The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison

                                                        




                                   Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Wikipedia

                                                               


                        The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, was the first novel written by author Toni Morrison. Morrison was an African-American novelist, a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner whose works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States. Wikipedia



Summary

Pecola’s story is told through the eyes of multiple narrators. The main narrator is Claudia MacTeer, a childhood friend with whom Pecola once lived. Claudia narrates from two different perspectives: the adult Claudia, who reflects on the events of 1940–41, and the nine-year-old Claudia, who observes the events as they happen.

In the first section of the novel (“Autumn”), nine-year-old Claudia introduces Pecola and explains why she is living with the MacTeers. Claudia tells the reader what her mother, Mrs. MacTeer, told her: Pecola is a “case…a girl who had no place to go.” The Breedloves are currently “outdoors,” or homeless, because Pecola’s father, Cholly, burned the family house down. The county placed Pecola with the MacTeer family until “they could decide what to do, or, more precisely, until the [Breedlove] family was reunited.”

Despite the tragic circumstances of their friendship, Claudia and her 11-year-old sister, Frieda, enjoy playing with Pecola. Frieda and Pecola bond over their shared love of Shirley Temple, a famous American child star known for her blonde curls, babyish singing, and tap-dancing with Bill (“Bojangles”) Robinson. Claudia, however, “couldn’t join them in their adoration because [she] hated Shirley.” In fact, she hated “all the Shirley Temples of the world.” The adult Claudia recalls being given a blue-eyed baby doll for Christmas:

From the clucking sounds of adults I knew that the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish...all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. “Here,” they said, “this is beautiful, and if you are on this day ‘worthy’ you may have it.”

Claudia remembers dismembering the doll “to see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me.” Finding nothing special at its core, Claudia discarded the doll and continued on her path of destruction, her hatred of little white girls unabated.

The second section (“Winter”) consists of two short vignettes. The first of these is narrated by Claudia, and in it she documents Pecola’s fascination with a light-skinned black girl by the name of Maureen Peal. Friendly at first, Maureen ultimately humiliates Pecola and her friends by declaring herself “cute” and Pecola “ugly.” The second vignette, narrated by a third-person omniscient narrator, focuses on Geraldine and Louis Junior, a young mother and son in Lorain, Ohio. Geraldine and Junior’s connection to Pecola is not immediately obvious; she does not appear until the end of the vignette. On a particularly boring afternoon, Junior entices Pecola into his house. After she comes inside, he throws his mother’s beloved cat at her face. Scratched and verging on tears, Pecola attempts to leave. Junior stops her, claiming she is his “prisoner.” Junior then picks up his mother’s cat and begins swinging it around his head. In an effort to save it, Pecola grabs his arm, causing them both to fall to the ground. The cat, released in mid-motion, is thrown full-force at the window. At this point Geraldine appears, and Junior promptly tells her that Pecola has killed the cat. Geraldine calls Pecola a “nasty little black bitch” and orders her to leave.

The third section of the novel (“Spring”) is by far the longest, comprising four vignettes. In the first vignette, Claudia and Frieda talk about how Mr. Henry—a guest staying with the MacTeers—“picked at” Frieda, inappropriately touching her while her parents were outside. After Frieda told her mother, her father “threw our old tricycle at [Mr. Henry’s] head and knocked him off the porch.” Frieda tells Claudia she fears she might be “ruined,” and they set off to find Pecola. In the second and third vignettes, the reader learns about Pecola’s parents, Pauline (Polly) and Cholly Breedlove. According to the omniscient narrator, Polly and Cholly once loved each other. They were married at a relatively young age and migrated together from Kentucky to Lorain. Over the years, their relationship steadily deteriorated. One disappointment followed another, and sustained poverty, ignorance, and fear took steep tolls on their well-being. At the end of the third vignette—just before the events of the first section begin—Cholly drunkenly stumbles into his kitchen, where he finds Pecola washing dishes. Overwhelmed by conflicting feelings of tenderness and rage, Cholly rapes Pecola and leaves her unconscious body on the floor for Polly to find.

The fourth vignette picks up not long after the rape. It begins by delving into the personal history of Soaphead Church, a misanthropic Anglophile and self-proclaimed spiritual healer. Soaphead is a deceptive and conniving man; as the narrator observes, he comes from a long line of similarly ambitious and corrupt West Indians. His latest scheme involves interpreting dreams and performing so-called “miracles” for the black community in Lorain. When Pecola goes to him asking for blue eyes, Soaphead initially sympathizes.

