It is in this godlike frame of mind that Cholly meets Pauline Williams, marries her, and produces two children, Sammy and Pecola. However, without any understanding of how to raise children, having never known a healthy parent-child relationship or even enjoyed the basic security of parental affection, Cholly reacts to all family problems according to the mood he's in, never considering the emotional needs of his wife or small children.
The tangled sequence surrounding Pecola's rape exposes Cholly's painful memories of his humiliating sexual experience with Darlene, the passion he felt for Pauline years ago, and the forbidden desire he has for Pecola — despite his initial repulsion for her small, ugly, humped body, bending over the dish pan as he approaches her. In his drunkenness, Cholly confuses his long-ago feelings for Pauline with his attraction to his emotionally fractured daughter, standing at the sink, one foot scratching her leg, the same way Pauline was doing the first time he saw her in Kentucky. Drunkenly, he equates his forced physical contact with Pecola as an act of love because she loves him so unconditionally and because he knows he doesn't deserve her love. Afterward, he looks at Pecola and is filled with revulsion, the same feeling he felt for Darlene. However, before he leaves her, he covers her tenderly with a quilt, a meager gesture that in no way compensates for his violent transgression.
