Not only Pecola but everyone in the Breedlove family imagines that they are ugly because they are black; they have accepted the slave master's dictum: "You are ugly people." Everything they are familiar with confirms it. Morrison's description has biblical overtones: "And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it."
All of the Breedloves cope with their "ugliness" differently. Cholly and Sammy act ugly, while Pauline escapes into the fantasy world of the movies and her white employer's household. Pecola dreams of blue eyes, a gift that she thinks will suddenly transform her into a thing of beauty; to comfort herself, she snuggles in the warmth of memories and music of the three prostitutes. The phrases "Morning-glory-blue-eyes" and "Alice-and-Jerry-blue-storybook-eyes" comfort her. Later, she will descend into madness in order to rid herself of the ugliness she feels is indelible, and she will embrace a new, imaginary, blue-eyed beautiful self.
