Mrs. Breedloves' Theme

Not many people know this about me but I am going to college to study Recording Arts. You must be thinking "uuu! This girl wants to record music" and you are a quarter right. What I really want to do is become both a music supervisor and a folley mixer. A folley mixer records sounds and then adds them into the video medium and a music supervisor picks the music that goes into a scene.

There are moments when you just have that perfect song to describe a moment. Or even a song that becomes a trademark. There is a reason that whenever someone says Titanic, another bust out into an accapella version of "My Heart Will Go On". We associate certain songs with certain scenes. I personally remember some of my favorite scenes in movies and T.V shows because of the song that was selected to play during that scene. From Chuck and Blair's limo scene (With Me by Sum 41) to the instrumental music in The Holiday, these are sound trademarks.

 If I was directing the on screen adaptation of The Bluest Eye, or at least the music supervisor of the movie, Louis Armstrongs' "(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue, would be Mrs. Breedloves' theme. Her truth has finally been revealed and the words I can use to describe her truth is superficial and raw.

Mrs. Breedlove had a good childhood despite her foot and was big on rearranging things to leave them looking perfectly in order. She enjoyed being alone in the house to clean. She really did love Cholly and he loved her. They loved each other enough to move to Lorain together. Things really started going downhill then since Pauline did not have big spaces to clean and she had trouble socializing with the other women.

Yet, what really marks the downhill pathway for her to become such an angry woman is when she became addicted to movies. That is when her perception on movies was completely altered by what she saw on screen. She desired to become like the white women on screen whose men would come home and be gentle while hers' had turned to drinking. Her main focus became keeping not her own home clean, but that of the white family she served. She would put her family in second place and didn't focus much attention on them.

This song is the perfect description of the transformation. When the singer says "I'm white...inside...but, that don't help my case’cause I...can't hide...what is in my face" it describes Mrs. Breedlove want to be part of the white world which she completly embraces but being shut out because of her skin. The song in itself is dark and gloomy, giving you a sense of the feelings that go through Mrs. Breedloves head. It is a slow tempo song that shows the change of pace in her life from hopeful and happy to, dark and imprisoning. It is the truth. Mrs. Breedlove becomes angry and a prisoner  to the ideas of beauty she sees in the movies and in essence becomes the personification of this song.

Beauty Through Attitude

Creativity and randomness is a way to describe my future posts. Apparently the week before AP exams , teachers like to add a little "surprise" to their mix of assignments. In my AP Music Teachers case, it is giving more pointless homework that will only lower my grade in the class rather than help in the exam. In Spanish, it is cramming all the short stories that might be on the test into a few lessons. The only class that sort of adds a little dynamic to this mix is this one. Even though these assignments on the blog are long and I am just angry that AP exams are not being taken into account, this assignment is a surprise I don't mind (much).

In The Bluest Eye, black is ugly. All the reader ever hears about Pecola Breedlove is that she is ugly. Which just makes you think, what is ugly and was she really ugly? The standards of beauty have not changed much since the times of Pecola and now. Except now the color of someones skin doesn't really affect how we see their beauty. At least not here in my country, which is different from the context of the novel.

Beauty in the novel is the blonde hair, blue eyes, ideal of perfection sold to every woman and girl at the time, whether white or black. Either of these physical assets or what they connote in society is what makes beauty. Yet, in the novel we have seen characters that are supposed to be beautiful because their skin is lighter or their eyes are lighter, and they happen to be the nastiest of characters. So it becomes a whole idea of what Morrision actually defines as beauty and what she makes into the hidden true beauty.

Morrision puts Pecola in harsh conditions and challenges her, to prove that her true beauty is her thrive. As cheesy as it sounds, what makes Pecola beautiful is her personality. Not only her but Claudia and Freida as well. Pecola is shown as frail because that is what discrimination has done, but the thing that makes Pecola a strong character is her ability to withstand so much and not lose her innocence about it.

