Claudia feels her and Frieda’s sorrow for Pecola’s predicament “was the more intense because nobody else seemed to share it.” The children were upset that no one seemed to sympathize with the poor girl’s plight. Why do you think others in the town were less than sympathetic to her? Why did no one offer to help?
The lack of sympathy and support from the community for Pecola stems from deep internalized racism, society’s neglect, beauty standards, and the social hierarchy in the Black community. Pecola is dark-skinned, thus unattractive. She is from a poor, dysfunctional, violent family, therefore doomed, an inevitable outcome. She is at the bottom of the social order, so others protect their own self-worth by elevating themselves. People turn a blind eye out of self-preservation. Pregnancy by a father is just too shameful to address openly. The town’s indifference is a communal failure, not a personal tragedy.
This community did not invest in each other, try to help each other. Living standards, skin-color, better opportunities played a role in how they viewed each other. Indifference …yes, all out for their family status…yes. They saw the bullying as just a part of living everyday life.