The tension socially between those who either abide by the law or enforce the law, and those who commit crimes and are considered to disrupt society are present throughout the entire text. When Wendell Bolden is being questioned by the prosecutor, Petrocelli, Myers uses one of the statements Bolden makes to create a connection between illegal activity, lower-class neighborhoods and hidden motives corresponding with the lower class and cigarettes. “Bolden: I got some cigarettes from a guy who told me he was in on a drugstore robbery up on Malcolm X Boulevard. I knew a dude got killed, and I was thinking of trading what I knew for some slack.” p. 48 The first thing to correspond with the cigarettes in these two sentences is the illegal activity, the robbery. Bolden also states that he is aware of the more serious crime, the murder. The next thing to tie the lower class with the negative notions is the mention of the low income neighborhood, Malcolm X Boulevard, immediately after mentioning the robbery. What should also be noted is that Myers decided to go with Malcolm X Boulevard, a neighborhood named after one of the most historically powerful people in the African American community. The use of Malcolm X’s name in this moment forces rotten perception towards black people. Furthermore, Bolden admits that his reason for testifying that he had been sold the cigarettes is merely for his own benefit, potential “slack” on an assault charge.
Category Archives: CR Post #3
Group D: Final Project , Shatavia, Jeleah, Kye, Angel
What: For our group project we are going to create a scrapbook. A scrapbook is a book of blank pages for sticking clippings, drawings, or pictures in. The scrapbook is going to be designed exactly how we think Jefferson, Grant, or a character from the book would create it. We will be filling up the scrapbook with Jefferson’s important memories, moments, recipes, and his time in jail. In order to do this, we will be looking for symbols in magazines, things from the internet, clippings in newspapers and physical objects. Being in jail and confined to one place causes a person to use their imagination. Similar to Jefferson and Grant they are both trapped in situations that cause them to do a lot of imagining and thinking. Something our group will be doing in order to create the perfect scrapbook that represents “A Lesson Before Dying”.
Why: In the book “A Lesson before Dying” a lot of the book has to do with symbols and teaching. Jefferson is being taught a lesson by being sentenced to death. Grants job as a teacher is to teach and he is also asked to teach Jefferson how to become a man. Since teaching plays a huge role in this book, the scrap book will be created to teach others about our insights, thoughts, and main ideas about the book. We all thought it would be a good gesture to create a visual. This way our imagination and how we views things from the book can be brought to life.
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye depicts a young colored girl, Pecola, who believes that she is not considered beautiful in other’s perspective. In the chapter about Autumn Pecola visits a candy store where she feels “shame” for having sweaty palms. She then leaves and comes across some dandelions that were growing out of the sidewalk cracks. Pecola refers to the dandelions as being “ugly” because they are weeds. Weeds are considered to be valueless and insignificant to the world. They are worthless in the eyes of people. Pecola felt anger as she went on. The “ugliness” of the weeds reminded Pecola of how she felt that she was ugly and worthless.
Pecola was told throughout the book that she was ugly by her mother. Neighbors and even in school she was told that she was ugly. Growing up she paired being ugly to the color of her eyes, skin and hair. She thought that having the bluest eyes would make her the most beautiful girl however like the dandelions Pecola was not considered one of a kind. She was not extraordinary nor was she a sight to gaze at. She was the sort of girl that people would view as low class and irrelevant. Just like dandelions were no flowers, Pecola was no flower.
“They are ugly. They are weeds.”(pg. 50) These were the words Morrison incorporated into the text where Pecola is confronted with the dandelions. Her play on words gives us that sense of meaning without actually having to say what is. With just these two lines, we can feel the pain that Pecola endures about her beauty. In this way she isn’t talking about the dandelions, she is talking about herself and the shame she feels. As we go on in the same text, she feels anger and that anger gives her an idea of self-worth which the dandelions didn’t do for her.
The Bluest Eye Close Reading
As readers can tell, there is the significance of the “The Bluest Eye” that Toni Morrison wanted to stress to her readers. It is the symbol of beauty and perfection. It was something Pecola Breedlove, who is described to be this “ugly” and “black” girl, desired most of all, believing it to be the one thing that could alter her life. As for Claudia, her feelings for these blue eyes are opposite. Instead, she despises the “Shirley Temple” images, yellow haired and blue eyes. In contrast, both these characters have their own ideas about these blue eyes. The image of beauty is different for these two girls.
