The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison
Summary and Analysis of Prologue and Autumn
The Bluest Eye opens with two short untitled and unnumbered sections. The first section is a version of the classic Dick and Jane stories found in grade school reading primers. There is a pretty house, Mother, Father, Dick, Jane, a cat, a dog, and, at the end, a friend for Jane to play with. The same story appears three times in succession, repeated verbatim each time. The first time the text appears with full punctuation and normal spacing. The second time the same story appears without any punctuation or capitalization, but with a space between each of the words. The third time the text has no capitalization, no punctuation, and no spaces between the words.
The second section is a short passage narrated by Claudia MacTeer. Claudia tells us that "quiet as it's kept," in the fall of 1941, when she was a young girl, no marigolds bloomed. She reveals that at the time she and her sister Frieda thought the marigolds did not bloom because Pecola was having her father's baby. The marigolds planted by Claudia and Frieda never grow, and for years Claudia thought that her sister was right in blaming her, because she was the one who planted the seeds too deep in the earth. But now, the narrator wonders if perhaps it was the earth itself that was barren. Claudia connects the earth to Pecola, saying that just as the MacTeer daughters put seeds into their plot of black dirt, Pecola's father dropped his seeds in his plot of black dirt. Now, with the flowers and the baby dead, only Pecola and the barren earth are left. The prelude closes by wondering about the source of Pecola's tragedy: "There is really nothing more to say‹except why. But since why is difficult to handled, one must take refuge in how."
Analysis:
The passage from the Dick and Jane reader puts forward a representation of idealized white middle class life. Although the race of the Dick and Jane family is never specified in the text,... [continues]
Summary and Analysis of Prologue and Autumn
The Bluest Eye opens with two short untitled and unnumbered sections. The first section is a version of the classic Dick and Jane stories found in grade school reading primers. There is a pretty house, Mother, Father, Dick, Jane, a cat, a dog, and, at the end, a friend for Jane to play with. The same story appears three times in succession, repeated verbatim each time. The first time the text appears with full punctuation and normal spacing. The second time the same story appears without any punctuation or capitalization, but with a space between each of the words. The third time the text has no capitalization, no punctuation, and no spaces between the words.
The second section is a short passage narrated by Claudia MacTeer. Claudia tells us that "quiet as it's kept," in the fall of 1941, when she was a young girl, no marigolds bloomed. She reveals that at the time she and her sister Frieda thought the marigolds did not bloom because Pecola was having her father's baby. The marigolds planted by Claudia and Frieda never grow, and for years Claudia thought that her sister was right in blaming her, because she was the one who planted the seeds too deep in the earth. But now, the narrator wonders if perhaps it was the earth itself that was barren. Claudia connects the earth to Pecola, saying that just as the MacTeer daughters put seeds into their plot of black dirt, Pecola's father dropped his seeds in his plot of black dirt. Now, with the flowers and the baby dead, only Pecola and the barren earth are left. The prelude closes by wondering about the source of Pecola's tragedy: "There is really nothing more to say‹except why. But since why is difficult to handled, one must take refuge in how."
Analysis:
The passage from the Dick and Jane reader puts forward a representation of idealized white middle class life. Although the race of the Dick and Jane family is never specified in the text,... [continues]
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(2010, 06). The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison: Summary and Analysis of Prologue and Autumn. StudyMode.com. Retrieved 06, 2010, from http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye-By-Tony-Morrison-341027.html
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"The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison: Summary and Analysis of Prologue and Autumn" StudyMode.com. 06 2010. 06 2010 <http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye-By-Tony-Morrison-341027.html>.
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"The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison: Summary and Analysis of Prologue and Autumn." StudyMode.com. 06, 2010. Accessed 06, 2010. http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Bluest-Eye-By-Tony-Morrison-341027.html.
