It is possibly or probably Morrison speaking from her own personal heart, maybe remembering her own childhood as a black girl in a time when black children were not very often used as characters in books; meanwhile, author Morrison has Claudia saying (62) "What was the secret?" Of Maureen's magical whiteness and social power. "What did we lack? Why was it important? And so what?"

Morrison also offers readers a little history lesson about how life was for Southern African-Americans who migrated north in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Through the character of Pauline Breedlove, Pecola's mother, who moved to Lorain, Ohio, readers learn that Pauline wasn't used to "so much white folks. The ones I seed before was something hateful... [and] they was everywhere - next door, downstairs, all over the streets - and colored folks few and far between." Even the "colored folks" were "different" in the north;...
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