Bluest Eye Fishbowl Discussion

TEST TOMORROW ON VOCABULARY AND BLUEST EYE


1.  How is Pauline affected by her upbringing? What aspect of American culture help to shape her values? Note especially how she is affected by religion.  How does the way in which Morrison depicts Pauline's religious beliefs suggest her feelings toward them?


2.  How is Cholly affected by his life experiences? What are the important or significant events in his past experience and how do these shape his adult personality and behavior? (Refer to particular incidents and sections of text).

3.  What does Morrison want us to get from The Bluest Eye?  Many of its plot events deal with serious issues and dysfunctional families.  Amidst all of the references to ugliness, where is the beauty in the novel?  Is there optimism in the novel? 

4.  Read the following:

Moyers: I don't think I've every met a more pathetic character in modern literature than Pecola Breedlove in "The Bluest Eye."
Morrison: She has surrendered completely to the so-called "Master Narrative," the whole notion of what is ugliness, what is worthlessness. She got it from her family; she got it from school; she got it from the movies; she got it from everywhere.
Moyers: The Master Narrative . . .what is . . . that's life?
Morrison: No. It's white male life. The Master Narrative is whatever ideological script that is being imposed by the people in authority of everybody else: The Master Fiction . . . history. It has a certain point of view. So when those little girls see that the most prized gift they can receive at Christmas time is this little white doll, that's the Master Narrative speaking: this is beautiful, this lovely, and you're not it, so what are you going to do about it? So if you surrender to that, as Pecola did (the little girl, the "I" of the story, is a bridge: [she] is resistant, feisty, doesn't trust any adults) . . .[Pecola] is so completely needful; she has so little and needs so much . . . she becomes the perfect victim--the total pathetic one. And for her there's no way back into the community or society. For her, an abused child, she can only escape into fantasy, into madness, which is part of what . . . the mind is always creative . . . it can think that up.
Do you agree with Moyers' comment?  Is Pecola all that pathetic?  Why/Why not?  Include some textual evidence to support your claim.