Early on the reading, we learn that Claudia has a hatred for “little white girls”. (p.22) Her disdain is carried onto the dolls she’d been given on holidays like Christmas. “What I felt at that time was unsullied hatred. But before that I had felt a stranger, more frightening thing than hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world.” (p.19) Claudia never understood why the grown ups believed that a doll was something she would ever want. What she truly wanted was to be surrounded by her family with love. She admits that there is an element of desire the dolls and “Shirley Temples” hold that she didn’t have. It was something missing within her that she can’t seem to acquire but it also was something she couldn’t fully grasp. At the end of it all, her dolls were always mutilated. “Remove the cold and stupid eye ball,…” (p.21)
For Pecola, the one thing that she believes to make her “ugly”, is her eyes. She thinks they are the very thing that makes her unbearable, the reason why people don’t look at her. When her father, Cholly and mother, Mrs. Breedlove would argue and get into a fight, she would pray to God to make her disappear. In her mind, that act of vanishing was never possible because her eyes would never disappear. Her constant wish to get these blue eyes stems from her belief that they’re set her apart from her family. “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights-if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” (p.46) If she had them, Pecola thinks her family will love her and she would be beautiful.
The author wants very much for the readers to see what these “blue eyes” signified for each of these characters. What they mean for them are different but the mental affects of it shows how “blue eyes” are and was deemed more beautiful and how young and black girls had to view their own beauty as secondary.
The Outsiders CR Reading
What does it mean to be tough? Does it mean having the strength to endure vigorous pain or to stone faced in the presence of danger? In S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, the main character Ponyboy explores what it means to be tough, which can be seen through a comparison of how he handles hostile Socs near the beginning of the novel and how he handles hostile Socs near the end of the novel. Both scenes contain a moment where Ponyboy must hold a broken soda bottle, but the shift in responses to the bottle provide detail on what Ponyboy had learned through the course of the novel.
In the first scene, Ponyboy, along with Johnny and Two-Bit, walk two girls Cherry and Marcia back to their homes when they are stopped by Socs in a blue mustang. In this scene Ponyboy shows his immaturity by dropping the bottle given to him by Two-Bit. Hinton writes, “I pulled her to one side. ‘I couldn’t use this,’ I said, dropping the pop bottle. ‘I couldn’t ever cut anyone…” I had to tell her [Cherry] that because I’d seen her eyes when Two-Bit flicked out his switch” (47). Ponyboy’s actions reflect an attempt to preserve the image of goodness Cherry sees in Ponyboy and in Johnny. While it is good that Ponyboy remains non-violent, given that this event occurs in the immature phase of the hero, Hinton is showing the audience that it’s bad since he can’t protect himself from danger .Even though he say “I could never cut anyone,” one should see that over time he at least becomes capable of know he could through observing someone as kind and pure like Johnny kill a Soc.
At a later scene, where Ponyboy is confronted by Socs after Johnny’s death, Ponyboy exhibits a new look on life. In this moment, it is Ponyboy alone fending off Socs and he breaks the bottle rather than receiving it from Two-Bit. Here Ponyboy shows to pull out references to tough people he knew in his life. He says, “I started toward them, holding the bottle the way Tim Shepard holds a switch—out and away from myself, in a loose but firm hold” (171). He also says the phrase “Get smart and nothing can touch you” (171), words taken from his late friend Dally, described as being one in the same as Shepard in the novel. Ponyboy, by making reference from them, see value in who they are as characters. Dally was a character born without a parents love and raised partly on the streets of New York and what Ponyboy derives from Dally is getting stronger than the world can hit you. This kind of toughness is exhibited in the same scene as Ponyboy says, “I didn’t feel anything—scared, mad, or anything. Just zero (171).” Ponyboy learns that toughness is a hard acceptance of your reality, not a perpetuation of an ignorance to one’s conditions.
After the Socs back away from Ponyboy, he shows that he hasn’t turned completely into Dally by his action of picking up the broken pieces, saying that he “didn’t want anyone to get a flat tire” (172). Ponyboy exhibits here the goodness that distinguished him from other greasers as described by Cherry.
From these two scenes, Hinton shows the audience Ponyboy’s transformation and hope. Ponyboy like the pop bottle was broken after being subjected to incredible conflicts, but that experience made him jagged to defend himself without breaking him completely.