The excerpt from the first-grade primer talks about Mother and Father, Dick and Jane; the happy white family living in their green and white house. The narrator then introduces the Breedlove family — poor, black, unhappy, and convinced of their ugliness. Father Cholly, a habitual drunk, and Mother Pauline are locked into a violent marriage, while the children, Pecola and Sammy, daily brace themselves to endure their parents' fighting. In this dark world, Pecola prays fervently for blue eyes, believing that if she were pretty and had blue eyes, ugly things wouldn't happen. However, what Pecola doesn't realize is that there are two kinds of ugliness here — real and imagined. The real ugliness of one character's words and deeds is juxtaposed to another character's imagined ugliness; for example, Maureen's behavior toward Pecola, Claudia, and Frieda could truly be described as "ugly"; on the other hand, Pecola no doubt imagines herself far more uglier than she actually is.
Pecola imagines that she is ugly because of the actions and remarks of people like Mr. Yacobowski, who owns the neighborhood candy store. His unwillingness to touch Pecola's hand is reminiscent of the black dirt metaphor used earlier to describe her. The tension between the two people is taut. Pecola's palms perspire, and for the first time she is aware that she and her body are repulsive to another human being. Morrison emphasizes that the storekeeper does not touch her. Only his nails graze her damp palm, like disembodied claws scratching symbolically at the soft underbelly of a vulnerable target — a little girl's outstretched palm. Once outside the store, utterly convinced of her ugliness, Pecola insatiably consumes Mary Jane candies, staring at the perfect and pretty, blond, blue-eyed girl on the pale wrapper.
