The Bluest Eye Women and Femininity Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

I am cute! And you ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute! (2.4.35)

Maureen insults Pecola, Frieda, and Claudia by using the same racially loaded language as the young boys.

Quote #8

She, like a Victorian parody, learned from her husband all that was worth learning – to separate herself in body, mind, and spirit from all that suggested Africa. (3.9.7)

Black women learn to dis-identify with blackness.

Quote #9

Three women are leaning out of two windows. They see the long clean neck of a new young boy and call to him. He goes to where they are....They give him lemonade in a Mason jar. As he drinks, their eyes float up to him through the bottom of the jar....They give him back his manhood, which he takes aimlessly. (3.8.82)

Cholly presumably encounters Miss Marie, Poland, and China here, but the text leaves this ambiguous. He has fun with them and rediscovers his masculinity.