Quote 1
“It
never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have
been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot
of black dirt just as Pecola’s father had dropped his seeds in his
own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive
than his lust or despair.”
This quotation is from the second prologue
to the novel, in which Claudia anticipates the events that the novel
will recount, most notably Pecola’s pregnancy by incest. Here, she
remembers that she and Frieda blamed each other for the failure
of the marigolds to grow one summer, but now she wonders if the
earth itself was hostile to them—a darker, more radical possibility.
The idea of blame is important because the book continually raises
the question of who is to blame for Pecola’s suffering. Are Claudia
and Frieda at fault for not doing more to help Pecola? To some degree,
we can blame Pecola’s suffering on her parents and on racism; but
Cholly and Pauline have themselves suffered, and the causes of suffering
seem so diffuse and prevalent that it seems possible that life on
earth itself is hostile to human happiness. This hostility is what
the earth’s hostility to the marigolds represents. The complexity
of the question of blame increases when Claudia makes the stunning
parallel between the healing action of their planting of the marigold
seeds and Cholly’s hurtful action of raping Pecola. Claudia suggests
that the impulse that drove her and her sister and the impulse that
drove Cholly might not be so different after all. Motives of innocence
and faith seem to be no more effective than motives of lust and
despair in the universe of the novel.