Soaphead forms a plan to trick Pecola. He gives her a piece of raw meat and demands that she give it to his property owner’s dog. If the dog “behaves strangely,” he tells her, her “wish will be granted on the day following this one.” Unbeknownst to Pecola, the meat is poisoned. After the dog eats the meat, gags, and dies, Pecola believes her wish has been granted. Thus begins her sharp descent into madness.

The fourth and final section (“Summer”) takes place after Pecola loses her mind. In the beginning, Claudia and Frieda learn that Pecola has been impregnated by her father. The sisters hope that the baby will not die; they pray for it and even offer a sacrifice (a bicycle) to God. Meanwhile, Pecola converses with an unidentified person—presumably, herself—about her new blue eyes, which she still thinks “aren’t blue enough.” In the final moments of the novel, the adult Claudia tells the reader that Pecola gave birth prematurely and the baby did not survive.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Bluest-Eye

The Bluest Eye Themes

Appearances. In The Bluest Eye, characters associate beauty with whiteness. ...

Race. Whiteness in The Bluest Eye is associated with beauty, innocence, goodness, cleanliness, and purity. ...

Women and Femininity. ...

Jealousy. ...

Society and Class. ...

Love. ...

Sex. ...

Innocence.

www.shmoop.com › bluest-eye › themes

Quality by John Galsworthy

John Galsworthy

                                                    

                          John Galsworthy OM was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. Wikipedia

Plot Summary

The story starts with the description of the boot shop; on top was the name plate ‘Gessler Brothers’ and a few shoes displayed on the window. They make shoes on order. The narrator then narrates one of his meetings with Mr. Gessler. He says it has not been possible to go to him much because the shoes he made have lasted very long and are the best of their kind.

One day the narrator goes to their shop to get a pair of Russian-leather shoes. Mr. Gessler retreats upstairs and comes back after some time holding a fine golden Russian leather piece. After the narrator’s approval he says he’ll get his shoes tomorrow fortnighSoon after, the narrator leaves for abroad and returns after over a year. The first shop he goes to is Mr. Gessler’s. Mr. Gessler, now seventy-five, is unable to recognize him at first. Narrator gives a huge order. The wait is longer than ever bThe young man explains to him that Gessler died from starvation; he used to devote himself to shoe making so much that he used to forget about everything else. All the money went in the rents and leather. The fate was quite obvious from the beginning. But both the narrator and the young man agrees that the Gessler brothers made good quality boots.ut the quality only gets better.

After a week, while passing the little street, the narrator thinks to go in and tell Mr. Gessler that the boots are perfect. But when he goes to the place where the shop was, the name plate is no longer there.

Disturbed, he goes into the shop and a young English face greets him. The narrator enquires about Mr. Gessler and comes to know of younger Gessler’s death. Upon hearing this the narrator is quite shocked.

One day the narrator goes to their boot shop and tells him that the last shoes he got from him creak. After a long pause Mr. Gessler asks him to bring the shoes to him. He assures that if he can’t repair them, he will give the money back.

Another day he goes to Gessler Brothers to order a new pair, wearing a pair of shoes which he bought due to some emergency from a big firm. Mr. Gessler at once recognizes that the shoes are not made by him. He touches a particular spot on the narrator’s shoe where it isn’t comfortable for the narrator and says that it hurts there. He expresses his contempt that those large firms attract customers through shiny impressive advertisements to sell their inferior quality products. Then the author explains to him under what circumstances he had to buy those shoes.

The new shoes lasted nearly two years. And in his next visit he receives quite a shock. When he enters the shop, he sees the younger Gessler brother who informs him of elder Gessler’s death. That day he orders several pairs. It takes longer to make them but the quality is even better than the previous ones.

Quality by John Galsworthy Theme of the story

The story highlights the virtues of hard work, honesty, resolution, compassion, humility and commitment. The theme of loss and death is also woven into the story with both Mr Gessler and his brother died in the story.

Work cite

https://englicist.com/notes/quality-john-galsworthy

A Cup of Tea by Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield

                                                            

                               Kathleen Mansfield Murry was a prominent New Zealand modernist short story writer and poet who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. Wikipedia

"A Cup of Tea" is a 1922 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in the Story-Teller in May 1922. It later appeared in The Doves' Nest and Other Stories. Wikipedia

Summary of the Story

A Cup of Tea is set in 1920s London. Rosemary Fell, the protagonist, is wealthy young matron. We meet her while she is on a shopping trip in town. In an antique shop, she examines an expensive jewelry box that she would love to own. Yet, after inquiring about the price, she decides against the purchase - at least for that day.

