TBE #20

I FINALLLLLLY FINISHED THE BOOOOOK! WOOHOOOOO!!!

It's a good book!

The chapter that starts on page 164, was very confusing at first. They were talking about a misanthrope and how he only loved inanimate objects. I did not understand how it ties in wit hthe story but towards the end of the chapter it talks about how he is a psychic and peopel come to him for answers and how he can grant wishes. Then as I was reading page 173, and she says "My eyes...I want them blue." Then I realized it was Pecola. After reading this book I think she deserves it. She had to lie with her father raping her and getting her pregnant and her abusive mother who never believed her. The chapter before the last chapter is about Claudia and Freida selling seeds to people in order to get a new bike. They would ring on doorbells and get invited inside and tell Pecola's story. I don't get why they would do this then all of a sudden tell each other that they will pray for Pecola's baby to live and pray for Pecola. They also said they were going to give up their new bicycle and bury the money they earned so they can let God know they were being serious about it. IT was a sudden switch. But I think it was sweet of them to do it. In the last chapter it's just a conversation between two people but it seemed unreal liek a dream. I think it was Pecola as if she had blue eyes but I don't know who the other person is. Then it foes back to a narrator and tells us how no one can even look at Pecola anymore. She is also poor looking through garbages. This is a sad story. What's the moral of the story? I think it's that we should appreciate what we have because others have it ten times worse and nothing gets better for them.

TBE #19

Because Cholly was raised by his aunt, he never had a father figure. His father left his mom and his mom left him. So On page156, Cholly went searching for his dad and when he finally find him, his dad says, "Something wrong with your head? Who told you to come after me?" Cholly says, "Nobody." And later on, Cholly says," Tell that bitch she get her money. Now get the fuck outta my face!" This is really sad. This led to his epiphany to be "free to be tender or violent, to whistle or weep. Free to sleep in doorways or between the white sheets of a singing woman...He could go to jail ad not feel imprisoned, for he had already seen the furtiveness in the eyes of his jailer...Free to take a woman's insults, for his body had already conquered hers." On page 161, he explains how he rapes his daughter(Pecola).

TBE #18

On pge 145, it talks about the day of Cholly's Aunt's funeral and how he went to the woods with a girl and they were having sex. I just find it strange how they had sex at very young ages and had children. It also makes me upset that two white men were verbally harrassing them and telling them to keep going. It made me feel scared for Cholly and the girl, Darlene.

TBE #17

In the chapter "SEEFATHERHEISBIGANDSTRONGFATHERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANE..." (it would have been easier if they also put a number -__-), It starts off by talking about Cholly( Pecola's dad) and his childhood. Due to his sad childhood, his actions as he gets older is very violent. When he was just 4 days old, he was placed on a junk heap near a railroad by his mother but his mother's sister, took care of him when she found him. When he was young, his auntie got sick which caused her death. In HTRLLAP it says that sickness has meaning to it so I looked it up. Aunt Jimmy was sick from a cold, because she was left outside after a rainstorm..but I can't put the pieces together. Her sickness is symbolic for something. Maybe it foreshadows Cholly's behavior..getting worse and worse? and Then leads to death? IDK.

While reading on page 143, I just realized there was more than one narrator. When they talk about the present, it's Caludia but when they talk abotu the other characters' and their past, it's a different narrator like he's 3rd person omniscient or something..idk who the other narrator is.

TBE #16

On page 126, Pecola's mother is speaking about her past and she says, "Head full of pretty hair, but Lord she was ugly." Does she literally mean ugly? I', wondering how she defines ugly. Thsi is sad to call your own child ugly, it makes me despise Pecola's mother. On page 129, there's some nasty imagery: "I think about the thick, knotty hair on his chest, and the two big swells his breast muscles make. I want to rub my face hard in his chest and feel the hair cut my skin," then it gets all sexual. In this book, color = life to them. They keep mentioning colors and how it makes them happy. Pecola's mother says like, "Only thing I miss sometimes is that rainbow. But like I say, I don't recollect it much anymore," to tell us that her and her husband had a connection and that rainbow represented their happiness but it's not really there anymore. And back to page 105, Claudia says, "The lakefront houses were the loveliest...The backyards of these houses fell away in green slopes down to a strip of sand, and then the blue Lake Erie...The orange-patched sky of the steel-mill section...this sky was always blue." Color meant a lot to them.

TBE #15

On page 97 the chapter starts off by describing twigs and I know they symbolize something but I don't know what. "Twigs shooting from forsythia and lilac.." I didn't know what forsythia was so I looked it up and it says that they form backbones. Maybe these twigs are people who are "backbones" for other people? They guide people or like lead people or help people put themselves together? As I kept reading, I noticed that the book just goes back in time and talks about every character and their story.