The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read according to the elements of plot you've learned in past courses (exposition, inciting incident, etc.). Explain how the narrative fulfills the author's purpose (based on your well-informed interpretation of same).
Exposition: In the exposition, the reader is introduced to two African American sisters: Claudia MacTeer, 9-years old, and Freida MacTeer, 10-years old. It is the end of the Great Depression and the girls live in Lorain, Ohio. The MacTeer's don't live in poverty, but they're aren't rich either. They take in a couple boarders and one of them is Pecola Breedlove, a young girl who comes from a family with an alcoholic father. The MacTeer sisters are kind to Pecola while she stays with them.
Rising Action: Pecola eventually goes back to live with her family again. Pecola's mother and father do not get along at all. They fight constantly: physically and verbally. Pecola truly believes that she is ugly and that no one will ever like her because of her ugliness. She sees all of the little white girls with blue that teachers adore and accepts the fact that she will never get that kind of recognition. The reader learns the background stories of Pecola's parents. Pecola's mother, Pauline, feels ugly as well and encourages her husband's belligerence because it gives her something to fix and something to be a martyr over. She is a housekeeper for a rich white family and takes pride in their home and the white children but she treats her own home and children with bitterness and contempt. Pecola's father, Cholly, was raised by his great aunt because he was abandoned by his parents. He has a sad life and eventually just stops caring.
Climax: The climax is where Cholly rapes Pecola. He is feeling hatred and guilt as always and takes it out on Pecola. Pecola's mother does not believe her when she tells her about the rape but beats her instead. Pecola then goes to a man called Soaphead Church who falsely claims to grant wishes and be connected with the lord. She asks him for blue eyes and he says that if she follows his directions she will get them.
Falling Action/Resolution: It turns out that Pecola was impregnated by her father but the baby dies from being born prematurely. Then it seems like Pecola goes crazy. She rambles on about how she has the bluest eyes of anyone else in the world.
The author's purpose was to show the effects of racism. Not the brusque, outright effects, but the underlying ones. The author shows how the characters live their lives feeling worthless and like they don't deserve to be happy. Throughout the novel, the characters allow themselves to be put down because they are taught to believe that it is their place.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
The theme of this novel is beauty and the idea of beauty. White is the standard of beauty in the novel and black people just don't consider themselves able of beauty. This distorted idea of beauty causes a lot of problems. As a child, Pecola already believes that people are going to be mean to her because she is ugly. She believes that she can never be liked because she wasn't blessed with "beauty". She lives her life submissively because she lets the false idea of beauty control her life and happiness.
3. Describe the author's tone. Include a minimum of three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
The tone of the novel is morose and hopeless. Nothing good happens at all. Every incident shows the oppression and hopelessness that the character's face. "It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different."(1994 edition, page 46). Pecola couldn't picture beauty as anything accept blue eyes. "The Breedloves did not live in a storefront because they were having temporary difficulty adjusting to the cutbacks at the plant. They lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly." (page 38). "Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty....A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles." (page 174).
4. Describe a minimum of ten literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the author's purpose, the text's theme and/or your sense of the tone. For each, please include textual support to help illustrate the point for your readers. (Please include edition and page numbers for easy reference.)
Symbolism: The blue eyes were a symbol throughout the novel. They symbolized beauty and Pecola strove for them. Beauty was the key to happiness and acceptance and the blue eyes symbolize that unattainable want. "I, I have caused a miracle. I gave her the eyes. I have her the blue, blue, two blue eyes. Cobalt blue. A streak of it right out of your own blue heaven. No one else will see her blue eyes. But she will. And she will live happily ever after." (Page 182).
Repetition: The chapters are titled with a sort of broken record repetition. "MOTHERLAUGHSLAUGHMOTHERLAUGHLA" (Page 110) This repetition provides a theme for the chapter. This chapter gave the story of Pauline.
Contrast: The repetition at the beginning of each chapter contrasts with the content of the chapter. The strange titles describe a perfect family uses the kind of phonetics that a child learning to read would use. "HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWHITEITHASAREDDOORITISVERYPRETTYVERYPRETTY." (Page 33) That chapter was not about a pretty house, in fact, it was a about the Breedloves torn up, poor looking house. This contrast shows the lives of African Americans versus the lives of a typical white family.
