Misanthrope Life

Reaction... (not so eloquent as I would wish) to the last chapter of The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOdNOU-J4Xk

VLOG: The Woe of Child Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoImEpn6eRg&feature=youtu.be

Watch Andressa's blog.

Valentino's Red Dress

From page 40 on there is a clear change in narration. Claudia our narrator is omniscient. She knows what happens in Pecola's house and gives us a faithful description. Her narration becomes less childish as we move further into the book. By page 51 it is clear that she knows the thoughts of characters such as Pecola. 

babushkas: An Anglicised term for a woman's headscarf tied below the chin, originally worn by Russian elderly women, but now Europe-wide.

Jaundiced: is a yellowish pigmentation of the skin, the conjunctival membranes over the sclerae (whites of the eyes), and other mucous membranes caused by hyperbilirubinemia (increased levels of bilirubin in the blood). 

How people perceive is an important topic in The Bluest Eye. Staring with Pecola's desire to have blue eyes. Pecola is being constantly bombarded by images on blonde, blue-eyed, and white girls. Her deduction is that those physical attributes can determine your beauty. The narrator explains how Pecola thought people wouldn't do nasty things infront of pretty blue eyes. During the chapter, Pecola buys three candies, Marie Jane's candy, with three cents. The candy wrapping has a little girl in it. Pecola sees her beautiful eyes and her white skin and feels as if eating the candy was eating those "superior" physical traits. That process of owning, at least for that moment, a piece of that comfort gave her pleasure: "Three pennies had brought her nine lovely orgasms with Mary Jane." (p. 50)

(Not blonde but definitely blue-eyed.)

It is amazing how the products we consumed and those that we still do affect the way we see and understand things. Pecola is subject of a society that thought her to feel ugly with the way she looked. A society that told her it was wrong. What are we being told now a days? 

Fat is ugly
Poor is ugly
Weak is ugly
Generosity is foolish
Have.
Take.
Buy.

After Pecola, we find the three whores in the building and how they don't care about much. Yet, the narrator those take great interest in both the accessories the women wore, the makeup and the hair styles. Women have found the way to enhance or transform their appearance since ancient Egypt or even before. If these women hate men and women alike and wish nothing but what they have. Why are they concerned with fixing their hair and doing their makeup? 

It is hard to criticize those ideals of Beauty. I abide them daily. I as Pecola couldn't fight the images which I grew up with. I guess I wouldn't marry my maids son. I can't explain why it feels wrong. I know that it is wrong to feel wrong about loving someone that is from a lower social class. As it wrong the Pecola feels shame of her racial traits. 

PHYSICS

Also just for the curious, one of the whores compares Marie's story about turning a bad boy to the FBI to: "the Lady in Red that told on Dillinger." (p. 54) John Herbert Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American bank robber in the Depression-era United States. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations. Dillinger escaped from jail twice. Dillinger was also charged with, but never convicted of, the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana, police officer who shot Dillinger in his bullet proof vest during a shoot-out, prompting him to return fire. It was Dillinger's only homicide charge.


A woman gave them the final information on were to find him. She wore a red dress to the theater well they would have found him. Find the whole story here. There's also a movie with Johnny Deep. 

Quarreled Prayers

Special word :
Martyrdom: The suffering of death on account of adherence to a cause and especially to one's religious faith.

In the third chapter of The Bluest Eye the author continues using characteristic African-American lexicon such as:

"Leave me 'lone" 

"Sure you ain't bringin' in nothing."

"Your whiskey ass wouldn't feel hellfire, but I'm cold." (p. 40-41) 

ATTITUDE 

We can see a lot of portrait description, (description of a person physically or emotionally), Claudia starts by explaining how the Breedlove family was ugly physically and in attitude. They had a sort of mysterious ugliness because they all believed they were ugly. Pecola Breedlove hid behind her ugliness; "concealed, veiled, eclipsed- peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the return of her mask. ( p. 39). We have all had an ugly classmate once. From what I know I could have been the ugly classmate for someone. Each person regards beauty differently as many cliche phrases say. But it is a fact that if the person believes he/she is ugly they look even worst. Claudia describes the unharmonious build of the Breedlove's facial features. She does so in a way I imagined monsters. 

Yeah too cute... something like =

But with dark skin. 

