Analysis
The novel’s prologue warns us that Cholly will do something unthinkable—impregnate
his own eleven-year-old daughter. If this event were told from Claudia’s
or Pecola’s point of view, it would likely remain a senseless act
of violence, something impossible to understand. But Morrison chooses
to explain the rape from Cholly’s point of view. Understanding how
it was possible for Cholly to commit incest does not change our
knowledge that he has caused tremendous suffering to his daughter
but does change the nature of our horror. Cholly’s violence is not
frightening because it is senseless; it is frightening because it
makes all too much sense, given the kind of life he has lived. Knowing
Cholly’s story may not change the horror of what he does, but it
does make his action more bearable to us.
As with Pauline’s story in the previous chapter, we sympathize with
Cholly not only because he has suffered abandonment, sexual humiliation,
and racism, but because there was once real beauty and joy in his
life. We are given a long celebratory description about the breaking
and eating of the watermelon, as if it were “[t]he nasty-sweet guts
of the earth.” Cholly’s childlike joy in sharing the heart of the
watermelon with Blue Jack is vividly rendered. Also, the pleasure
of Cholly’s flirtation with Darlene is narrated at length. Their bodies
are compared to those of the muscadine berries. The comparison suggests
that both are new and tight, not yet ripe enough to yield full pleasure,
but as exciting in their promise as their full ripeness would be.
The staining of Darlene’s dress with berry juice recalls Pauline’s
memory of a similar, joyful stain. Rather than dirtiness that must
be scrubbed away, here a stain is cause for celebration. In the
innocence of their coming-of-age, Cholly is shy and naïve, and he
tenderly helps Darlene tie her ribbon in her hair. It is she who
makes the first overture, and their touching is presented as fully
consensual and completely natural. When their experience is brutally
interrupted by the white men, it is clear that white power deforms
black lives, rather than some kind of inherent black “dirt” that
must be cleaned (as Geraldine, for example, seems to believe).
This chapter demonstrates Morrison’s ability to move
seamlessly between compelling, individual characters and a more
generalized portrait of black life. Aunt Jimmy is an individual
but is also a representative of elderly black women. She has suffered
racism and abuse at the hands of her man, but she has also felt
the joy of sexual love and motherhood; she has suffered violence
and committed violence. Now that she is old, she is at last free—free
to feel what she feels and go where she wants to go without fear.
At first glance, Aunt Jimmy’s freedom seems similar to
the dangerous freedom that Cholly finds, which is marked by an indifference
that makes him fearless. But the novel makes a distinction: the
black women understand the difference between grinding work and
making love, and “the difference was all the difference there was.”
Cholly’s depression comes when his indifference becomes a total
lack of interest in life, when freedom becomes a premature desire
for oblivion.
