The Bluest Eye: Winter

"We looked into the living-room window, expecting to see Mama. Instead we saw Mr. Henry and two women. In a playful manner, the way grandmothers do with babies, he was sucking the fingers of one of the women, whose laughter filled a tiny place over his head. he other woman was buttoning her coat. We knew immediately who they were, and our flesh crawled.One was China, and the other was called the Maginot Line. The back of my neck itched. These were the fancy women of the maroon nail polish that Mama and Big Mama hated. And in our house." (pg. 77)

Claudia, Pecola, and Freida arrive home after being sent out for ice cream by Mr. Henry, their boarder. Mr. Henry seemed to be nice by paying for treats for the girls, but in actuality, he just wanted them to leave. Mr. Henry knew that the children's mother wouldn't be home any time soon. Mr. Henry just wanted to be alone at the house; or so we think. Apparently Mr. Henry hired one of the prostitutes from above Pecola's home. Mr. Henry had also hired the Maginot Line. It's obvious to the audience what was going on while the girls were out. But as narrated, the girls had no clue. All they knew was two women their mother did not like were over at the house with Mr. Henry. The girls decide not to tell Mama because they are afraid of her becoming mad and punishing them.

I believe that this is a insight into the personality and actions of Mr. Henry. This is the first time Mr. Henry has truly been brought up as a relative character in the novel. Obviously boarding with the MacTeers holds a considerable impact on each of the girl's childhood. The children did absolutely nothing about having two prostitutes with a man in their house. On that note, I think that the three girls' non-response shows their innocence towards grown-ups' actions in general.

Q: Are the girls so afraid of their mother that they wouldn't tell on Mr. Henry, or is it because Mr. Henry gave them money for ice-cream they hadn't gotten from Maureen?

The Bluest Eye : Winter

What was the 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, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness. (74)

This excerpt is crucial in discerning the distinction between Pecola and the MacTeer sisters. Frieda does not have an unhealthily low self-esteem, whereas Pecola believes she is so worthless that she wants to fade into oblivion. Frieda's frustration at understanding a society that cannot love her for the way she is might explain why she is not as quick to take to Maureen, the black girl who is accepted by everyone. Perception, the way one character sees others as opposed to how others see her, seems to be an ongoing theme in this novel.

Even though Morrison believed it to have been unsuccessful, I think the idea of switching up narrators does in fact help readers realize the depth to the characters and the ideas being conveyed. Had the novel been written completely in Pecola's perspective, the audience might not have seen that Pecola's incredibly low standard for herself is not simply a consequence from traumatic events, but also the fault of societal circumstances. The reader gets a 360 degree view of the life of different girls in the same setting. Pecola might see herself differently because her family or other people have called her ugly, worthless. We don't know this for sure, but when we see the differing views of Pecola and the MacTeer sisters, we can tell that their background or past experiences must have molded their view of themselves. The MacTeer sisters don't have a rosy life by any means, but at least (from what I can tell) their father is stable and hasn't been to jail/raped them. A traumatic experience like that can truly shake a person so much that they doubt everything they knew to be true. Perhaps Pecola did not always want Blue Eyes, but decided she was worthless because that's what the elements around her seemed to suggest.

Q: Why is a woman who seemingly has it all, like Geraldine, not have higher romantic hopes for herself? (Why does she settle for such an uncomfortable life?)

-Madhu Singh

The Bluest Eye: "Winter"

"Jealousy we understood and thought natural- a desire to have what somebody else had; but envy was a strange, new feeling for us."

After reading this, I had to pause and think about it for a moment. I never really distinguished a clear difference between the two emotions. I think this quote is important to the overall theme of the book because it expresses how Pecola, and even Claudia, were feeling about the world around them. There is so much jealousy and envy floating around our society- there is always something to crave, something to desire, something that somebody has that you don't. I then decided to figure out the clear line between jealousy and envy. Jealousy is when a person perceives another person to be receiving or giving something away that should belong to him or her. For example, attention or affection (like the Shirley Temple and Bojangles example). Envy is when someone may feel resentment towards another person for having qualities they desire. Claudia never felt resentment or discomfort towards any of the "perfect blue-eyed" children, but she did indeed start to feel envious of the little girl Maureen. I think Claudia is starting to drift into a world that many people of society today thrive in- a world of envy and discontentment with their own lives- which is very sad indeed.

