The Bluest Eye Close Reading
Jacquelyn Gucciardi
Ms. Waechter
Honors English
May 24, 2015
The Bluest Eye Although Claudia and Frieda are embarrassed and hurt for Pecola, their sorrow is intensified by the fact that none of the adults seem to share the same feelings of grief and their hopefulness tries to heal their disjointed society. In the passage Claudia begins to describe how she can see the baby, the living human that everyone else wanted dead. The baby that is still in the womb, she pictures the baby, in a dark place this could symbolize death of the baby later. She paints a picture for the reader saying that the baby’s hair like great O’s of wool as in sheep leading us to think that the baby might be a Jesus figure. She describes the baby’s eyes as clean, pure because it hasn’t yet seen the evil of the world. The flared nose, as if the baby is mad or out of breathe again symbolizes death. She says kissing-thick lips, shining a light on the more sexual side making it seem like thats all your lips should be used for. She concludes by saying “the living, breathing silk of black skin”, to express that this baby is living, it is a human, it is taking a breath just like everyone else. Silk is an expensive fabric, something of worth just like this baby’s life. “No synthetic yellow bangs suspended over marble-blue eyes, no pinched nose and bowline mouth.” Claudia goes on to describe the baby as a doll, saying that they are nothing alike, dolls are fake in fact worse they are “synthetic”, and they are far from perfect, they have pinched noses, pinched towards the sky like a snooty white girl. But not like this baby, Claudia felt a yearning, a burning for someone to care for this baby to love it and want it to live. “Just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls,” she wanted this baby to come into the world to change it, to change how the world viewed black babies, to “counteract” set off the balance, of the whole universe meaning everybody and the love it had for a doll rather
Ms. Waechter
Honors English
May 24, 2015
The Bluest Eye Although Claudia and Frieda are embarrassed and hurt for Pecola, their sorrow is intensified by the fact that none of the adults seem to share the same feelings of grief and their hopefulness tries to heal their disjointed society. In the passage Claudia begins to describe how she can see the baby, the living human that everyone else wanted dead. The baby that is still in the womb, she pictures the baby, in a dark place this could symbolize death of the baby later. She paints a picture for the reader saying that the baby’s hair like great O’s of wool as in sheep leading us to think that the baby might be a Jesus figure. She describes the baby’s eyes as clean, pure because it hasn’t yet seen the evil of the world. The flared nose, as if the baby is mad or out of breathe again symbolizes death. She says kissing-thick lips, shining a light on the more sexual side making it seem like thats all your lips should be used for. She concludes by saying “the living, breathing silk of black skin”, to express that this baby is living, it is a human, it is taking a breath just like everyone else. Silk is an expensive fabric, something of worth just like this baby’s life. “No synthetic yellow bangs suspended over marble-blue eyes, no pinched nose and bowline mouth.” Claudia goes on to describe the baby as a doll, saying that they are nothing alike, dolls are fake in fact worse they are “synthetic”, and they are far from perfect, they have pinched noses, pinched towards the sky like a snooty white girl. But not like this baby, Claudia felt a yearning, a burning for someone to care for this baby to love it and want it to live. “Just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls,” she wanted this baby to come into the world to change it, to change how the world viewed black babies, to “counteract” set off the balance, of the whole universe meaning everybody and the love it had for a doll rather