toni morrison’s the bluest eye...dick and jane reading primersfrom the 1940s-1970s, millions of...

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Lecture 2

Monday 08 October 12

‘The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time’

– Toni Morrison

Monday 08 October 12

Lecture Outline

1. The narrative frame: The Dick and Jane primer

2. ‘Autumn’

- Claudia’s prolepsis: loss of innocence, a community in turmoil

3. Cultural images of whiteness

- Dick and Jane- Shirley temple- The Hollywood ‘screen sirens’

4. Claudia’s rejection of white values and norms

Monday 08 October 12

The narrative frame (p.1-2)

Monday 08 October 12

Monday 08 October 12

Dick and Jane reading primersFrom the 1940s-1970s, millions of American school children learnt to read with Dick and Jane. The opening lines of The Bluest Eye reproduce the typical Dick and Jane narrative.

Monday 08 October 12

Claudia’s prolepsis (p.3)

Monday 08 October 12

Monday 08 October 12

Prolepsisdefinition

A ‘flashforward’ that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story. A prolepsis is often used to represent events expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future. It may reveal significant parts of the story that have not yet occurred, but will occur later in the narrative.

9Monday 08 October 12

Shirley Temple and Bill ‘Bo Jangles’ Robinson appeared together in a number of mainstream Hollywood films in the 1940s

Monday 08 October 12

The ‘universal love’ of Shirley Temple (p.12-13)

Monday 08 October 12

The Hollywood ‘Screen Sirens’Jean Harlow and Greta Garbo were among Hollywood’s glamorous ‘leading ladies’ of the 1940s.

Monday 08 October 12

Claudia’s rejection of white values and norms (p.13-16)

Monday 08 October 12