As I Lay Dying
A good book is one that you cannot quit thinking about. For days after you finish it you will catch yourself daydreaming about it. That is what The Bluest Eye did to me. I can't say that I liked the novel, because I didn't. It left me with an empty horrified feeling in the pit of my stomach; a realization of how harsh the world can be. I believe that this was Toni Morrison's goal for this book. She didn't want me to feel all warm and cozy when I finished. She didn't want me to 'like' The Bluest Eye; She wanted me to learn from it. I learned about a child's understanding, how people can react differently to a harsh environment, the importance of white symbols in a black girls life, and what could possess adults to do horrible things to helpless children. In short, I learned about the world. Claudia narrated most of the book, though the story is mainly about Pecola. Claudia and her sister, Fridea, are, in all visible ways, exactly like Pecola. They are poor, black girls in a world where only white is beautiful and good. The difference is that Claudia and Fridea could still love themselves and Pecola felt that she was worthless because of her black features. It makes sense that Claudia was chosen to tell the story so that she cou
The world around Claudia, Fridea, and Pecola is filled with symbols of whiteness. The first thing that is brought to our attention is the elementary school readers, where the main characters are Dick and Jane. Dick and Jane are perfect white children and they live in a perfect, white, cheery, loving, world. This establishes the theme of white domination over the culture. This was the world that Pecola wanted to be a part of. She worshipped Shirley Temple. While she was at the Macteer's she couldn't get enough milk, which she drank out of a Shirley Temple cup. She also loved Mary Jane candies because We were sinking under the wisdom, accuracy, and relevance, of Maureen's last words. If she was cute--and if anything could be believed, she was--then we were not. And what did that mean? We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser. Dolls we could destroy, but we could not destroy the honey voices of parents and aunts, the obedience in the eyes of our peers, the slippery light in the eyes of our teachers when they encouraged the Maureen Pearls of the world. What was their secret? What did we lack? Why was it important? And so what? Guileless and without vanity, we were still in love with ourselves then. We felt comfortable in our skins . . . And all the time we knew that Maureen Pearl was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The thing to fear was the thing that made her beautiful, and not us. (73) At first their relationship is great, but inevitably the anger from their pasts reveals itself and they become violent towards each other. Samuel, Pecola's brother continuously runs away and Pecola prays every night for blue eyes to fix everything. Pecola doesn't pray for blue eyes just because she wants to be pretty. She wants them so that she can be happy. She believes that if she had this symbol of whiteness, blue eyes, her family would become the perfec
Some common words found in the essay are:
Claudia Fridea, Claudia Fridea's, Samuel Pecola's, Aunt Jimmy, Bluest Eye, Mary JaneSmiling, Dick Jane, Toni Morrison, Cholly Pecola's, Pearl Enemy, bluest eye, mary jane, blue eyes, claudia fridea, toni morrison, world claudia, dick jane, black girls, perfect white, pecola simply,
Approximate Word count = 1271
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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