Pervert

Claudia is once again the narrator in this next part of The Bluest Eye. The innocent narration of this section adds a bit of a lighthearted tone to a very dark topic. At the beginning of the section Claudia is simply outside, but she is narrating how she would prefer the whipping of a strap or a hairbrush over the ache of switchings and forsythia. Usually in the spring these plants are welcomed after a long hard winter and praised for their beauty, but Claudia can only associate this with pain and punishment.

When Claudia does decide to go homes, she senses there is something going on. Her mother is singing about trains and Arkansas, had her hat on, and was wearing muddy boots in the house. If this wasn't enough, she finds her sister crying. After understanding it wasn't a whipping the conversation takes on a lighthearted tone in which it is revealed what really happened.

Mr. Henry, the upstairs, neighbor "picked" at Freida. The word "picked" does not mean that at a harvest you got some apples from a tree but rather that Mr. Henry made a obscene action to Freida. The other part of this that caught my attention was the mention of "Soaphead Church". I thought it was a saying or an expression so I put it into le Google. It is not an expression or an idiom at all. SparkNotes came out as the first search option and it said character list. But controlling the inner beast of curiosity, I simply hit the little x button on the tab. I am strong and powerful for not succumbing to the temptation of Sparknotes. I guess Soaphead Church will be explained later on and his/her story will be told.

Despite that, the conversation between the girls keeps going. Claudia asks the wrong questions after she uncovers that Mr. Henry touched her sisters breasts. Questions like "How did it feel?" and " But wasn't it supposed to? Feel good?", are not the kind of questions you want to hear when your private square has been violated. I also found it comical that Claudia picked that moment to point out her lack of breasts.

The seemingly lighthearted approach to this really highlights how easy it is for a child to not understand the reality that surrounds them. In a sense this makes Claudia the narrator naive and therefore the perspective the reader has, a little oblivious