Stereotypes

"They were everywhere. They slept six in a bed, all their pee mixing together in the night as they wet their beds each in his own candy-and-potato-chip..." (92).

Geraldine's analysis of Pecola quickly shifts from an overview of the young girl's physical appearance to a deeper analysis of what Geraldine believes Pecola represents. The transition from shallow observance to stereotypes reveal how deep Geraldine's distate, even disgust, for girls of Pecola's background. The above quote is just a snippet of a larger though in which her opinion of Pecola (though it's no longer about Pecola but this larger "they") that progressively becomes worse, ending with her ultimately comparing them to flies.

Perhaps one of the largest ironies, however, is that the beginning of this chapter begins describing what Geraldine's life in the same general terms and stereotypes. Pages 81 through 86 uses the word "they" instead of mentioning any particular female subject. In this way, Morrison establishes Pecola's foil as Geraldine, as opposed to Maureen and Rosemary, the white girls, because one could have easily had the other's life, had the circumstances been slightly different.