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Thread ID: 20537 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2005-10-06
2005-10-06 05:23 | User Profile
Toni Morrison
Did anyone else have read "The Bluest Eye" in school?
All the Characters are Afros but somehow everything bad the happens is the fault of "White Racism." It a sick story and Afros raping and beating each other. It is also anti-Christian, the narrator hates the Christian Mother who takes care of her children and keeps clean house. Civilized Blacks seen to be as bad ââ¬Åwhite peopleââ¬Â in the eye of the author. Remember Toni Morrison said Bill Clinton was a ââ¬ÅBlack Manââ¬Â due to his personal life and family, and she intended this statement as praise. The Books shows Blacks as a sick, evil, and perverted race. Some of the parents of the white children at my school did want their children to read the book because they thought it would make think Black people are no good.
[QUOTE]Toni Morrison (born February 18, 1931) is one of the most prominent authors in world literature, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Through her writings and other works, Morrison was also instrumental in bringing recognition to the genre of African American literature. Several of her novels are included among the canon of American literature, including The Bluest Eye, Beloved (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction), and Song of Solomon. Her writings are known for dealing with epic themes, for Morrison's writing of dialogue, and for her detailed depictions of African Americans. Beloved was released in 1998 as the film Beloved starring Oprah Winfrey
In recent years, Morrison has published a number of children's books with her son, Slade Morrison.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison[/url][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]The Bluest Eye (1970)
Morrison wrote her first novel, The Bluest Eye, while raising two children and teaching at Howard University. The novel's protagonist is Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl who prays each night to become a blue-eyed beauty like Shirley Temple. Breedlove's family has numerous problems and she believes everything would be okay if only she had beautiful blue eyes. Through the course of the novel, the narrator, Claudia MacTeer, describes the destruction of Pecola's life. The novel is set in a small Midwestern town, similar to the one Morrison grew up in. The novel is not only controversial in its subject matter but also in the way in which it is written. Morrison rejects a chronological structure and a single narrator, as she does in many of her works, for a splintered and multifaceted approach.
The Bluest Eye is a novel by Toni Morrison which details a summer in the life of a young black girl in Lorain, Ohio named Pecola. The story is told from four perspectives, Pecola's, her friend's, Soaphead Church, and her parents'. Because of the controversial nature of the book, dealing with racism and child molestation, there have been numerous attempts to ban it.
Characters
* Pecola Breedlove- She is a poor black girl who believes she is ugly because she and her community base their ideals of beauty on "whiteness". She is the main character in the novel. The title of the novel "The Bluest Eye" is based on Pecola's fervent wishes for beautiful blue eyes.
* Cholly Breedlove- Pecola's abusive father; an alcoholic man who rapes his daughter. Rejected by his father and discarded by his mother at a young age, Cholly was raised by a surrogate mother "Aunt Jimmy". After she dies, Cholly runs away and pursues the life of a "free man", yet he is never able to escape his painful past, nor can he live with the mistakes of his present.
* Pauline Breedlove- Pecola's mother. Mrs. Breedlove is married to Cholly and lives the self-righteous life of a martyr - enduring her drunkard husband and raising her two awkward children as best she can. Mrs. Breedlove herself is a bit of an outcast with her broken limp leg and her Southern background. Mrs. Breedlove lives the life of a lonely and isolated character always escaping into a world of dreams, hopes and fantasy.
* Sam Breedlove- Pecola's younger brother. Sammy is Cholly and Mrs. Breedlove's one son. Sam's part in the novel is relatively low key. Like his sister Pecola, he is affected by the disharmony in their home and deals with his anger by running away and escaping into the world.
* Claudia MacTeer- Much of the novel is told from the perspective of Claudia and in this sense, she is the primary narrator in the book. Claudia is Pecola's friend and the younger sister of Frieda MacTeer. The MacTeer family serves as a foil for the Breedloves, and although both families are poor, Mr. and Mrs. MacTeer are strict but loving parents towards their children - a sharp contrast to the disfunctional home of the Breedloves.
* Frieda MacTeer- Claudia's older sister and close companion. The two MacTeer girls are often seen together and whilst the story is told through Claudia's eyes, her sister Frieda plays a large role in the novel.
* Henry Washington-
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bluest_Eye[/url][/QUOTE]
2005-10-09 22:45 | User Profile
Yes, I am pretty familiar with Morrison. I read [U]Sula[/U] during a "Southern" literature class and read [U]Beloved[/U] in a modern American novel class.
In my opinion, if the novels had been written by a non-afro, then critics would attack them as the work of a "racist." They portray the black characters as having either utterly low inteligence or a high proclivity for random sex.
For that matter, I don't "get" the afro-novels: Neal Hurston's [U]Their Eyes Were Watching God[/U] and Angelou's [U]I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings[/U]. These were high school reading texts <<<
In fact, they are BORING; same story lines throughout ... struggle, sex instict, more struggle, enter white "outsider" who cannot relate, more sex, epiphany, end story.
The best novelists were Russian, in my opinion.
2005-10-10 04:50 | User Profile
The following humorous article, while slightly crass, does a good job of putting Angelou in her place:
[url="http://www.cosmoetica.com/TOP36-DES33.htm"]http://www.cosmoetica.com/TOP36-DES33.htm[/url]
When I look back on the "education" I received, especially in public school, I remain utterly amazed that I ever ended up within a stone's throw of a board like this one... I'm just out of my 20's, and every bit of air I ever breathed was after the Marxist takeover of the public education system.
Garbage novels like Angelou were assigned even in my "advanced" English classes, yet somehow I missed out on all of the Russian greats, Charles Dickens (!), and the like...
2005-10-10 23:55 | User Profile
H.A.L.2006,
All too true. I think Thomas Dixon was nicer in the way he portrayed black characters than Morrison. ââ¬ÅThe Bluest Eyeââ¬Â is just plain sick and disgusting. The afro-novels are just bad!
[QUOTE=H.A.L.2006]Yes, I am pretty familiar with Morrison. I read [U]Sula[/U] during a "Southern" literature class and read [U]Beloved[/U] in a modern American novel class.
In my opinion, if the novels had been written by a non-afro, then critics would attack them as the work of a "racist." They portray the black characters as having either utterly low inteligence or a high proclivity for random sex.
For that matter, I don't "get" the afro-novels: Neal Hurston's [U]Their Eyes Were Watching God[/U] and Angelou's [U]I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings[/U]. These were high school reading texts <<<
In fact, they are BORING; same story lines throughout ... struggle, sex instict, more struggle, enter white "outsider" who cannot relate, more sex, epiphany, end story.
The best novelists were Russian, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
2005-10-31 18:59 | User Profile
say what you will about the subject matter morrison addresses (which is more varied than people are giving it credit for), but her writing talent and skill cannot be challenged. She's one of the best at her craft.