...Cedric Wyrick English 131 Professor Anderson November 13,2013 Annotated bibliography My first author is Jerome ump. Bump believes that racism is an form of emotion. As if you’re happy, sad, cheerful, you can feel racist. He states “that is unfortunate especially because emotions often generate more energy for reform of race, class, and gender inequities than abstractions.” I would never think that someone would feel racist. My next author is Kim Crosby. Crosby thinks that racism is surrounding us even today. She gave examples of how famous African American superstars are judged. “All of us, we are affected deeply by everything around us in the media to the underrepresentation of others.” If you’re successful it shouldn’t matter the color of your skin. This is LeAnne Coady on racism. I like Coady’s beliefs because she says we are all equal. “We have been told that everyone is a child of God and we are all created equal.” Amen! My fourth author Janine Johnson. Johnson’s idea on racism expands from your sex, religion, height, weight etc. “These minority characters struggle to succeed in 1940s society because they are not white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure. Really people can hate on you for the littlest thing. Mary smith is my fifth author. Smith’s theory is she believes that the white man started all the madness; smith says “It’s not just Pecola who brings about this reaction, for each time white people...
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...The Bluest Eye Essay (2nd Draft) Ms. Morrison divides her novel “The Bluest Eye“ into four seasons by making use of motives of her own life. The desire for communicating and sharing aspects with the reader develops a real and identifiable story. But, the reader will only receive knowledge about character perspectives and time frames piece by piece. In order to develop Pecolas fortune to a dramatic climax, she let’s the nature act against her, too. Furthermore, various techniques are used that make the text narratively rich, which leads to a style that contributes towards the dramatic plot action. A lot of what makes The Bluest Eye such capable is the use of special techniques that safe the readers attention at all times. Though Morrison structered her novel with an exposition, climax and conclusion, the plot is still very complicated and never a simple one. You can compare the way Morrison changes charecter perspectives and time frames to building a tower, giving the audience only pieces of knowledge little by little. Furthermore, it sometimes even feels like the novel started at the climax and goes intentionally back to the exposition, because you get to know the tragedy in the beginning but you have to experience the end first by reading the book. The change between the characters narrative enhances the way Morrison structered her story. Another very important stylistic aspect is the change in the character narratives which changes from 3rd person omniscent to a lot of...
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...The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Beauty is said to be in the eyes of the beholder, but what if the image of beauty is forced into the minds of many? The beauty of a person could be expressed in many different ways, as far as looks and personality goes, but the novel The Bluest Eye begs to differ. It contradicts the principle, because beauty is no longer just a person’s opinion but beauty has been made into an unwritten rule, a standard made by society for society. The most important rule is that in order to be beautiful, girls have to look just like a white doll, with blue eyes, light pink skin, and have blond hair. And if they’re not, they are not beautiful. Pecola, one of community’s ugly children, lives life each day wanting to be accepted. “The wider community also fails Pecola. Having absorbed the idea that she is ugly and knowing that she is unloved, Pecola desperately wants the blue eyes that she understands will make a child lovable in American society”(Kubitschek 35). In The Bluest Eye, Morrison argues that the black females in society have been forced to accept the blond hair blue eyed image as the only beauty that exists. Little girls in Lorain had it set in their heads that they should all grow up owning a blond haired and blue-eyed doll, also known as Shirley Temple. These images were placed in their minds, making them feel as if they had to live up to the expectations by going with the crowd, and letting their surroundings influence them. “Adults, older girls...
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...The Bluest Eye: Worth Challenging? Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is one of the books most often challenged in the United States. This is a reaction that, on its face, seems easy to understand. The book contains violence, sexual content (both violent and not), and racial themes. The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio during the Great Depression and primarily follows the story of three African-American girls, two sisters and their friend, Pecola. The events that transpire in their lives during the course of the book would disturb even those accustomed to reading literature not aimed at the young adult market. The question of what age to allow students to read The Bluest Eye, and more specifically have it taught to them, is a difficult one to answer. On the one hand, the book could be disturbing to young students and their parents would probably feel uncomfortable having their child exposed to its content, but on the other hand the literary merit of the novel cannot be doubted and its realism provokes readers into thinking more deeply about child abuse and race. Violence is found scattered throughout the book. One of the central characters, if not the central character, is Pecola, a young girl living in an abusive home. Her parents often fight, seemingly to pass the time. Pecola is emotionally scarred by this, and wishes she could just run away like her older brother. Most notably, she is raped at the hands of her father, Cholly. This is almost certainly the most controversial...