This song...

is called Black Is Beautiful by The Trinikas. They describe a black woman and the beauty of being beaitiful because you are black.

The song constantly repeats the idea that "black is beautiful" as well that "determination you have to have it". I believe Pecola is a personification of this song. She is not known for being beutiful because of the standards of blonde blue eyed magic. This song doesn't praise that but rather the strong determined attitude of being black. That is what really makes the person beautiful. Some people are quiet about it like Pecola but it does not mean it is not there.

Pervert

Claudia is once again the narrator in this next part of The Bluest Eye. The innocent narration of this section adds a bit of a lighthearted tone to a very dark topic. At the beginning of the section Claudia is simply outside, but she is narrating how she would prefer the whipping of a strap or a hairbrush over the ache of switchings and forsythia. Usually in the spring these plants are welcomed after a long hard winter and praised for their beauty, but Claudia can only associate this with pain and punishment.

When Claudia does decide to go homes, she senses there is something going on. Her mother is singing about trains and Arkansas, had her hat on, and was wearing muddy boots in the house. If this wasn't enough, she finds her sister crying. After understanding it wasn't a whipping the conversation takes on a lighthearted tone in which it is revealed what really happened.

Mr. Henry, the upstairs, neighbor "picked" at Freida. The word "picked" does not mean that at a harvest you got some apples from a tree but rather that Mr. Henry made a obscene action to Freida. The other part of this that caught my attention was the mention of "Soaphead Church". I thought it was a saying or an expression so I put it into le Google. It is not an expression or an idiom at all. SparkNotes came out as the first search option and it said character list. But controlling the inner beast of curiosity, I simply hit the little x button on the tab. I am strong and powerful for not succumbing to the temptation of Sparknotes. I guess Soaphead Church will be explained later on and his/her story will be told.

Despite that, the conversation between the girls keeps going. Claudia asks the wrong questions after she uncovers that Mr. Henry touched her sisters breasts. Questions like "How did it feel?" and " But wasn't it supposed to? Feel good?", are not the kind of questions you want to hear when your private square has been violated. I also found it comical that Claudia picked that moment to point out her lack of breasts.

The seemingly lighthearted approach to this really highlights how easy it is for a child to not understand the reality that surrounds them. In a sense this makes Claudia the narrator naive and therefore the perspective the reader has, a little oblivious

About The Unjustified Psychological and Physiological Damage To A Cat (and Women)

"SEETHECATITGOESMEOWMEOWMEOWCOMEANDPLAYCOMEANDPLAYWITHJANETHEKITTENWILLNOTPLAYPLAYPLAYPLA"

This excerpt above is from Toni Morrisions' novel, The Bluest Eye. It first appeared at the beginning of the novel but it also appears again to introduce a new part of the story. The cat appears in this part of the novel and there had been no prior mention of the cat or the characters in this section before. It is curious that it is this particular excerpt that appears since in a sense it lets you know there will be some relation to the cat, but it doesn't start off that way.

Women. A description of women and how the way they say where they are from is how it starts. It is all about how women from Mobile tilt their head and "you think you've been kissed" or asked where they are from and say Meridian "the sound of it opens the windows of a room like the first four notes of a hymn". Then it dives deeper into the habits of these women and how they work hard but in a sense make the rules for their environment. What really caught my attention about all of this was the special emphasis on the women. Even though there is discrimination around them, they are still showed as strong figures by Morrison.

Sure these women are given housework and childbearing as their main function, but they are the ones that "build their nest sick by stick". The description of sex is prime about this. Morrison describes it as an act that is pleasurable for the man but, shows how the woman is too focused on other things to care what is going on. She cares much more about the curler that falls off her hair and getting her hair damp, than what is actually happening. The highlight of the lack of pleasure is this: "When she senses some spasm about to grip him, she will make rapid movements with her hips, press her fingernails into his back, suck in her breath, and pretend she is having an orgasm." (pg 84) The woman is the one that has complete control. Later on in this same section it goes on to explain how she seeks pleasures outside of what should be giving her a good feeling. Hence, the cat.

