The bluest eye study guide answers. The Bluest Eye: PRINTABLE STUDY GUIDE by Toni Morrison 2022-11-16
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The Bluest Eye, written by Toni Morrison, is a novel that tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl living in Ohio in the 1940s. Pecola is tormented by her own sense of worthlessness and her desire to have blue eyes, which she believes will make her more attractive and accepted by society. The novel explores themes of race, beauty, and self-esteem, and raises important questions about the ways in which society shapes and influences our sense of self-worth.
One of the central themes of The Bluest Eye is the destructive power of racism and white supremacy. Pecola's experience of being constantly told that she is inferior because of her race has a profound impact on her sense of self-worth. She internalizes the messages of white supremacy and begins to believe that she is inherently flawed and unlovable. This internalization of racism is a common experience for people of color, and it can have devastating consequences on their mental health and overall well-being.
Another important theme in The Bluest Eye is the concept of beauty and its impact on self-esteem. Pecola's obsession with blue eyes is a clear example of how societal standards of beauty can shape our sense of self-worth. Pecola believes that if she had blue eyes, she would be more attractive and desirable, and this belief is fueled by the constant reinforcement of white beauty standards in the media and society. The novel highlights the dangerous and damaging effects of these narrow beauty standards, and how they can contribute to feelings of inadequacy and self-hatred.
One of the key questions raised by The Bluest Eye is the extent to which society shapes and influences our sense of self-worth. Pecola's experience is a clear example of how societal messages and expectations can have a profound impact on an individual's self-perception. The novel highlights the importance of challenging and resisting these harmful messages, and of cultivating self-love and self-acceptance in the face of societal pressure to conform.
In conclusion, The Bluest Eye is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that explores important themes such as racism, beauty, and self-esteem. It raises important questions about the ways in which society shapes and influences our sense of worth, and highlights the dangers of internalizing harmful messages and standards. By examining these themes, The Bluest Eye encourages readers to think critically about the ways in which they view themselves and others, and to strive for self-acceptance and self-love in the face of societal pressure.
Bluest Eye Study Guide
His mother saw in Pecola all that she had been running from all her life. Although once she longed to have nicer things and romantic love, she settles into surviving through her work and being a martyr by staying with Cholly. Henry starts repenting for what he has done. Morrison has used variations of this system in other novels, favoring this strategy as a way to look at a story from many angles without giving too much control to one voice. He is the man in the town that makes Pecola go crazy by making her think she has blue eyes.
For most, the home town is just a place one was born. Junior once longed to play with other black boys. She fights with Cholly constantly. Not many people say the name of their home town with such love. When Cholly tries to burn up the house she has to go live with the MacTeers, she eventually goes crazy from all the trauma that she has been through. After centuries of coveting white dolls and decades of longing to look like Caucasian Hollywood stars and thinking that it was perfectly appropriate to do so , Black-Americans began to argue for a new standard of beauty.
Is there a way out? They do not stand out. What are the advantages of telling Pecola's story from a child's point of view?. Claudia is on of the narrators in the book she provides the how. The mother of Pecola and Sammy. However, comforts the little like she's Pecola. She cooks for the family, Pecola tries to get some of the cobbler it spills causing Pauline to get upset and smacks Pecola to the ground and begins to comfort the other white girl who calls her Polly while her own daughter calla her Mrs.
One day he sexually assaults Frieda and when she tells her parents the kick him out and her dad almost kills him in which Mr. One such woman was named Geraldine. Which led to many blacks feeling confused and sad. His mother had taught him the distinction between "colored people and niggers. But in this particular novel, Morrison has attempted to examine the forces that can make the oppressed take part in their own oppression. Then he found fun in bullying girls as they came by through the playground. And Morrison's concern with oral Black-American traditions is apparent from the very first lines of Claudia's prelude.
The Bluest Eye: PRINTABLE STUDY GUIDE by Toni Morrison
Not surprisingly, Pecola is on the very bottom of social estimation, lower even than a blue-eyed black cat. She is able to stop the boys from picking on Pecola because of her beauty. How can it be that a little girl could be made to feel so ugly? On occasion, this kind of woman will become attached to a living thing, often a cat, whose sensuality she can enjoy with circumspection. In Winter, they meet a light-skin, wealthy girl named Maureen Peal and the MacTeers despise her but finds out she isn't that bad as a person. They travel to a middle- class, white neighborhood to meet Pecola at her moms job. She prays for blue eyes, because she knows from images in movies and on candy wrappers that to have blue eyes is to be loved.
Buy Study Guide Published in 1970, The One of those transformations was a new recognition of Black-American beauty. The Bluest Eye enjoyed some but far from universal critical success on its first publication, but the novel was also a commercial failure. Does the adult Claudia, who narrates part of the novel, seem to have recovered from her times of hatred for white culture Shirley Temple and the violence on the dolls? What has been lost? Geraldine is what is called color-struck. Geraldine is the woman in the blacks she was raised in a good part of town she is brown skin and she views dark as being bad, she is obsessed with her jet, black, cat, that has blue eyes, she shoes the cat more affection than she does her son, she protects the cat at all cost, Pecola is fantasied with the cat because it has the blue eyes that she wants really badly. She is harsh and abusive to her children. So many different people and. He came from a religious wealthy family that believed in incest to keep the family line strong, he Mari Velma, but they had to separate because he was boring and did not like physical contact.
He had a dramatic experience as a child being caught having sex by two white men having guns, this added on to his series of trauma causing him to use liquor as an escape path, He struggles to provide for his family, couch , and he ends up raping pecola the 1st time he says that he thought it was his wife, but then he committed another act of rape. Bojangles the black actor on the show. THe white doll given to claudia is a depiction of Shirley Temple, the epitome of white feminine "cuteness". Cholly is Pecolas father, he came from a childhood where he was raised by his aunt Jimmy because his mother bonded him on the train tracks, his aunt later died causing him to go with an uncle but he chose to go search for his father, which he found didn't want to have anything to do with him, which leads to him meeting Pauline in Ohio and they form a relationship and have kids. While there, Pecola drops a pie on herself and the little girl her mom takes care of. These are a special kind of woman, raised in a very careful way.
The Bluest Eye Study complianceportal.american.edu
We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow. Black women internalize white beauty that they have been saturated with by the media. The last date is today's date — the date you are citing the material. The sounds of the names of these towns--Akron, Mobile, Meridian, Nagadoches--remind the listener of love, kisses, and butterflies. China, Poland, and the Maginot line, they are all prostitutes they spend a lot time with Pecola especially Maginot Line.
