that belongs to the picture-perfect white family in the first-grade primer. The old dog, whose weary carcass vexes Soaphead, is the antithesis of the primer’s playful, perky dog.
Elihue Micah Whitcomb, known as Soaphead Church, is nauseated by the sickly old dog, just as he is nauseated by most people. Yet he is comfortable with the realization that he is a misanthrope, for he realized his disdain for people at an early age. Paradoxically, however, he has dabbled in professions that have placed him squarely in their midst. For a time, he was an Anglican priest, then a social caseworker, and now he is a “Reader, Advisor, and Interpreter of Dreams,” a career choice that promises him a little money while guaranteeing him a minimal amount of close contact with people.
Reared in a family that believed their academic and intellectual achievements were based on their mixed blood, Soaphead Church cultivated habits and tastes that separated him from all things African. His skills in language and self-deception have allowed him to palm himself off as a minister and faith healer. People come to him asking for basic needs: love, health, and money.
Pecola Breedlove, however, has a unique request: blue eyes. Surprisingly, her request is logical to Soaphead. To him, she’s a “pitifully unattractive” child, and blue eyes would definitely be an improvement. He feels sorry for Pecola, but not because of the recognition of his exploitative profession; rather, his pity is borne out of the impotence of not being able to give her blue eyes, which he believes she should have in order to be beautiful. Soaphead is not sorry that she has been brainwashed into thinking she’s ugly; he is simply sorry that Pecola is indeed an ugly child and is doomed to eternal ugliness because of her coarse African features. His pity for her, however, does not preclude his seizing this opportunity to rid himself of his landlord’s mangy dog. Thus he tells her that she must make an offering to God, handing her a piece of rancid raw meat, on which (unbeknownst to Pecola) he has sprinkled poison. He tells her to feed the meat to the mangy dog on the porch. If nothing happens to the dog, God will not give her blue eyes. If the dog behaves strangely, however, God will give her blue eyes the next day.
At this point, we have met Maureen Peal, Geraldine, and now Elihue Micah Whitcomb, three examples of blacks who make it their life’s work to deny their blackness. All of them have found Pecola ugly, and all of them have victimized her because of her strong African features. Pecola is not alone in equating black features with the word “ugly”; everyone, with the exception of Claudia and her older sister, Frieda, seems to feel the same way. Thus we have Morrison’s blanket condemnation of white society’s insistence that only white features are acceptable and pretty, and for black America’s endorsement of that fraud.