The story goes from the general to the specific when it begins to talk about Geraldine. One such girl from those far away towns that moves to the previous stories setting, Lorain, Ontario with her husband. What really has her adoration and love is her black cat. Even after she gives birth to Junior, it is the cat who always has her attention and adoration. Junior becomes jealous of he cat and begins to torture it when his mother is not around.

There is a part when Pecola comes into this seemingly far off story. Junior invites her to his house to see some kittens and Pecola agrees. Little did she know he was just coaxing her, and finds herself getting the cat thrown at her. Her face gets scratched and Junior, being the violent freak he apparently is, locks her up with the cat. As soon as he notices that Pecola is petting the cat, does he open the door and begin to swing the cat over his head. Pecola gets him to let go of the cat who hits the radiator and dies.

Almost as soon as that happens Geraldine walks in, Pecola is blamed for the whole affair, and she is told to get out.

The cat didn't want to play because he was tortured. Once again Pecola is cast aside because of the color of her skin and seems to be less strong than the women described at the beginning of the section once again. If everyone else is a strong woman, is Pecola the antichrist of feminism? Maybe Morrision is highlighting this about her and that is the reason she is the weakest character in the novel despite being the main one.

Hating Yourself Through Others

As I read The Bluest Eyes, I really got thinking about the narrator in it. It is the view from the girls point of view, more specifically Claudia. Sometimes it does switch to an omniscient narrator though.It does not feel like it is an adult saying his view on a discriminatory world. There is the essence of the innocence of the girl because she doesn't fully understand what it is that makes her "ugly" or what makes her world so dark. Yes. Somehow Morrison manages to turn the innocent experience that is childhood into a dark abyss.

I used to have an arch enemy when I was in pre-k. I know what you are thinking. How can a sweet, blonde, three year old have an arch enemy before her fourth birthday? Well, when I try to make sense of my three year old memories, all I can think of is that I would just pick fights with this girl called Susana. To this day, even though I don't know why I didn't like her, I still get a surge of annoyance thinking about her. Maybe there really is a kid inside all of us.

The girls in this story also seem to have their own version of a Susana. Except her name is Maureen Peal. One would think with this story being highlighting racism as a central topic, that Maureen would be white, but she is actually light skinned African American girl. In the story, the girls say that everyone likes her and praises her. She seems like this sweet nice girl and for lack of a better example, she sounds like a total teachers pet and people pleaser.

The interesting thing is when Maureen appears in the story. She appears right before one of the harshest parts I have read up to now. Some boys were harassing Pecola and screaming bad things at her. Claudia, Maureen, and Freida were walking by and spoke up against the boys causing trouble. Since maureen is such a people pleaser and all the boys like her, she didn't really speak up. There was a part though when Claudia as the narrator mentions the following that really stood out to me:

"That they themselves were black, or that their own fathers had similarly relaxed habits was irrelevant. It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave that first insult its teeth. They seemed to take all of their... exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that burned for ages in the hollow of their minds...They danced a macabre ballet around the victim, whom, for their own sake, they were prepared to sacrifice  to the flaming pit." (pg 65)

It is powerful to think like this keeping in mind that the narrator is a child. And those committing this act are children who are basically insulting themselves. The insults being thrown at Pecola are personal and probably part of the boys everyday lives which really makes you think who the real victim is. I think it is also very powerful that they only seem to really stop when Maureen approaches them. It is not the black girls like them that appeases them but the light skinned girl. They acknowledge the hierarchy in their society but instead of ignoring it with themselves, put a special influence on it to harass themselves. It is all about power and control.

More Than Candy

I am pretty sure everybody has those bad moments. When you simply don't like ourself very much or regret something you did. That icky feeling that puts you in a bad mood and makes you despise everything that surrounds you. It's fine to have those moments sometimes but for Pecola, it seems to happen too often.

