The Bluest Eye Vocabulary/Reading Schedule Week 10/20-10/24

Week of 10/20-10/24
10/20 Discuss Bluest Eye  Winter/Spring sections  Maureen Peel, Geraldine
10/21 Discuss Pauline section, Read Cholly section (see handouts)
10/22 Discuss Pauline section cont.; Begin discussing Cholly section; Read Soaphead Church section
10/23 Discuss Cholly section and Soaphead Church; Read ending of novel
10/24 Quiz on The Bluest Eye vocabulary (see below--31 words);  Read aloud the "Pecola has blue eyes" section

The Bluest Eye projects are due Monday for presentation!

DefinitionsNotes & ExamplesWords Only

order:   List order  A to Z  Z to A  Easy to Hard  Hard to Easy 

1. swaddle
   wrap in swaddling clothes
   NOTES:
   

   "Swaddling clothes" are for babies. Velvet, fur, and pleats are not babyish, but the image of Maureen Peal being swaddled in her clothes emphasizes a wealth that allows parents to pamper their children. It also brings up the image of baby dolls and reminds readers of what Claudia did to them.
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of the white girls, swaddled in comfort and care.
2. genuflect
   bend the knees and bow in a servile manner
   NOTES:
   

   Although the Latin "genu" means "knee" and "flectere" means "to bend", a person does not have to bend a knee to show a respectful or servile attitude. Like the girls in the example sentence, she can use her eyes to genuflect.
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   Black boys didn’t trip her in the halls; white boys didn’t stone her, white girls didn’t suck their teeth when she was assigned to be their work partners; black girls stepped aside when she wanted to use the sink in the girls’ toilet, and their eyes genuflected under sliding lids.
   
3. fastidious
   giving careful attention to detail; hard to please; excessively concerned with cleanliness
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   She never had to search for anybody to eat with in the cafeteria—they flocked to the table of her choice, where she opened fastidious lunches, shaming our jelly-stained bread with egg-salad sandwiches cut into four dainty squares, pink-frosted cupcakes, stocks of celery and carrots, proud, dark apples.
   
4. bemused
   perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements; filled with bewilderment
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   Frieda and I were bemused, irritated, and fascinated by her.
   
5. equilibrium
   a sensory system located in structures of the inner ear that registers the orientation of the head
   NOTES:
   

   The given definition focuses on physical balance but equilibrium can also refer to emotional or mental balance. Because of the lack of "equality of distribution" (another definition of "equilibrium") in wealth and attention, Maureen Peal's presence throws Claudia and Frieda off balance.
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   We looked hard for flaws to restore our equilibrium, but had to be content at first with uglying up her name, changing Maureen Peal to Meringue Pie.
   
6. epiphany
   a divine manifestation
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   Later a minor epiphany was ours when we discovered that she had a dog tooth—a charming one to be sure—but a dog tooth nonetheless.
   
7. hostility
   violent action that is hostile and usually unprovoked
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   But we had to do it alone, for none of the other girls would cooperate with our hostility.
   
8. haughtiness
   overbearing pride evidenced by a superior manner toward inferiors
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   And when I thought of the unearned haughtiness in her eyes, I plotted accidental slammings of locker doors on her hand.
   
9. extemporize
   perform without preparation
   EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
   

   They had extemporized a verse made up of two insults about matters over which the victim had no control: the color of her skin and speculations on the sleeping habits of an adult, wildly fitting in its incoherence.
10. scorn
    lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    They seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds—cooled—and spilled over lips of outrage, consuming whatever was in its path.
    
11. macabre
    shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    They danced a macabre ballet around the victim, whom, for their own sake, they were prepared to sacrifice to the flaming pit.
    
12. animated
    having life or vigor or spirit
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    While Frieda and I clucked on about the near fight, Maureen, suddenly animated, put her velvet-sleeved arm through Pecola’s and began to behave as though they were the closest of friends.
    
13. placidly
    in a quiet and tranquil manner
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    Maureen disappeared into the store with Pecola. Frieda looked placidly down the street; I opened my mouth, but quickly closed it.
    
14. arsenal
    all the weapons and equipment that a country has
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    We chanted this most powerful of our arsenal of insults as long as we could see the green stems and rabbit fur.
    
15. antagonize
    provoke the hostility of
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    Her pain antagonized me.
    
16. relevance
    the relation of something to the matter at hand
    NOTES:
    

    To the nine and ten year old Claudia and Frieda, "wisdom, accuracy, and relevance" are heavy words that they believe in. To the author (and possibly Claudia as the older narrator), the triad of words carries a mocking tone, because it is being used to describe a white girl's angry claims that she is cute and that Claudia and Frieda are black and ugly.
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    We were sinking under the wisdom, accuracy, and relevance of Maureen’s last words. If she was cute—and if anything could be believed, she was—then we were not.
    
17. guileless
    free of deceit
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    Guileless and without vanity, we were still in love with ourselves then.
    
18. gainful
    yielding a fair profit
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    Such girls live in quiet black neighborhoods where everybody is gainfully employed.
19. shrill
    being sharply insistent on being heard
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    They are not fretful, nervous, or shrill; they do not have lovely black necks that stretch as though against an invisible collar; their eyes do not bite.
    
20. thrift
    extreme care in spending money; reluctance to spend money unnecessarily
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    Here they learn the rest of the lesson begun in those soft houses with porch swings and pots of bleeding heart: how to behave. The careful development of thrift, patience, high morals, and good manners.
    
21. dissolve
    become or cause to become soft or liquid
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies.
    
22. enunciation
    the articulation of speech regarded from the point of view of its intelligibility to the audience
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    The laugh that is a little too loud; the enunciation a little too round; the gesture a little too generous.
    
23. inviolable
    immune to attack; incapable of being tampered with
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    What they do not know is that this plain brown girl will build her nest stick by stick, make it her owninviolable world, and stand guard over its every plant, weed, and doily, even against him.
    
24. surreptitious
    marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to avoid being observed
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    He must enter her surreptitiously, lifting the hem of her nightgown only to her navel.
    
25. ostensibly
    from appearances alone
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    He must rest his weight on his elbows when they make love, ostensibly to avoid hurting her breasts but actually to keep her from having to touch or feel too much of him.
    
26. constancy
    faithfulness and dependability in personal attachments (especially sexual fidelity)
    NOTES:
    

    Another definition of "constancy" is "the quality of being enduring and free from change"--this would also fit the example sentence, although it would change the tone of the triad. With the first definition, "order, precision, and constancy" would be three positive qualities. With the second definition, they would be three qualities that the author is mocking. Both tones apply and depend on the perspective of the colored woman, her cat, or the author.
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    A cat, perhaps, who will love her order, precision, and constancy; who will be as clean and quiet as she is.
    
27. satiety
    the state of being satisfactorily full and unable to take on more
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    As long as his needs were physical, she could meet them—comfort and satiety.
    
28. erode
    become ground down or deteriorate
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    The line between colored and nigger was not always clear; subtle and telltale signs threatened toerode it, and the watch had to be constant.
    
29. unabashed
    not embarrassed
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    Eyes that questioned nothing and asked everything. Unblinking and unabashed, they stared up at her. The end of the world lay in their eyes, and the beginning, and all the waste in between.
    
30. idle
    be idle; exist in a changeless situation
    EXAMPLE SENTENCE:
    

    In the long, hot days, they idled away, picking plaster from the walls and digging into the earth with sticks. They sat in little rows on street curbs, crowded into pews at church, taking space from the nice, neat, colored children;