Without the longed-for purchase, Rosemary returns to the street, where she is approached by a poor, raggedy looking young woman about her own age. The young woman asks for the price of a cup of tea and says she has no money, which Rosemary finds unimaginable.

Suddenly, inspired by the tales of Dostoevsky that she has recently read, Rosemary experiences a charitable inspiration and takes the girl home. Of course, the reader questions (as Mansfield intended) the true sincerity of Rosemary's impulse. We all believe in helping the less fortunate; however, this wealthy young woman seems more taken with her own fantasy of philanthropy than any real desire to help. At any rate, the young Miss Smith does go home with Rosemary and is given an abundant tea with all the trimmings.

While they're having tea, Mr. Fell (Phillip) comes into the bedroom and finds this unexpected guest. He takes Rosemary into another room, where he first expresses disapproval of what his wife has done and then speaks appreciatively about their poor visitor's beauty.

Once back with her charitable case, Rosemary now feels odd and without direction. What should she do? Ultimately, she gives Miss Smith some cash and sends her on her way. Anxious about her own appearance, Rosemary takes great care in dressing for dinner and seeks reassurance of her charms from Phillip.

A Cup of Tea Themes:

The main theme of the story is class distinction and materialism. This story pictures the differential behaviour of the upper class towards the lower class through the character of Rosemary. Her attitude and behavior gives quite a clear image of the mentality possessed by discriminating elites. Materialism is rigidly followed by the upper class. The more they have, the more they want and they don’t want anything ordinary, they want the best of all, the extraordinary, unaffordable by the commons. Their want for more never dies. The velvet box in the story symbolizes materialism while the cup of tea symbolizes the equal needs and requirements of the rich and the poor.

A Cup of Tea Characters:

This story is comprised of these few prominent characters.

ROSEMARY FELL:

A socially poised, rich married woman with a devoted and loving husband, who has a great lifestyle. She is well-dressed and well off with all the luxuries she desires for. Her interest is mainly of reading books, always indulged and above all greatly inspired by the characters and their adventurous lives which she comes across in the stories. Her inspirational interest can be judged from the decision she takes when she interacts with a poor soul called Miss Smith by taking her home with a mere thought of it being an adventure for her recalling the stories of Dostoevsky. Apart from this possession and insecurity can be sensed in her character.

PHILIPS FELL:

Husband of Rosemary, is in fact one of the richest persons of his society. He loves his wife devotedly and cares for her a lot. He calls Miss Smith pretty much to his wife’s chagrin, just to make her send Miss Smith away as she refuses to do so when he asks her in the first place even though making his wife feel insecure about herself and her beauty.

MISS SMITH:

She is a lean and thin poor girl of just the age of Rosemary. She can’t even afford a single cup of tea and comes to ask Rosemary to pay her the price of a cup of tea. She is an odd person, frightened and confused. She is shocked when Rosemary asks her to have a cup of tea with her at her home. In Mr. Philips’ point of view Miss Smith is very attractive and pretty.

THE SHOPKEEPER:

The owner of a very beautiful antique ornaments shop which in fact was one of Rosemary’s favorite shops. He would always be looking forward to have Rosemary at his shop and always saving a lovely piece of art for her only just like he had been saving the eye catching blue velvet box.

The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

                                                           

                             Rabindranath Tagore FRAS, also known by his pen name Bhanu Singha Thakur, and also known by his sobriquets Gurudev, Kabiguru, and Biswakabi, was a polymath, poet, musician, and artist from the Indian subcontinent. Wikipedia

Rabindranath Tagore: Short Stories Summary and Analysis of "The Postmaster"

Summary

For his first job, the Postmaster is assigned to work in the village of Ulapur, a quiet backwater with an indigo factory. He feels sorely out of place in the village, feeling both too sophisticated as a Calcutta man amongst uneducated villagers, and needlessly arrogant to the very people who he might turn to, hoping for friendship.

For lack of anything better to do, the Postmaster takes to writing poetry about his scenic surroundings, pontificating on rain-soaked leaves and the like as a way to express his deepest sorrows. Since he doesn’t make much money, the Postmaster cooks for himself and enlists a young orphan girl named Ratan to help him with housework in exchange for some food.

One night while Ratan is preparing his hookah, the Postmaster asks her to describe her family. This begins a relationship where the two share intimate details about their families, with the Postmaster divulging how much he misses his mother and sister back in Calcutta. The rapport develops to such an extent that Ratan starts to consider the Postmaster’s family her own.

