TBE #14

In HTRLLAP, there's a chapter about rain and snow. In this book, it is very cold and it snows. Snow is clean and warm, very opposite of the book. It seems like everyone is so cold and dirty( like the whores). On page 83-83, it's a list of what white women have. IT's all posittive things. The word "they" is repeated and it makes the sentences choppy. Is this to show that the white women have eerything and they are superior...so it's all about "they?" There's also a lot of imagery in this book. it's very descriptive. Especially when they talk about their sex life..it's kind of disturbing actually.

TBE #13

I searched up the name Maureen because in HTRLLAP said that names are significant but I don't know how "star of the sea" relates to Maureen. She is the "Star" of everyone because everyone loves her...but I still don't know if that's a connection to her name. On page 77, the girls see Mr. Henry, the guy who boards in their house, fooling around with the whore China and a lady called the Maginot Line. She's not very liked in this story and Claudia and Freida's mom calls says that she is "ruined." I searched up what a maginot line is and it's
–noun
1.
a zone of heavy defensive fortifications erected by France along its eastern border in the years preceding World War II, but outflanked in 1940 when the German army attacked through Belgium.
2.
any elaborate line of defense or set of barriers.


I'm still trying to figure out how this relates to her..

TBE #12

On page 67, the white girl who everyone adores, Maureen, asked Pecola what her name was and when she told her, Maureen said that Pecola is also the name of the girl in Imitation of Life, who hates her mother because she is black andn ugly. This is an obvious irony because Pecola feels ugly and ashamed of he color. On page 73, Maureen transforms into an evil, cocky girl becuase Claudia and Freida make assumptions because she is white. I think that Maureen is just a symbol for life. She's a girl that everyone loves but can quickly turn into something ugly. Just like events and problems in our lives.

The Bluest Eye #11

It makes me mad how three black boys harrass Pecola, and I think it's only to feel superior becuase they can't do it to white people and they feel inferior to the white people. The boys who harrassed Pecola are called the "Bay Boys," so I searched it up and there's a movie and a book about the boy who struggles growing up with deciding to become a priest, witnessing a murder, and girlfriend stuff. So I guess Bay Boys are just boys who struggle?

The Bluest Eye #10

In page 62, I find it ironic how they talk about a white girl with two baids in into two lynch ropes. Because back then, white people hung black people with lynch ropes. Also, they talked about how they praised this white girl and "black boys didn't trip her in the halls," but before I though the white peopel tripped and harrassed black people...? There's a lot of obvious ironies..or I think they're supposeed to be ironic.

The Bluest Eye #9

It's sad that Pecola questions about love because all she sees is abuse and pain from her family.
On page 57 it says "What did love feel like? she wondered. How do grown-ups act when they love each other?"

This book is also full of similes and metaphors. For example, "Winter moves into it and presides there. His eyes become a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche; his eyebrows bend like black limbs of leafless trees." This shows how their father is full of anger? I think. These similes and metaphors are important because it helps readers understand the story.

The Bluest Eye # 8

On page 51, there's a song that Pecola singsm about having the "blues" like being sad. I think it's ironic because she wants her eyes to be blue, and she thinks by having blue eyes she will be happy. On the next page, there's a conversation of Pecola and the three "whores," as Pecola calls them, but I don't really understand what they're talking about because of their horrible diction. There's a lot of sexual jokes that the whores say...well I take them as a sexual joke I think. Like Marie is one of the whore's and says "Well, I was little and cute then...Soaking wet." Then the other whore, China, says "well you ain't never been dry." If this is nto sexual then I am not sure what they are talking about.

The Bluest Eye #7

On page 44, Mr. & Ms. Breedlove are physically fighting but I did not feel the intensity of it because on the previous page it tells us that it's a regular process for their family. It seems so casual because after the fight, Ms. Breedlove tells her son, Sammy, to get some coal. Just like the fist page of the book, there's repetition in this paragraph: "Pretty eyes. Pretty blue eyes. Big blue pretty eyes. Run, Jip, run. Jip runs, Alice runs. Alice has blue eyes.." Who's Jip and Alice? On 47, the narrator says that "nobody loves the head of the dandelion. Maybe because they ae so many, strong, and soon." I think this represents the black people.