Tragedy: Tragedy is used in the novel to show the unfairness and bitterness of life. "Following the disintegration--the falling away--of sexual desire, he was conscious of her wet, soapy hands on his wrists, the fingers clenching, but whether her grip was from a hopeless but stubborn struggle to be free, or from some other emotion, he could not tell." (Page 163) Becoming impregnated by her own father was a disgrace for Pecola and it showed the terrible place that her life had come to.
Flashbacks: Flashbacks are a really important part of the novel. Flashbacks are how the reader learns about Pecola's parents. The flashbacks provide insight into why Pauline and Cholly are so screwed up. "Abandoned in a junk heap by his mother, rejected for a crap game by his father, there was nothing more to lose. He was alone with his own perceptions and appetites, and they alone interested him." (Page 160).
Imagery: Imagery is used in this novel to convey the poverty that most of the characters live in and the appearances of people. "Keen but crooked noses, with insolent nostrils. They had high cheekbones, and their ears turned forward. Shapely lips which called attention not to themselves but to the rest of the face. You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly." (Page 39).
Metaphor: In the end of the novel, Pecola's dead baby is compared to Claudia and Freida's attempt to plant marigold seeds. "And now I see her searching the garbage--for what? The thing we assassinated? I talk about how I did not plant the seeds too deeply, how it was the fault of the earth, the land, of our town." (Page 206)
Parallelism: Parallelism makes the writing stronger and helps to illustrate the author's points. "Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent." (Page 205)
Allusion: When Soaphead Church is being characterized, he often alludes to the Bible but in distorted ways. "What makes one name more a person than another? Is the name the real thing, then? And the person only what his name says? Is that why to the simplest and friendliest of questions: What is your name? Put to you by Moses. " (Page 180)
Irony: Irony is used in the novel in regard to the blue eyes. Pecola thinks that blue eyes will bring beauty and happiness but in the end when she believes that she has them, she is really actually crazy. "So it was. A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment." Page 204
CHARACTERIZATION
1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization. Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?
One example of direct characterization is Claudia's description of a white girl, Maureen Peal. "A high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of the white girls, swaddled in comfort and care." Page 62. Another example is Pauline's description of her first impression of Cholly. "Cholly was thin then, with real light eyes. He used to whistle, and when I heard him, shivers come on my skin." Page 115. An example of indirect characterization is Pauline's reaction to the little white girl in the house that she cleans "we could hear Mrs. Breedlove hushing and soothing the tears of the little pink-and-yellow girl." Mrs. Breedlove's kind actions to the little girl show how even she is affected by the "beauty" standard of white children. Another example of indirect characterization is Cholly's reaction to Pauline's pregnancy. "When she told Cholly, he surprised her by being pleased. He began to drink less and come home more often." Page 121. This shows that Cholly wasn't always as bad of a man as he is now. The authors uses both approaches to develop the characters in a deeper way. Using both direct and indirect characterization allows the reader to form their own opinion of the characters because they have more resources and opportunities to do so. I feel like I understand the characters more because of this. I have more than a surface understanding of them. I know their own thoughts and what others think of them and I am able to judge their characters more completely.
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character? How? Example(s)?
The syntax and diction does change when the author focuses on character. The author will use the language that the characters use. "Nasty white folks is about the nastiest things they is. But I would have stayed on 'cepting for Cholly come over by where I was working and cup up so." Page 120. Because the spoken language changes from character to character, it's easier to understand the different characters.
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic? Flat or round? Explain.
Pecola Breedlove is a dynamic and round characters. She experiences things throughout the novel that change her. She is not the same person she was at the beginning of the novel. Her innocence and childhood is taken away from her and this drastically changes her character.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character? Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.
By the end of the novel I felt like I had lost someone. Throughout the novel I had gotten to know Pecola and I felt for her as she experienced her emotional struggles. At the end when she becomes crazy and disoriented I felt sad because the Pecola that I knew was gone. "Don't go. Don't leave me. Will you come back if I get them?" By the end of the novel, the only thing Pecola talked about was her need to have the bluest eyes ever. I felt depressed by the direction that her life took.