Madelyn Moon.

The Bluest Eye: Winter

"He laughed the grown-up getting ready-to-lie laugh. A heh-heh we knew well." (78)

I think that these sentences point at one of the major themes of the novel: the adults/children relationships. It shows the gap between the adult (Mr Henry) and the children (Claudia and Frieda). I asked myself why he lies to them. I can see two possible answers: either because he is ashamed of his behavior, ashamed of having anything to do with prostitutes, therefore he wants to keep that secret; or, because he wants to protect the little girls' innocence, to protect them from the reality of life: a man's physical/sexual instinct can be stronger than his morality. I don't think that one of the answers is the good one, it is probably rather a combination of the two. However, in this passage, the author shows that the girls are not gullible, they understand the situation.

Anyway, I think that what Toni Morrison wants to show here is that there is a gap between children and adults. It is indeed common behavior for an adult to lie to a child. Adults lie to children either because they want to protect them, or because they think that children are not capable of understanding the truth. Both raise questions concerning a child's innocence: How can an adult best protect a child? By hiding the truth so that the child can enjoy a carefree childhood? Or by telling the truth so that the child can become aware of the world they live in? Who can tell when a child becomes an adult? What is it that shows that a child is ready to be told the truth? I think that this passage is important as it deals with the major theme of adults/children relationships (as I wrote at the beginning), but more precisely, with the themes of childhood, innocence and protection, and the influence of adults over children.


About the whole Winter section, I wondered, like Patrick, what the role of the Geraldine section is (is it here to show that racism is not only betwen Black and White people? Or is it linked more directly to the rest of the story/plot?)

The Bluest Eye: "Winter"

"Jealousy we understood and thought natural--a desire to have what somebody else had; but envy was a strange, new feeling for us. And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal 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." (Morrison 74)

The wording used by Morrison is critical. By her definition, jealousy would be a childish emotion where as envy might be considered an adult emotion. By explaining Claudia's and Frieda's new found emotion, she conveys that they are losing their childhood innocence. Before they would hate the item or girl that was considered beautiful, as Claudia did with her dolls, but on discovering envy they now begin to understand that Maureen is not the enemy but some other "Thing" is. The fact that they refer to the media/social induced concept of beauty as a "Thing," reveals that though they are losing their innocence they have not fully become aware of what exactly they envy and why. This moment seems like a turning point for the narrator as she begins to lose her innocence and discover reality, which I believe ties into a common motif or theme throughtout the piece on Innocence vs. Cynicism and the lose of the innocence.

For what purpose did Morrison talk about in depth the kind of woman Geraldine was?

Welcome to the Class Blog

This blog will allow you to write responses to the readings for a given day that you want to share with the class as a whole. This blog will be publicly viewable as well, so bear in mind that you are sharing your posts with two "publics": our class and the blogging world that may find this blog in a random search. Only the members of our class will be allowed to post to this blog, but what we post will be available for anyone to see, both in the class and out of it, to see.

On this blog, everyone in the class will post responses to the readings and questions that the readings have raised for us. These responses will become part of our class discussion. Although everyone may post comments on other people's posts if they wish, during the course of this semester each class member must create at least 6 unique posts of their own. 

Our first group of posts will follow a general format: you should find one "moment" in the reading that is due for your posting day--a passage, a group of lines, a word, even a mark of punctuation--that seems particularly important to you.  You will then re-type that passage at the beginning of a post with the page number in parentheses after it.  Below that, you should explain why you found the passage significant: what about that "moment" strikes you as worth pointing out?  How does this moment help you to understand the entire reading's theme or central idea (as you are coming to understand it)?

Following your analysis of the passage that you have found, you should also write a question that the reading in general (not necessarily the moment you have chosen) is leading you to ask.  What about this day's reading is puzzling to you?  What would you like the rest of the class to help you answer?

This assignment may change over time: check our course schedule to see if I have put in specific new instructions for a posting day that you have signed up for.  But for now: let's get posting!