One day while watching a bird in a tree, the Postmaster is taken by a desperate need for female companionship, for someone who he could share this sighting of a bird with. He calls Ratan into his office and informs her that he’s going to teach her how to read. These lessons continue until the Postmaster falls ill and he grows unable and unwilling to continue. Ratan, regardless, practices what he has taught her. Fed up with the village and his illness, the Postmaster applies for a transfer and is denied.

Nonetheless, he quits the job to return home, and tells Ratan as much. Ratan begs him to take her with him, but he smugly tells her that’s impossible. He promises her that the next Postmaster will take care of her, but that does nothing to comfort her. Upon leaving, he tries to give Ratan money, but she refuses.

As the Postmaster is leaving, he is struck by a feeling that he should go back and take Ratan, but concludes that life is full of separations and endings, so what’s the point? Ratan doesn’t have the same view though, and holds out, in anguish, for the possibility that the Postmaster will return to take her to Calcutta.

Analysis

“The Postmaster” is one of Tagore’s bleaker stories, spun around two immensely lonely characters whose only chance to end their loneliness is squandered. While as readers we may yearn for the happy ending where the Postmaster returns to the village to whisk Ratan away, Tagore instead uses these characters to lay out a parable about interpersonal relationships in developing modernity under British imperial rule of India.

Key here is the fact that the Postmaster is sent to the village of Ulapur as a colonial agent of the British, so that this little industry town can have a functioning post office. The Postmaster is, in turn, an agent of the British economic and colonial projects in India. Naturally they would select an educated man, but the price of the Postmaster putting that education to good use is finding working conditions that alienate him. Such alienation was a common condition of people involved with industry in the late 1800s (the time this story was written), and was a trope explored by writers ranging from Charles Dickens to Karl Marx.

At the end of the story, we get a contrast between the educated Postmaster’s “philosophy” and Ratan’s uneducated naivete. These are cast as equal burdens, with the Postmaster’s flippant decision to leave Ratan behind because life is full of separations and deaths portrayed as comparably tragic to Ratan’s delusional hope that Ratan might one day return to the village for her. It’s a mysterious little parable that doesn’t have a clear moral, but rather offers a meditation on a fundamental human tragedy that undergirds both loneliness and desire.

Work cite

https://www.gradesaver.com/rabindranath-tagore-short-stories/study-guide/summary-the-postmaster

La Belle Dame sans Merci Poem by John Keats

"La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a ballad produced by the English poet John Keats in 1819. The title was derived from the title of a 15th-century poem by Alain Chartier called La Belle Dame sans Mercy. Considered an English classic, the poem is an example of Keats' poetic preoccupation with love and death. Wikipedia

Analysis of La Belle Dame sans Merci

La Belle Dame sans Merci with its mysterious narrative and ethereal atmosphere, combines innocence and seduction in an unusual ballad form to produce a haunting story.

In one sense it's little more than man meets woman in the countryside, they have a fling and the man ends up dumped, by a lake. He doesn't know if he's been drugged or not but it certainly seems he has been intimate with this beautiful stranger.

It's up to the reader to fill in the details.

Perhaps this is why the poem is so successful in its portrayal of a relationship that came out of nowhere, progressed to a different dimension and had such a profound effect on the male, and probably the female too.

The reader is left hanging on, with a need to know more, thanks to the metrical pattern of the stanzas and the bizarre circumstances the man finds himself in.

And in certain sections of the poem there is the suggestion of a sexual liaison which is perhaps drug inspired. Notably, stanzas five and seven stand out, with mention of the man making garlands and bracelets and a fragrant girdle (Zone) whilst the woman made sweet moan. And later she finds sweet roots, honey wild and manna dew (manna is the food from heaven as stated in the Bible), most certainly the food of love.

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

                                             

                                   

                     Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend of John Milton. Wikipedia

Summary:

The poem is spoken by a male lover to his female beloved as an attempt to convince her to sleep with him. The speaker argues that the Lady’s shyness and hesitancy would be acceptable if the two had “world enough, and time.” But because they are finite human beings, he thinks they should take advantage of their sensual embodiment while it lasts.

He tells the lady that her beauty, as well as her “long-preserved virginity,” will only become food for worms unless she gives herself to him while she lives. Rather than preserve any lofty ideals of chastity and virtue, the speaker affirms, the lovers ought to “roll all our strength, and all / Our sweetness, up into one ball.” He is alluding to their physical bodies coming together in the act of lovemaking.