Descriptions are hilarious and it is evident that the author gives them as unscrupulous as a child would give them. When we are kids we tend to exaggerate, but in that exaggeration truth is found. We need to read the chapter as if a child was actually telling us how he/she saw it. 

Regardless of the childish manner the author pin points some complex topics;

"In these violent breaks in routine that were themselves routine..." The Breedlove family was having a rough morning as Claudia tells us. The fights were a pause in the routine yet they were routine. The monotony of life in poverty had gotten the best of them. And it is Monotony itself which feels too elegant for a child to approach. The constant shift between innocent indiscrete descriptions and heavily charged analysis is what keeps the chapter afloat. 

As a young adult (oh the dreaded category), I fear the moment when my reality is one lacking purpose. Routine could be the end of me. Mrs. Breedlove is trapped in her boring reality and Jesus doesn't let her escape it. One of the last descriptions in the chapter is that of Mrs. Breedlove. She is religious and has convinced herself that her destiny is to be the human punishment of her not religious drunken husband. Claudia adult voice says: "If Cholly had 

stopped drinking, she would have never forgiven Jesus. She needed Cholly's sins desperately." (p. 43)

Fels Naphtha and Shirley Something

The description Morrison gives of Claudia's mother's complaints is hilarious. She explains how she would talk about the things people had done to upset her in a particular way, avoiding to name the perpetrator of the "crime" and so on. 

Music also describes her mother. Claudia explains that it can portray her mother's mood and it can make her feel warm inside. 

"... my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain wasn't only endurable, it was sweet." p. 27

Visual memories are something special. Music, smell and taste can take us back in time. There is a trend going around twitter and instagram called #takebacktuesday in which, people post old pictures of themselves every tuesday. It is interesting to see why people find this so amusing. In the chapter Claudia talks about her disinterest on white baby dolls. She says she was more interested in knowing why other people found them alluring. One of those canons society has is the blue-eyed doll desire, every girl wants one and that's how it's supposed to be.

I leave you with some visual quotes:

"The house smelled of Fels Naphtha and the sharp odor of mustard greens cooking." p. 25

 (Fels Naptha® is a heavy duty laundry bar soap that is great for pre-treating stains.) (Brassica juncea, also known as mustard greens, Indian mustard, Chinese mustard, and leaf mustard, is a species of mustard plant. )

"Then we both looked where Pecola was staring. Blood was running down her legs. Some drops were on the steps... That's ministratin'." p. 27

(Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells.) (ministratin= menstruating: is the periodic discharge of blood and mucosal tissue.)

I wasn't going to make the quote more visual. 

"It was a small step to Shirley Temple" p. 23

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fElh8TKLiYM)

17 Outdoors

The book, The Bluest Eye starts with a text written in a simple manner which gives the feeling of a child writing it. As we move into the first chapter, labelled Autumn, we meet Claudia the child writing the story. The book unfolds into a sort of public exposure of a private confidence.

Autumn, the chapter, is narrated by Claudia. She describes the hunger and pain her family suffered daily due to poverty. I found the method of description similar to that of Khaffir Boy.

"We stare at her, wanting her bread, but more than that wanting to poke the arrogance out of her eyes..." P. 9

Yet, The Bluest Eye exhibits a child who is not afraid of the whites although he/she despises them.

School is described as a place they work in rather than study in. Adults are cold and pay no attention to them. I got the feeling of child abuse from Claudia's description of her "school". In addition, Claudia says that not even sick children were taken care of. In the chapter she is sick with a stomach ache.

"Adults do not talk to us- they give us directions." P. 10

Later on, the chapter has a brief dialogue between Claudia's mom and her friends. They start gossiping about Slack Bessie, Henry Washington and Della among others from the neighborhood. The small dialogue uses colloquial diction which portrays the african american culture. Syntax is also unique to achieve this. The scene shocked me because it resembles the scenes of the movie The Help, which we reviewed in class.

One interesting, cheeky, and ingenious fact I noticed about page 17 was that the author writes 17 times the word outdoors in page 17. Coincidence perhaps, but still worth mentioning.

Day of property: dream (page 18)

The chapter was intriguing made me want to read further. Sadly, my chemistry homework sat unfinished on my lap. Oh the sciences!

Test

So got a 60% on the mock test. Meaning a D- ... Not very happy