Directions: Please select one of the prompts below and use it to compose an original essay on one of the books or short stories that we have read during the second have of the semester. Please note: these essay prompts are designed to stimulate the development of your own views on the work in question, and so simply answering the questions posed in each prompt is insufficient for the purposes of this assignment. It is vitally important that in developing your reading of the novel, that you substantiate it by means of textual evidence, which you must cite and explain. Your essay should between 6-8 double-spaced pages in length, using 12-point font and normal (i.e., 1-inch margins). Where it is appropriate, your essay should incorporate the terms and themes we have been discussing in class. For the purposes of this assignment, no additional sources besides our text are required; however, if you consult secondary literature, then these sources must be cited. The Philosophy Department requires all students to cite sources in accordance with the Chicago Manuel of Style. Please be sure to give your essay a title.
1.) Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye opens in a rather curious and enigmatic fashion, namely with the quotation from a traditional reading primer that was for many years used to teach American children how to read. As the novel progresses, quotations from this primer recur and continually punctuate Morrison’s text. For the purposes of this explain, please examine this gesture in detail. How does it function? What does it express? What is it intended to signify? Be sure to incorporate into your essay an evaluative perspective. That is, take a stand as to whether or not this formal device is successful or not, and be sure to substantiate your view with a broader reading of the novel. To be clear, your essay should not simply tack on a few paragraphs towards the end arguing for or against this device; it should develop a thesis about Morrison’s use of the reading primer and attempt to persuade your reader as to its effectiveness and appropriateness throughout your essay.
2.) For the purposes of this essay, please comment on the role of the narrator in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. What is achieved by have the events in the novel recounted by a small child? What kinds of observations does this allow for? And what kind of emotions does this formal device create? In composing your essay, please be sure to consider and comment upon the fact that as readers we know from the very first pages that the novel revolves around the rape and impregnation of Pecola Breedlove. What is the effect of readers having this knowledge? Why is it important that it is witnessed by a child?
3.) Write an essay evaluating Toni Morrison’s attempt to humanize the seemingly monstrous actions of Cholly Breedlove. Is her attempt to have all of her characters in The Bluest Eye appear to us as intelligible and worthy of sympathy successful? Why or why not? What does she do to render Cholly’s actions intelligible to the reader?