Analysis:

Marvell wrote this poem in the classical tradition of a Latin love elegy, in which the speaker praises his mistress or lover through the motif of carpe diem, or “seize the day.” The poem also reflects the tradition of the erotic blazon, in which a poet constructs elaborate images of his lover’s beauty by carving her body into parts. Its verse form consists of rhymed couplets in iambic tetrameter, proceeding as AA, BB, CC, and so forth.

The speaker begins by constructing a thorough and elaborate conceit of the many things he “would” do to honor the lady properly, if the two lovers indeed had enough time. He posits impossible stretches of time during which the two might play games of courtship. He claims he could love her from ten years before the Biblical flood narrated in the Book of Genesis, while the Lady could refuse his advances up until the “conversion of the Jews,” which refers to the day of Christian judgment prophesied for the end of times in the New Testament’s Book of Revelations.

The speaker then uses the metaphor of a “vegetable love” to suggest a slow and steady growth that might increase to vast proportions, perhaps encoding a phallic suggestion. This would allow him to praise his lady’s features – eyes, forehead, breasts, and heart – in increments of hundreds and even thousands of years, which he says that the lady clearly deserves due to her superior stature. He assures the Lady that he would never value her at a “lower rate” than she deserves, at least in an ideal world where time is unlimited.

Marvell praises the lady’s beauty by complimenting her individual features using a device called an erotic blazon, which also evokes the influential techniques of 15th and 16th century Petrarchan love poetry. Petrarchan poetry is based upon rarifying and distancing the female beloved, making her into an unattainable object. In this poem, though, the speaker only uses these devices to suggest that distancing himself from his lover is mindless, because they do not have the limitless time necessary for the speaker to praise the Lady sufficiently. He therefore constructs an erotic blazon only to assert its futility.

The poem’s mood shifts in line 21, when the speaker asserts that “Time's winged chariot” is always near. The speaker’s rhetoric changes from an acknowledgement of the Lady’s limitless virtue to insisting on the radical limitations of their time as embodied beings. Once dead, he assures the Lady, her virtues and her beauty will lie in the grave along with her body as it turns to dust. Likewise, the speaker imagines his lust being reduced to ashes, while the chance for the two lovers to join sexually will be lost forever.

The third and final section of the poem shifts into an all-out plea and display of poetic prowess in which the speaker attempts to win over the Lady. He compares the Lady’s skin to a vibrant layer of morning dew that is animated by the fires of her soul and encourages her to “sport” with him “while we may.” Time devours all things, the speaker acknowledges, but he nonetheless asserts that the two of them can, in fact, turn the tables on time. They can become “amorous birds of prey” that actively consume the time they have through passionate lovemaking.

Work cite

https://www.gradesaver.com/andrew-marvell-poems/study-guide/summary-to-his-coy-mistress

Daffodils

                   

William Wordsworth's  poem Daffodils

 The speaker says that, wandering like a cloud floating above hills and valleys, he encountered a field of daffodils beside a lake. The dancing, fluttering flowers stretched endlessly along the shore, and though the waves of the lake danced beside the flowers, the daffodils outdid the water in glee.

Summary

The speaker says that, wandering like a cloud floating above hills and valleys, he encountered a field of daffodils beside a lake. The dancing, fluttering flowers stretched endlessly along the shore, and though the waves of the lake danced beside the flowers, the daffodils outdid the water in glee. The speaker says that a poet could not help but be happy in such a joyful company of flowers. He says that he stared and stared, but did not realize what wealth the scene would bring him. For now, whenever he feels “vacant” or “pensive,” the memory flashes upon “that inward eye / That is the bliss of solitude,” and his heart fills with pleasure, “and dances with the daffodils.”

Form

The four six-line stanzas of this poem follow a quatrain-couplet rhyme scheme: ABABCC. Each line is metered in iambic tetrameter.

Commentary

This simple poem, one of the loveliest and most famous in the Wordsworth canon, revisits the familiar subjects of nature and memory, this time with a particularly (simple) spare, musical eloquence. The plot is extremely simple, depicting the poet’s wandering and his discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake, the memory of which pleases him and comforts him when he is lonely, bored, or restless. The characterization of the sudden occurrence of a memory—the daffodils “flash upon the inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude”—is psychologically acute, but the poem’s main brilliance lies in the reverse personification of its early stanzas. The speaker is metaphorically compared to a natural object, a cloud—“I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high...”, and the daffodils are continually personified as human beings, dancing and “tossing their heads” in “a crowd, a host.” This technique implies an inherent unity between man and nature, making it one of Wordsworth’s most basic and effective methods for instilling in the reader the feeling the poet so often describes himself as experiencing  SparkNotes