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.