It is clear that Pecolas' living situation is not good and that her social life isn't that great either, but I think she has been brainwashed to think the worst of herself. Not only that but her community pushes for her, a child, to not change her mentality. From personal experience, whenever I looked at myself negatively or doubting my abilities, the people that surround me would root for me to change those negative thoughts.

In psychology we learned about reinforcers. There are positive reinforcers and negative reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is that which praises a good action or behavior and pushes the person to keep doing whatever they are doing. A negative reinforcer is that which takes something negative away, like a "sal de frutas lua" removes a stomach ache. As weird as it sounds, Pecolas ways and how she views herself is reinforced by her environment and the people in it.

A clear example of this is when Pecola goes to buy candy. The store keeper acknowledges her presence but not as something he wants there. You kind of notice a hierarchy of superiority since the old man seems to have a negative attitude towards Pecola. It is interesting how Morrision describes Pecolas' view on the mans view on her:

"She looks up at hum and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition- the glazed separateness. She does not know what keeps his glance suspended.... But she has seen interest, disgust, even anger in grown male eyes. Yet this vacuum is not new to her. It has an edge; somewhere in the bottom lid is the distaste. She has seen it lurking in the eyes of all white people. So, the distaste must be for her, her blackness." (pg 49)

A person senses these things, but the fact that there is distaste towards a little girl is confusing to me. I guess that is what makes this story so raw and real. It might sound weird but all these details in what Pecola sees, sets the condemnatory tone of the novel that makes the reader uncomfortable. The way Pecola makes blackness sound like some sort of disease is reinforced because that is what she sees in all the white people that surround her. 

The reason I posted a picture of that candy is because that is what she buys from the funky candy man. These candies are called Mary Janes and once again help reinforce Pecolas' want to be a blue eyed beauty. And probably the most awkward description of eating a candy I have heard since apparently Pecola thinks "three pennies had bought her nine lovely orgasms with Mary Jane." (pg 50). Still, that description once again highlights that mentality of what society wants her to think is beauty and what is correct.

Switch-A-Roo and Furniture

Sometimes, to keep things interesting, authors like to skip around like gazelles out in the middle of nowhere. They like to keep the reader on their toes so they can be accusatory and have an "Aha! So you were paying attention moment". This has happened once again in The Bluest Eyes. The reader can understand that the present is when Claudia is the main focus of the narrator, but when there is a switch to Pecolas' life before she became an outsider, it is the past.

I am sure there is a name for this fancy-pancy switch in time in a story but right now I can't remember what it is. You know, trying to keep it real. I kid. I will google it right now:

Prolepsis: When the author goes forward in the storyline.
Analepsis: When the author goes back in the storyline

BAM! You have been googled.

When writing about Claudia, the narrator does not make it sound like the best of things in the world, but these flashbacks to Pecolas' old life, are even more darker. The descriptions of the characters are abundant as well as their setting. From the descriptions to the setting, Morrison is using a condemnatory tone (yes, I did look at my tone sheet) all the time she describes these characters and their lifestyle. As shown in this part, the simple description on the furniture is dark and well, condemnatory:

"There is nothing more to say about the furnishings. They were anything but describable, having been conceived, manufactured, shipped, and sol in various states of thoughtlessness, greed and indifference. The furniture had aged without ever having become familiar. People had owned it, but never known it." (pg 35)

We are all familiar with our furniture and in a sense the fact that here it is acknowledged as practically invisible says a lot about how the characters are portrayed. Not just that, but the fact that furniture, which is something we humans buy to appease the esthetic perfectionist inside all of us, is given no sense of importance. Pardon the weird thought but it is like an unwanted cat. It's there but gives you no sense of satisfaction with its meowing and hairballs. Same as the furniture, not even its basic uses of a place to sit or lean against is acknowledged.

If I was a chair in this place, I would have been a sad chair. But life made me a human girl with a bunch of work to get done. So the next time you sit on your sofa, think about its meaning to you.