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!