THE BLUEST EYE

Metin Demirci

Ebru Gümrükçüoğlu

Cemre Naz Özkarahttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wLIulHENwY4/Rq6nMdwzKhI/AAAAAAAAALU/4Fz0WuaKido/s400/TheBluestEye1400.jpg

About the author Brief Summary Morisson’s style

MetaphorSimile İmagery

The Great Depression Search for love

PecolaPaulineCholly

References

OUTLİNE

Born in Lorain, Ohio

Her parents moved to escape south racism

Novel partly based on her life

TONİ MORİSSON

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5439utopia/images/Toni-Morrison.jpg

in 1941

SUMMARY

raped by

Claudia

white beauty

Soaphead Church

pregnancy

isolated

baby’s death

The story tells about the issues, which black society confronts ________. A black family’s, Mac Teer’s, daughter ________ narrates her memories about her friend Pecola, who was __________ her father Cholly. Because of her admiration to ______ _____, Pecola wants to have the bluest eyes ever. Afterwards she insists, _________ _________ convinces her that she has blue eyes. Because of the societies attitude towards her __________ and her obsession to blue eyes, she feels ___________ from society. After her _______ _______, she goes mad and she thinks that she could fly.

Imagery

MORİSSON’S STYLE

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/2195378179_56873737bb.jpg

Metaphors Seeds, earth, black dirt,

martyrdom

Simile Regional contrast, racial stereotypes

Maurine, Anger, Black people

“Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live.”

METAPHORS

What do you think the word “seed” represents in the quotation?

Answer: Here the word “seed” represents the individuals who can’t adapt their selves to the society and its rules. (Such as Pecola)

“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 now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year.”

Which system is being criticized by usage of the word “earth”?

Answer: Racist system

“We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola’s father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt.”

The phrase “black dirt” has been used in the quotation in two different ways. What is the difference between their meanings?

Answer: 1) Their own environment2) Pecola’s womb

“Mrs. Breedlove handled hers as an actor does a prop: for the articulation of character, for support of a role she frequently imagined was hers-martyrdom.”

Mrs. Breedlove thinks that she can save Cholly from hell, because he’s an alcoholic. If he stops drinking then she wouldn’t have any other purpose in her life.

What would be your reaction in a similar situation like Mrs. Breedlove, would you try to save your partner or leave?

White Blue sky Lakefront white houses Lake view Good fortune, permanent

job, well-to-do family

SİMİLERegional Contrast

Black• Orange-patched sky• Leaned gray houses• Steel pollution• No zinc tub, no buckets of

stove-heated water

Have you ever observed such a strict discripency in Istanbul’s neighborhoods? Where and how?

Racial stereotypes

What do you think about racial stereotyping in Turkey?

Sugar brown girls Slim ankles Long narrow feet Smell like vanilla Do not smoke, drink or

swear

Black• Big asses• Big lips • Kinky hair

“Colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud. He belolonged (Junior) to the former group: He wore white shirts and blue trousers; his hair was cut as close to his scalp as possible to avoid any suggestion of wool, the part was etched into his hair by the barber. ”

Ideal “White” Image

http://punchbutton.beloblog.com/archives/images/0906/richie%20rich.bmp

“A high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back. She was rich at least by our

standards (. . .) the quality of her clothes treatened to derange Frieda and me.”

IMAGERY

MAURINE• Patent-leather shoes• Brightly colored knee• Socks with white borders• Velvet coat trimmed in rabbit fur

ANGER

“Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. And awareness of worth. It is a lovely searching.”

How would you describe anger?

The Breedloves Poor and black Ugly Poverty is traditonal Unique ugliness

“You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction (...) they accepted it without question.”

“The Great Depression was an economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world.” (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, 2010, n.p.)

THE GREAT DEPRESSİON

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm

Novel is set at the end of depression

Cholly is jobless Poverty and

migration

THE GREAT DEPRESSİON

İN THE NOVEL

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/04/0426_dow/image/2_great_depression.jpg

Blue eyes means beauty She would not sit alone in classroom Cholly and Pauline would be different Her teacher would like her

SEARCH FOR LOVE

Why do you think Pecola is obsessed with blue eyes in relation her search for love?

Pecola

Mrs. Breedlove

Pauline thinks that Cholly fulfilled her need for love

Going movies alone Happiness means wearing pretty clothes and

having a lovely smile

Do you think that marriage kills love?

Cholly

“Cholly had always thought of his father as a giant of a man, so when he was very close it was with a shock that he discovered that he was taller than his father.”

What would be your reaction if your father wouldn’t accept you as his child?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/2195378179_56873737bb.jpg http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5439utopia/images/Toni-

Morrison.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_

wLIulHENwY4/Rq6nMdwzKhI/AAAAAAAAALU/4Fz0WuaKido/s400/TheBluestEye1400.jpg

Great Depression. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved May 11, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/243118/Great-Depression

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm http://

images.businessweek.com/ss/07/04/0426_dow/image/2_great_depression.jpg

http://punchbutton.beloblog.com/archives/images/0906/richie%20rich.bmp

https://sucourse.sabanciuniv.edu/access/content/group/ENG102-A2B2C2D2-200902/Novel/The%20bluest%20eye%20STUDY%20GUIDE.pdf

REFERENCES

Thank You For Your Attention