Monday, October 11, 2010

Bluest Eye Notes week of 09/08/10

  • self-hatred, not about racism
  • narration: multiple, have to piece each one together
  • different than poisonwood bible, white people refusing to understand black people, more about racism
  • Pecola feels different than other people wants blue eyes: hates herself but not because of her skin color (not entirely)
  • piece everything together only at the end of the book: Cholly, has no perception of what a family should be like.
  • Structure is backwards
  • Morrison focuses on the how and not the why
  • Cholly (aka Charlie) is a tragic hero
  • Pecola’s outcome is determined so is Cholly
  • Choly’s inner turmoil has no boundries, he functions on hatred and tenderness.

09/09/10

  • Nathan, Troy and Cholly don’t have the ability to provide and protect his family.
  • Nathan feels guilty, didn’t want so many girls, was tormented.
  • Nathan is ignorant, selfish and an egomaniac, he is naïve, refused to try and understand the natives
  • He is ignorant, ignorance is a major theme of the book
  • Ignorance: to deliberately shut out knowledge
  • Nathan, Troy and Cholly have intimacy issues, all have a childhood trauma, translates through sex
  • Lea and Mother evolve the most out of the family, Rachel remains ignorant
  • Nathan is arrogant, also ignorant of what manhood is. What is the role of a man?
  • Epistemology: What is knowledge? What is ignorance? What can we know? What should we know?

09/13/10

Bluest Eye Notes:

  • Lorraine, Ohio -> no segregation, 1941
  • True story
  • This is not a book about racism, it is about black is beautiful and self-hatred, she is the most ugly, she is the “blackest”
  • Claudia felt guilty
  • They never speak about pecola “quite as its kept” they can’t even say her name

09/16/2010

  • Introduction loses value third time because no spaces between words.
  • Less and less meaning from version 1- 3
  • Symbolizes Pecola’s evolution, her mind, her lifestyles, she can’t even focus on what’s the ideal and what she wants, everything is mixed together: words put together represents her reality.
  • Juxtaposition between what it means and its inverse: IRONY
  • Texts become more and more perverted: goes from natural to unnatural
  • They have everything but there’s complete perversion
  • IRONY: Pecola named after Peola character from movie “Imitation of Life”

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