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...Pecola had a similar fascination with the images on a Mary Jane wrapper. “To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane.” (43) Pecola was preoccupied on literally ingesting what she considered this ideal figure of beauty. The Mary Jane candies are interesting as well, being an example of the power that is held over the young black girls. In addition to Claudia and Pecola acting as a contrast and similarity to shirley Temple, both representing the underprivileged side of society, Morrison also includes families and individual characters who aspire to live like the ruling class and seek social equality by disassociating themselves from the lower class African Americans. Later on in The Bluest Eye,...
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...Defying Social Norms Through Writing Essentialist definitions claim that women writers avoid confrontational issues in their work. They instead choose to play it safe when it comes to the topics that they write about. Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Virginia Woolf defy this claim by writing about topics such as race, social status and gender. The novels, “The Bluest Eye,” “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and “To the Lighthouse,” are examples of how these women writers challenge the essentialists’ claims. Beauty standards are a prevailing theme in “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison. Young black girls, like the character Pecola, have to face the hurdles that the color of their skin causes for them. A theme in the novel is that whiteness is...
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...self-hatred during this time. Furthermore, it was written at a major part of the Civil Rights Movement, which involved counteracting the bias that white is beautiful and black is not. 2. Toni Morrison is an African-American writer and professor. She grew up in Ohio, Lorain Where the Bluest Eye takes place. She developed a love for literature and storytelling as she grew up. The story is the told from the view of a 9 year old girl which would have been the same age as Morrison during time in the book. Showing the connection that the book has connection in her life personally. The story evolved from a conversation she had with a little girl in elementary school who wanted blue eyes. 3....
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...For years, black women have been negatively impacted by generational systems of oppression. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison demonstrates this oppressive cycle as well as the long-term, damaging affects of internalized racism. Utilizing various perspectives from black women and children alike, Morrison shows these woman’s quest to find love and acceptance within society. This paper seeks to analyze this theme of love and the black woman identity. In doing so it will evaluate how white beauty standards, media, colorism, and internalized racism all contribute to enforcing division between black women and cultivate a cycle of self-hate. The book focuses on the journey of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven year old, dark skinned black girl, who prays...
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...Lau, Cheuk Hak AFAS 342-03 2013/11/30 How is history ever present in black women’s lives? 'When I reflect on Black women and images, the first thing that enters my mind is the portrayal of them through media images as self-hating, angry, miserable, and vindictive. All of those characterizations are fictitious and derive from Western America’s foundation of White supremacy, as the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has so clearly demonstrated and proven.' —Dr. Ava Muhammad, attorney and Nation of Islam student minister The lives of black women in the early centuries were always tough. They were frequently the victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. After Columbus first discovered America, Queen Isabella of Spain saw an opportunity to make a huge profit by sea trading. Her men bought black people in Africa, and sailed to America. People in America bought black people and put them all into farms, mines, and other places to do hard work. This was called triangular trade, and this is how black people first got into America. Whites treated black people like animals; they gave them the worst food, minimal breaks, and the worst dwellings. Black people had absolutely no rights back then. They were property of their owners. Most of the black women became slave girls. After they were bought by their masters, they became the easiest target for sexual harassment from their white masters. Almost every black woman had been sexual violated. For example, we have read a novel...
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...colorism and the prejudice and discrimination associated with it. Colorism is distinct from racism but it does overlaps at a certain stage. While racism is an inter-ethnic issue, colorism easily flourishes in a friendly intra-ethnic environment. The paper also digs into the post-colonial impact on colorism and the role of contemporary media’s representation of colored people through advertising and its amalgamation with the popular culture of countries with large colored population and capitalistic means of keeping the bias alive which amounts to roughly $18 billion industry. In the United States of America, it is evident that the practice is also a common thing among American Muslims comparable to the American African communities who rarely intermarries through racial lines. Recently, intra-ethnic employment discrimination has also caught some attention in the Arrocha v CUNY court case. According to a Newsweek report, International fashion world still prefers whiter models. The impacts of colorism normally results into discriminatory behavior and prejudices. Colorism, also forms prejudices about lighter skinned and white people, as they are seen as more intelligent and richer. Anglo-Indians faces a kind of prejudice in which the regular Indians always sees them as foreigners. Washington Post staff writer, DeNeen L. Brown has remarked that “colorism is the crazy aunt in the attic of racism”. A public competition called “Britain’s Most Beautiful Face” applied mathematical algorithm...
