"The birdlike gestures are worn away to a mere picking and plucking her way between the tire rims and the sunflowers, between Coke bottles and milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the world—which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us."
This passage provides a vital summary of the way the community has viewed Pecola. Throughout the entire novel, Pecola is seen as the scapegoat of the community. The community exploited Pecola her entire life. By pushing their "waste" on her, the community became more beautiful and rid themselves of waste. Even just observing Pecola's miserable life was enough to make a person feel better about their own life. Claudia explains the community's relationship to Pecola as if they traded their waste for her beauty. By hating Pecola, the community was able to rid themselves of their own self-hatred. People see her blackness as ugliness. It's ironic that Claudia chooses to acknowledge Pecola's madness as beauty when she's always thought Pecola was ugly. Claudia describes Pecola as a beautiful symbol for the suffering of society. Claudia realizes that Pecola's physical ugliness is what makes other people feel physically beautiful and that Pecola is in fact beautiful because she is human. She sees now that Pecola is a beautiful human for taking on the burdens of the community and absorbing them. She bore the burdens of so many other people and they felt "wholesome" after they cleaned themselves on her.
Q: Is it really "much, much, much too late" to save Pecola or is there a way that her sanity could be restored?
-Molly Cook
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