As the previous educators have mentioned, Cholly's rape of Pecola is directly tied to the trauma that he experienced during his first sexual experience with Darlene. What was supposed to have been a healthy exploration of sexuality in the context of a community cookout—that is, a circumstance in which Cholly should have felt safe and comfortable—turned into an instance in which he was reminded of the omnipresence of white supremacy.
Ironically, Cholly doesn't feel anger toward the white men who disrupt him (or, at least, he doesn't think he does); however, he feels, or projects, his anger onto Darlene—ignoring how she, too, is being humiliated in this instance. Cholly can't bring himself to feel anger toward the white men, realizing how futile that emotion would be. He projects it onto Darlene because, within the white supremacist and patriarchal social structure in which he must exist, she is the only person who is "lower" than he.
His marriage to Pauline, which began with tenderness, has soured into a violent and contentious arrangement. Shortly before he rapes his daughter, Cholly watches her washing dishes at the sink. Pecola makes a small but meaningful gesture when she scratches the back of her leg with her big toe. Cholly watches her and is reminded of how Pauline once made a similar gesture when she was younger and they were in love.
Cholly's decision to rape his daughter results from a moment in which memories of love and tenderness are confused with memories of humiliation and trauma. Cholly never learned how to love and only understands sexuality in the contexts of humiliation and dominance. One could say the same about Pauline, whose experience of giving birth to Pecola occurred in the context of being observed by medical students. Their instructor, a doctor, pointed out how Pauline and other black women are like horses in terms of their supposed ability to give birth with ease. He says this in the midst of Pauline's typical experience of immense pain.
Cholly's never fully developed as a sexual being. This is mainly because he associates sex with violence and humiliation on account of his traumatic first sexual experience. None of this can in anyway excuse what he does to Pecola, but it does at least provide us with a possible explanation as to why he acts as he does.
Since that first sexual encounter, Cholly's never felt fully in control of this life. This is probably why he drinks so much; it's his way of finding solace in a harsh, unlivable world which has always seemed to pass him by. Despite this, Cholly still feels the need to impose himself on the world around him, to have at least some small measure of control over his life. That's why he singles out Pecola for sexual abuse. He knows that she will never laugh at him, or humiliate him, or do anything to take the whip hand away from him. She is an easy target, someone who will give him back something of the power and control that was taken away from him during his first sexual experience.
In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Cholly Breedlove is an angry, psychologically disturbed man who takes out his rage on those who are less powerful than he.
This is traced to Cholly’s first sexual experience with Darlene, when two white men interrupted the young couple and laughed as they watched the couple have intercourse. This encounter forever cements Cholly’s perception of sex as a form of conquest and a source of shame.
Cholly’s alcoholism, as it is portrayed in the novel, doesn’t help him deal with the angst he has about his past, but rather exacerbates his rage. Pecola is the most vulnerable person to which Cholly has access. He knows she will neither fight back nor be believed if she told others about his abuse. Cholly possibly uses sexual violence to feel powerful because of his feelings of impotence in life.
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