1. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970 published) Ms Isabella Marinaro

2. I focused on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child. (from: “Foreword” to TBE) Ms Isabella Marinaro

3. Toni Morrison started writing it in 1962 the story became a book in 1965 it was published in 1970 T. Morrison was 39, the same age Claudia, the main narrator, is at the end of the novel it is T. Morrison’s first novel few of the reviewers understood it Ms Isabella Marinaro

4. The origin of the novel lay in a conversation I had with a childhood friend. We had just started elementary school. She said she wanted blue eyes. (from: “Foreword” to TBE) Ms Isabella Marinaro

5. for T. Morrison that wish was a form of violence, her perception of its suggestion and mutilation Ms Isabella Marinaro the novel is one of the examples of the many efforts of the period towards reconstructing a cultural context out of which African American people could operate and also making possible a reconstructed identity

6. with TBE T. Morrison starts her own examination in literature of the issues of beauty, love, family, community and class within African American culture Ms Isabella Marinaro

7. the novel already presents some of T. Morrison’s main themes, as: the possibility of female autonomy in an African American cultural context m o t h e r h o o d love beauty reconstructing history heritage personal identity t h e h o u s e h o l d i n r e l a t i o n t o t h e c o m m u n i t y African American and Midwestern American vernaculous & idiomatic languages insider narrative voice/voices Ms Isabella Marinaro

8. Structure of the novel Ms Isabella Marinaro

9. the title: it is a multiple pun: Ms Isabella Marinaro (a) The eye longed for by Pecola (b) the “I” that …Author-izes the novel as a whole (c) the bluest “I” that witnesses Pecola’s fate: Claudia MacTeer blue = deeply sad, depressed besides in its superlative form eye = I (same pronouciation)

10. pagessection nametext type voice – p.o.v.tense(s)notes 1 – 2Prologue 1RomanprimerPresent tensedivided into three subpoints – primer text increasingly disrupted 3 – 4Prologue 2Italics1 st person ClaudiaPast tensesummary of events – introduced Picola, Claudia, Frieda 5 Autumn title Italicssections follow academic year not calendar year. From fall 1940 to summer 1941 7 – 30Autumn part 1Roman1 st person ClaudiaPresent tense 31 – 35Autumn part 2Roman3 rd personPast tensedisrupted primer text – house 36 – 56Autumn part 3Roman3 rd personPast tensedisrupted primer text - family 57 Winter title page Italics 59 – 78Winter part 1Roman1 st person ClaudiaPresent tense / Past tense 79 – 91Winter part 2Roman3 rd personHabitual / Past tensedisrupted primer text – cat 93 Spring title page Italics 95 – 107Spring part 1Roman1 st person ClaudiaPresent tense / Past tense 108 – 129Spring part 2Roman3 rd person monologuePast tense 130 – 161Spring part 3Roman3 rd personPast tensedisrupted primer text – Father, Cholly Breedlove 162 – 181Spring part 4Roman3 rd person epistolaryPast tensedisrupted primer text – dog. Soaphead Church / Elihue Micah Whitcomb 183 Summer title Italics 185 – 190Summer part 1Roman1 st person ClaudiaPast tense 191 – 202Summer part 2 (a)Roman / Italicsdissociative dialogue / PicolaPresent tensedisrupted primer text – friend 202 – 203Summer part 3 (b)Roman3 rd person, 1 st personPast tense OVERSTRUCTURE OF THE BLUEST EYE (1969, publ. 1970; T. M.’s first novel) JCU Course: Toni Morrison (Selected Topics in American Literature) [EN315] Professor Carlos Dews Lessons: 26 th Jan., 28 th Jan., 2 nd Feb., 4 th Feb. 2015 (Ms Isabella Marinaro)

11. the narrators are 4: Claudia MacTeer, a precocious youth of intuitive wisdom She presents a retrospective view on the malefic events of 1940-41 in Lorain, Ohio Through her voice the reader gets intimate of the beliefs of the other characters in the book Ms Isabella Marinaro (a)

