Their narratives were appropriately placed in the Spring division of the novel as an indication of the characters sowing the seeds that would be reaped by Pecola. .

             Seemingly, as an example of the ways in which the transgressions of the fathers revisited the sons, the narrator gave an extensive account of Soaphead Church's family history, constantly citing instances in which traits of the fathers (or effects of their traits) followed the sons for generations. Of his family the author said, "They transferred this Anglophilia to their six children and sixteen grandchildren" and the family was described as one entity. The accomplishments and convictions of the sons were the same as the fathers. Soaphead Church, or more formally, Elihue Micah Whitcomb, inherited a prejudice for ascribing selectively to truth and tendencies to ascribe to lies about their ethnicity and superiority. He inherited his bitterness and pedophilia from his ancestors' practices and his religious fanaticism from his own father's secret denomination. .

             In the same manner Pauline Breedlove's personal history was shown to have played out in extreme measures in the life of her daughter. From the early part of her life up to the time the reader was introduced to Pauline, she had worn a shroud of shame. The novel said that it was due primarily to her injured foot that she felt a sense of separateness and unworthiness and also why she "never felt at home anywhere, or that she belonged anyplace" (Morrison, 111). This feeling was intensified by her experiences of exclusion and loneliness after moving up north. She was confronted by prejudice on a daily basis, both classism and racism, and for the first time, the white standard of beauty. These experiences worked to transform Pauline into a product of hatred and ignorance, leading her to hold herself up to standards that she didn't fully understand or could realistically attain.