EDIT ESSAY 4:30-5:30pm

The Bluest Eye #6

As I got to page 43, I noticed there are a lot of references to God. I looked back at HTRLLAP and it says that the naming of a character is important. I searched up the name Pecola but I did not really find any useful information. Except there's a Japanese anime and the orphaned girl's name is Pecola. In The Bluest Eye Pecola is also like an orphan because she lives with another family.

EDIT ESSAY 12:30-1:30pm

The Bluest Eye #5

This book does not have chapter numbers but it has weird titles with no spaces, just all capslock. The "HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWHITEITHASAREDDOORITISVERYPRETTYITISVERYPRETTYITISVERYPRETTYP" and the chapter after that is mainly about Pecola's family and what she had to live with. She is very unfortunate. The chapter starts off as "The breedloves did not live in a storefront because..they lived there because they were poor and black, and they stayed there because they believed they were ugly." The word ugly is used I think to show that they were ashamed of their race. This chapter reminds me of the book, Their Eyes were Watching God becuase their diction is similar and the wife of Mr. Breedlove says, "Not until you get me some coal. If working like a mule don't give me the right to be warm, what am I doing it for?" In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the wife always talked about how she always worked.

The Bluest eye #4

On page 17, the narrator, (one of the sisters, CLAUDIA), kept mentioning outdoors. She says, "Outdoors was the end of something, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining and complenenting our metaphysical condition. Being MONIORTY IN BOTH CASTE AND CLASS.." So it's about racism..not fitting in. The diction is also casual like the narrator would say "..we listened, avoided each other's eyes, and picked toe jam or whatever." So one of the main characters, Pecola, got her period and instead of "menstruating" they say "ministratin," ...lack of knowledge. In the next chapter, the title is called "HEREISTHEHOUSEITISGREENANDWHITEITHASAREDDOOR..." and theres no punctuation or spaces..i'm still trying to figure this out.

The Bluest Eye #3

On page 12, the narrator is jst one person, not as sisters. In the second paragraph it says, "
she sings to me: 'when the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls, someone thinks of me..." I'm not sure what it symbolizes but I think it foreshadows an event in the future. I also noticed that they have winter weather in the fall. I still don't know the location of this place but it's where there is racism. The characters in this story are not we'' educated because their diction is very poor. For example, they say things like, "she wasn't never right."

The Bluest Eye #2

on the third page, the narrator starts off as "we" and I thought the story is told as a third person omniscient. i think there's significance in the lines: "...the marigolds did not grow...if we planted seeds, and said the right words over them, they would blossom, and everything would be all right." On page 5, it tells us that "we", as in the narrators, are sisters. On page 5, I also found personification and a simile in the line, "nuns go by as lust, and druken men sober eyes sing in the lobby of the greek hotel." I'm not sure where the setting is but in HTRLLAP, it says that the setting is very important. As I read further, I will find out.

The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison) #1

Reading the first page, I realized that the sentences were really choppy, short sentences like "Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door." I first thought that maybe it's a little kid telling the story? Maybe this is stream of consciousness from when the speaker was young? I also noticed that it was full of anaphora. For example, See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See the cat? It goes meowmeow. Come and play. Come play with Jane." This whole first page is structured this way. The second page consists of 2 paragraphs which are exactly the same as the paragraph on the first page (the same words) but the second page has no punctuation. I immediately think of stream of consciousness. The first paragraph of page 2 made me think that it was a flashback. As I read it, the tone I thought of was worried or scared. Then I read the second paragraph with no spaces and I thought maybe the speaker was telling a story really quickly because he or she was holding in so much that he or she had to let everything out. Or the spaces symbolize that his or her life was so hectic and full of problems that he or she had no time to breathe or maybe no time to speak his/her mind? I don't know what's going on...