12. (b) a third person narrator who fills in the gaps between Claudia and what is outside her sphere of knowledge Ms Isabella Marinaro

13. (c) The subjective consciousness of Paulina Breedlove, Pecola’s mother Ms Isabella Marinaro

14. (d) Pecola in a schizoid dramatic dialogue between herself and her imaginary second self

15. these chapters are organized on the life cycle of school children in the US: Autumn 1940 => Winter 1940 => Spring 1941 => Summer 1941 Ms Isabella Marinaro

16. the main text of the novel is preceded by two untitled prologues they provide for the contexts to understand the events Ms Isabella Marinaro

17. 1st prologue (pages 1-2, Roman) Dick & Jane primer text divided into three subpoints (1)the white family romance. All US children encontered that text in the 1970s; the text is regular, ordered readable (2) it corresponds to the MacTeers: text without capitals and puctuation; without capital and punctuation, confused but still readable (3) It corresponds to the Breedloves: text without capitals and punctuation or spacing, it gets incoherent and unintelligible Ms Isabella Marinaro

18. 2nd prologue (pages 3-4) Italics 1st person singular narration => Claudia MacTeer a brief summary of the tragic events of Pecola’s life inside a metaphorical frame of planting and growing flowers. marigolds are metaphorically and metonymically connected to Pecola: in order to get at “why”, we must begin with “how” Ms Isabella Marinaro

19. fragments from the primer text are used as epigraphs to select the following sections in order to remind us of the dominant discourse on the right way of family, possibly white the primer text is a sort of “narratological compendium”, a “master text”: it describes an insidious form of assimilation of the perfect white family Ms Isabella Marinaro assimilation involves stifling or denigrating one’s feelings and characteristics in order to live up to the expectation of the mainstream society

20. “[Pecola] has surrended completely to the “Master Narrative”: the whole notion of what is ugliness, what is worthless. She got it from her family; she got it from school; she got it from the movies; she got it from everywhere. (…) The Master Narrative is whatever idelogical script that is being imposed by the people in authority on everybody else. The Master Narrative… history..” “So when those little girls see that the most prized gift they can receive at Xmas is this little white doll, that’s the Master Narrative speaking: this is beautiful, this is lovely, and you’re not, so what are you going do do about it? Ms Isabella Marinaro

21. the Afro American community is responsible for Pecola’s fate because they have accepted and internalized a set of values imposed upon them by the dominant white culture = Master Narrative that idea of beauty consigns them to invisibility and condemns them to self-hatred Ms Isabella Marinaro that is why Dick-and-Jane primer as “master text” represents the basic tool of ideological indoctrination: it introduces readers and inculcates them the right values

22. Ms Isabella Marinaro only Claudia seems to resist the power of white mythology she dismembers white dolls and all that she finds is sawdust Claudia represents the “counter-primer”, aiming at counteracting the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples and Maureen Peals

23. in the coda Claudia suggests her narrative stems in guilt and betrayal: she and other members of the black community “assassinated” Pecola by scapegoating her or by turning her backs on her Claudia invites the reader to imagine the very real beauty of Pecola’s unborn baby and the pleasure Pecola’s smile gives her even if Pecola would never know her how beauty Ms Isabella Marinaro

24. values of TBE to help readers to appreciate the difficulties faced by the outsider and powerless an older and more understanding Claudia may help readers develop greater empathy for those who live on a society’s periphery and thus increase tolerance and understanding during the process of telling the story, Claudia gets a different and richer sense of empathizing with the victims, wheteìher our guilt take the form of direct responsibility or complicity

25. Bibliography: Notes mainly come from the course on Toni Morrison held by professor Carlos Dews at John Cabot University of Rome, Jan. – May 2015. TBE stands for The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, Vintage Books – London 1999 - The Literary Encyclopedia, entry: “Toni Morrison” - The Literary Encyclopedia, entry: The Bluest Eye - “Text, Primers, And Voices In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, by C. D. Malmgren - “The Portrayal Of Sexuality in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, by S. R. Luebke - “Horrific Love in Toni Morrison’s Fiction”, by T. Hotten