Monday, October 11, 2010

The Bluest eye Analysis

Reading through the Bluest Eye, it is very obvious that the Morrison's narrative style is unique,along with the persistence of colors and the special italicized section.By the emphasis of colors, Morrison wants to explain the theme of races deeper throughout the whole book, especially the divisions between skin color. For example,  when Pecola's mother meets Cholly for the first time, she uses colors to identify him. "I could feel that purple deep inside me... it was like them berries, that lemonade, then streaks of green the june bugs made, all come together."(115) The impression of Cholly left to Pauline is full of colors, purple, yellow, and green. Every time Pauline sees these color, it reminds her of the happiness because the colors are not associated with white, which stands for the race problem."No better than white for meanness." (117) Another typical instance is about Pecola asking for blue eyes in the Soaphead Church. "'What about your eyes?' ' I want them blue'"(174) Blue eyes which is also the title of the book represents the unreachable beauty in Pecola's opinions. Pecola simply thinks that if she gets blue eyes, the people around or her family will treat her in a different way. Blue is symbolic which hints the race problem and the conflicts between black and white.

In addition to the use of color, Morrison utilizes italicized section when he is narrating. For instance, " When I first seed Cholly, I want you to know it was like all the bits of color from that time sown home..." (115) The narrative italicized style represents the story which is being written is Pauline's point of view. It is like a diary that is written when Pauline feels lonely without Cholly at home and it records the recall between Pauline and Cholly. The diary makes the story more connected, and the readers can get direct feelings of Pauline's thoughts. It explains how Pauline treasures her love story with Cholly even though things have been changed since they moved.

1 comment:

  1. Jane-

    Good job keeping your answer tied to the text. On a side note, Morrison is a woman.

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