1. Presented by Selen Onat Sıla Alemdar Denise Nart
The Bluest Eye
Presented by
Selen Onat Sıla Alemdar Denise Nart

2. Outline Thesis Statement Great Migration Time and Coming of Age
Morrison’s Style
Storytelling & Structure

3. Thesis Statement
In the novel ‘The Bluest Eye’ Morrison demonstrates through the character Pecola and her coming of age experiences, the power and cruelty of white American populations definition of beauty, by using structure as an aid for telling the story and building her story up on historical events.

4. The Great Migration 1910-mid 1970's
Migration of 4 million Southern African Americans to North
A great shift in population diversity
“Searching for a better life”
Retrieved 8 May from

5. Retrieved May,8 fromhttp://discoverblackheritage

6. South
North
Blacks had few rights
They hoped to have more rights
Sharecroppers, tenant farmers,day laborers
Industrial occupations
Lower levels of educational attainment
More literate
Stronger family-ties
Loneliness
Farm mechanization
Search for cheap labor
Do you see any similarities between the migrations in Turkey and the Great Migration?
How did the Great Migration affect the characters of the novel?

7. “It was to hard to get to know folks up here, and I missed my people
“It was to hard to get to know folks up here, and I missed my people. I weren't used to so much white folks. The ones I seed before was something hateful,but they didn't come arund too much.”
“Northern colored folk was different too. Dicty-like. No better than whites for meanness.”

8. Time and coming of age
novel is divided into four parts: changing seasons
Pecola’s entrance into womanhood:
incestuous rape, unwanted pregnancy, social rejection

9. Connotation of seasons
Connotation vs.
Events in the book
Autumn
leaves falling things dying things coming to an end
Spring
signifying rebirth and reproduction
beginning -> pecola starts menstruating, which signifieds the possibilities of reproduction
she gets raped by her dad and also, the seeds she plans shrivel up and die

10. Time and coming of age Autumn
Pecola starts menstruating
moves out of childhood quickly with no comfort from her own mother
Absence of love
Retrieved 8 May 2010 from

11. Time and coming of age Winter
Pecola's friendship with Claudia and Frieda develops
Walking home with Maureen Peal and the other girls, Pecola is part of a community
Does not last long
Maureen's rejection of Pecola represents: continual rejection Pecola receives from everyone
Retrieved, 08 May, 2010 from

12. Time and coming of age Spring
Pecola is raped by her father
The event ruptures Pecola's adolescence,
tearing away from childhood
into an adult sexuality she is not ready for
After the rape Pecola is disconnected from the process of coming of age
Retrieved 08 May, 2010 from,

13. Time and coming of age Summer
a pregnant Pecola turns to Soaphead Church, asking God to answer the prayer he has ignored: to give her blue eyes
baby dies before it is born
Pecola takes refuge in a world of her own creation
Pecola:
lost to the world
trapped between childhood and adulthood
broken

14. What do this 2 quotes from Claudia make obvious?
“We had fun in those few days Pecola was with us.  Frieda and I stopped fighting each other and concentrated on our guest, trying hard to keep her from feeling outdoors”
“I did not want to have anything to own, or to possess any object.  I wanted rather to feel something on Christmas day”
What do this 2 quotes from Claudia make obvious?

15. To what extent is the process of growing up more productive for Claudia in contrast to Pecola? Refer to their family
Claudia
Pecola
When Mr. Henry, the family's boarder, fondles Frieda -> Mr. MacTeer kicks him out of the house
Family able to cope with love
not only does Cholly Breedlove not protect Pecola, but he is the very one who violates her
Her family is full of negative emotions, aggressions
become solid adults because of the love &stability of their family
traumatized by the hardships of growing up

16. Storytelling & Structure
Morrison's Style
Storytelling & Structure

17. Storytelling & Structure
Morrison employs “structure” as an aid for telling the story
Morrison makes use of an unusual structure:
Novel not written in a straightforward narrative
Use of 4 structural devices

18. Structural Devices
Use of an American first grade reading book - The story of “Dick and Jane”
Use of different narrators to tell the story
- Claudia Macteer (as a grown up)
- Claudia Macteer (as a nine year old)
- Morrison herself (as an all–knowing narrator)
- First person narration (Pecola & her mother)