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...The character of Pecola is the most affected by the standardized ideology of racism through the concept of beauty. The unreachable concept of white beauty victimizes Pecola and allows the African American community to also discriminate and address their self-hatred toward Pecola. In contrast to Claudia, Pecola has no self-love for herself as she always sees herself through the eyes of others and her only aspiration is to conform to the standard of beauty to be accepted in the community. The narration of the book allows readers to unfold that it was Pecola's own assumption to feel ugly and that her deep internalization of white beauty standards and their value drives her to her ultimate insanity. The character of Pecola loses or never has...
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...Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Morrison puts the spotlight on society, lighting up the corrupt acts that it partakes in, through the story of how a little, black girl is thrown by the curb since she does not exemplify the common model. Instead of our protagonist, Pecola, having one human adversary, we see how most of most of society plays as the antagonist. The wicked acts of society eat up Pecola Breedlove from the inside to the outside, as they rape her, take away her innocence and leave her to go mad. Looking at everything from Pecola’s perspective, we realize that society rapes her constantly, by their critical attitudes towards all that she is. To them, she is black, she is poor, and hence she is ugly. One of the first heinous acts that society presents to Pecola is lust. That being, the desire for “whiteness” or as everyone else in the book believed, the desire for beauty. Pecola is taught from a very early age that beauty is one of the values that she will be held up to. In addition, society expresses to her that the crucial part to being beautiful is being...
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...Philosophy of Education, Privatization, Public Schools, School Violence, School Vouchers, Teaching, Technology and Education, Test and Testing, Writing English Composition Essays - Analitical, Autobiographical, Argument, Cause/Effect, Classification, Compare/Contrast, Comparison, Conversation, Creative+Writing, Critical, Deductive, Definition, Descriptive, Description, Dialog, Division, Exploratory, Expository, Informative, Interview, Inquiry, Journalistic, Narration, Observation. Personal Narrative, Place, Profile, Process, Proposal English Literature and Literary Analysis - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A & P, Antigone, Apocalypse Now, Araby, The Awakening, Barn Burning, Beowulf, Beloved, Bible, Birthmark, Blade Runner, The Bluest Eye, Candide, Canterbury Tales, Catcher in the Rye, Cathedral, Chrysanthemums, A Clockwork Orange, The Color Purple, Comparing Literary Works, Crime and Punishment, Death of a Salesman, Death in Venice, Desiree's Baby, A Doll's House, Dr. Faustus, Epic of Gilgamesh, Everyday Use, A Farewell to Arms, Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Glass Menagerie, Gulliver's Travels, The Handmaid's Tale, Heart of Darkness, The Iliad, Invisible Man, Jane Eyre, The Joy Luck Club, The Lottery, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Metamorphosis, My Antonia, My Papa's Waltz, Neuromancer, The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, On the Road, Oresteia, Paradise Lost, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,...
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...his first book titled “The Suppression of the African Slave-trade to United States of America, 1638-1870”, which outlined the work on America trying to limit and suppress the trade in slaves between Africa and America. Between 1897 and 1910 Du Bois was teaching, at what is now Clark Atlanta University, and during this he produced his works, “The Philadelphia Negro” in 1899 and “The Souls of Black Folk” in 1903. “The Souls of Black Folk” being one of his best work because it provided us with historical and literary content involving black lives during different periods. After reading DuBois's book, “The Souls of Black Folks”, I’ve concluded that he made his central argument around three main issues. His issues with America is the “veil” of racism or “color-line”, the untruth behind the Government, and the progression of black...
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...Research Paper #2 Chloe Ardelia Wofford, most commonly known as Toni Morrison, is an American novelist and professor. She was born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio. She is the second child among her sister and two younger brothers. She came from a black working-class family that took pride in their heritage. As a child, Morrison enjoyed literature, unlike most children. She had a variety of favorite authors such as Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy. She later on attended an integrated school with Europeans, Mexicans and Southern blacks. Since she adored literature, she was the only black student in her first grade class who could read. She maintained excellent grades and graduated with honors from Lorain High School in 1949. Wofford continued her education at Howard University, where she majored in English with a minor in classics. During this time, she alternated her name to Toni, since most people had difficulty pronouncing her original name. In the years she spent at Howard, Toni participated in a repertory company and graduated in 1953; more over, she later on attended Cornell University and achieved her master's degree in 1955. Wofford taught introductory English at Texas Southern University in Houston. A year or so later she met Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect. The two ended up falling in love and eloped in 1958. They had their first son in 1961, who was named Harold Ford. Although, she was suffering from an unhappy marriage because she felt that her husband...
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