Claudia’s memories of spring are always associated with the pain of being beaten by the adults with switches. One day, Claudia observes her mother acting strange and goes upstairs to find Frieda. Frieda is crying on the bed because their father beat up Mr. Henry for touching Frieda inappropriately. Frieda might be “ruined.” 

The girls try to decipher what it means to be ruined while they walk to Pecola’s house. When they arrive, they learn from Maginot Line that Pecola has gone to the house where her mother works. They refuse the prostitute’s invitation to go upstairs, and Frieda says that their mom won’t allow that because the women are “ruined.” Maginot Line laughs, chasing Claudia and Frieda away.

The house where Pecola’s mother works is located in a high-class neighborhood with a park that refuses Black people. The girls go into the kitchen and admire a freshly baked berry cobbler. The little white girl who lives in the house enters the kitchen and seems afraid; she calls “Polly” to help, which enrages Claudia, because even Pecola doesn’t address her mother by her first name. Pecola accidentally knocks the cobbler off the counter, burning herself. Mrs. Breedlove slaps her daughter and shouts insults at the three girls while comforting the white girl. 

As a baby, Pauline Breedlove stepped on a nail and developed a limp. Her family moved to Kentucky, and while she kept busy with tasks, she began to fantasize about a man who would love her and give her a new life. Cholly Breedlove became this man, and Pauline felt fulfilled. They moved to Ohio, where she discovered discrimination from Northern Black people. 

Cholly became tired of Pauline’s dependence, and they argued. The woman Pauline worked for wanted her to leave Cholly, but she didn’t. Soon she was pregnant. Pauline formed ideas about love and beauty from obsessive movie-watching. Not long after having Sammy, she became pregnant with Pecola, whom Pauline thought was ugly. After having her children, Pauline found a good job at the Fishers’ beautiful house.

Cholly’s aunt Jimmy “saved” him from his biological mother’s abandonment. Cholly left school early to start working. Aunt Jimmy fell ill and, despite the use of remedies, she died. At the funeral, Cholly meets his teenage cousin Jake, who asked if he knew any girls. They found a couple of girls, and Cholly and one of them, Darlene, eventually had sex, but they were stunned when two white men watched and insulted him so that he could not perform. Cholly was ashamed but misdirected his anger to Darlene. 

After the funeral, Cholly went to Macon to find his father, Samson Fuller. Samson rejected him, and Cholly slept under a pier; he wept, mourning Aunt Jimmy. Unmoored, Cholly discovered that he was free. He met Pauline, who brought stability to his life; however, he had no idea how to raise children.

One day, Cholly comes home drunk and sees Pecola in the kitchen. He is overtaken by a complex mix of emotions, and he rapes his daughter. 

Soaphead Church is a mixed-race caseworker from an Anglophilic family with a superiority complex. Soaphead harbors a supposedly “innocent” attraction to little girls. One day, Pecola goes to Soaphead to ask for blue eyes. He says he cannot do magic but advises her to pray and make offerings. Soaphead writes a desperate letter to God confessing his inappropriate urges and explains why he made Pecola think she has blue eyes.