19. Structural Devices
Divison of the novel into 4 seasons (4 time sequences) – Autumn, Winter, Spring Summer
Further divison of the 4 seasons / chapters into several subsections, headed by unpunctuated lines from the”Dick and Jane” story

20. (1) The story of “Dick and Jane”
Excerpt from an American first - grade reading book
Describes picture - perfect, American white family:
- strong and nice father
- warm and loving mother
- clean–cut son Dick
- pretty blue–eyed daugther Jane

21. The story of “Dick and Jane”
The passage describing the family is repeated 3 times
2nd time without any punctuations: “Here is the house it is green and white it has a red door.” (p.3)
3rd time without any spaces between the words: “Hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasaredd oor”(p.4)

22. The story of “Dick and Jane”
Why does Morrison begin her novel with the fictional “Dick and Jane” story?
Discuss why Morrison repeats the first paragraph, leaving out punctuation and spacing.

23. The story of “Dick and Jane”
The Dick and Jane story represents the ideal american white family
Very simple sentences are used to teach the children and the readers about the images of white perfection.
Use of repeating paragraphs, full of fractured and chaotic sentences:
- Prepare the reader for Pecola's chaotic life about to be told
- foreshadow the chaos of the black girl's life.

24. (2) Use of different narrators
The narrations in the novel do not come from one source, they come from several
Narrator 1: Claudia (as a grown up)
Narrator 2: omnipresent, all knowing narrator
Other narrators: Claudia (as a nine year old), Pecola & Pecola's mother (First person narration)
“Quite as it's kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of We thought, at that time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby, that the marigolds did not grow.” (Fragment of Claudia's memory set in italics, p.5)
“When Cholly was four days old his mother wrapped him two blankets and one newspaper and placed on a junk heap by the railroad (...) Aunt Jimmy raced Cholly herself.” (Spring, p. 132)
“We had fun in those few days Pecola was with us. Frieda and I stopped fighting each other and concentrated on our guest.” (Autumn, p. 18)

25. Use of different narrators
What is the purpose of using different narrative perspectives instead of just one narrator? How does it affect the reader?

26. Use of different narrators
Pecola = victim = unreliable narrator
- Narration would be subjective and one sided
Claudia, able to see how Pecola idolizes the ideal beauty of the white.
The omnipresent narrator gives background stories and important information about the characters
Reader is able to see every perspective of the story

27. (3) Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer
4 chapter --> 4 seasons --> 4 seperate time sequences
4 Seasons = cycle
Events have occured before and will occure again
Autumn
Summer
Winter
Spring

28. Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer
“Quite as it kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of (...) For years I thought my sister was right: it was my fault. I had planted them too far down the earth. It never occured to either of us that the earth itself was unyielding” (p.5)
“I talk about how I did not plant the seeds too deeply, how it was the fault of the earth, the land, of our town. I even think that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year.” (p.206)

29. (4) Subsections
The seasons are further divided into several other sections.
Subsections are introduced by unpunctuated lines from the “Dick and Jane” story.
Relation between the excerpt of Dick and Jane & the section that follows.
Example: SEEMOTHERMOTHERISVERYNICEMOTHERWILLYOUPLAY WITHJANEMOTHERLAUGHSLAUGHMOTHERLAUGH
“Her general feeling of seperatness and unworthyness she blamed on her foot. (p.110) (...) Into her daugher she beat a fear of growing up, fear of other people, fear of life.” (p.128)

30. Subsections
Why are the seasons divided by the chaotic line-up of words of the “Dick and Jane” story?

31. Subsections The excerpts from “Dick and Jane”
Show how prevalent and important the images of white perfection are in Pecola's life
Higlights the differences between the world of the ‘perfect’ white and black

32. References
Ohiohistorycentral, Great Migration Retrieved, May , from
SparkNotes Editors. (2002). SparkNote on The Bluest Eye. Retrieved , May , from
Steppenwolf Arts Exchange (n.d.). Study Guide: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Retrieved May7, 2010, from guide.pdf
Tolnay, S.E. (2003), Sociology-Ohio. The African American “Great Migration” state.edu/classes/soc367/payne/African%20American%20Migrati on.pdf

33. Thank you for your attention  !!