Metin Demirci
Ebru Gümrükçüoğlu
Cemre Naz Özkara
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wLIulHENwY4/R
q6nMdwzKhI/AAAAAAAAALU/4Fz0WuaKid
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About the author
 Brief Summary
 Morisson’s style

 Metaphor
 Simile
 İmagery
The Great Depression
 Search for love

 Pecola
 Pauline
 Cholly

References
Born in Lorain,
Ohio
 Her parents
moved to escape
south racism
 Novel partly
based on her life


http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LI
TR/5439utopia/images/ToniMorrison.jpg

The story tells about the issues, which black
society confronts ________. A black
family’s, Mac Teer’s, daughter ________
narrates her memories about her friend
Pecola, who was __________ her father
Cholly. Because of her admiration to
______ _____, Pecola wants to have the
bluest eyes ever. Afterwards she insists,
_________ _________ convinces her that she
has blue eyes. Because of the societies
attitude towards her __________ and her
obsession to blue eyes, she feels
___________ from society. After her
_______ _______, she goes mad and she
thinks that she could fly.


baby’s death

pregnancy

Claudia
Soaphead Church
in 1941
white beauty
 isolated
 raped by



Metaphors


Simile


Seeds, earth, black dirt,
martyrdom
Regional contrast, racial
stereotypes
Imagery

Maurine, Anger, Black people

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/219
5378179_56873737bb.jpg
“Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it
will not bear, and when the land kills of its
own volition, we acquiesce and say the
victim had no right to live.”
What do you think the word “seed”
represents in the quotation?
Answer: Here the word “seed” represents the
individuals who can’t adapt their selves to the
society and its rules. (Such as Pecola)
“I talk about how i did not plant the seeds too
deeply, how it was the fault of the earth, the
land, of our town. I even think now that the
land of the entire country was hostile to
marigolds that year.”
Which system is being criticized by usage of
the word “earth”?
Answer: Racist system
“We had dropped our seeds in our own little
plot of black dirt just as Pecola’s father had
dropped his seeds in his own plot of black
dirt.”
The phrase “black dirt” has been used in the
quotation in two different ways. What is the
difference between their meanings?
Answer: 1) Their own environment
2) Pecola’s womb
“Mrs. Breedlove handled hers as an actor
does a prop: for the articulation of
character, for support of a role she
frequently imagined was hersmartyrdom.”
Mrs. Breedlove thinks that she can save
Cholly from hell, because he’s an alcoholic. If
he stops drinking then she wouldn’t have any
other purpose in her life.
What would be your reaction in a similar
situation like Mrs. Breedlove, would you try to
save your partner or leave?
Regional Contrast
Black
White




Blue sky
Lakefront white houses
Lake view
Good fortune, permanent
job, well-to-do family
•
•
•
•
Orange-patched sky
Leaned gray houses
Steel pollution
No zinc tub, no buckets of
stove-heated water
Have you ever observed such a strict discripency in
Istanbul’s neighborhoods? Where and how?
Racial stereotypes
Sugar brown girls





Slim ankles
Long narrow feet
Smell like vanilla
Do not smoke, drink or
swear
Black
•
•
•
Big asses
Big lips
Kinky hair
What do you think about racial stereotyping in
Turkey?
Ideal “White” Image
“Colored people were neat and
quiet; niggers were dirty and
loud. He belolonged (Junior)
to the former group: He
wore white shirts and blue
trousers; his hair was cut as
close to his scalp as possible
to avoid any suggestion of
wool, the part was etched
into his hair by the barber. ”
http://punchbutton.beloblog.c
om/archives/images/0
906/richie%20rich.bmp
MAURINE
•
•
•
•
Patent-leather shoes
Brightly colored knee
Socks with white borders
Velvet coat trimmed in rabbit fur
“A high-yellow dream child with long brown
hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung
down her back. She was rich at least by our
standards (. . .) the quality of her clothes
treatened to derange Frieda and me.”
ANGER
“Anger is better. There is a sense of
being in anger. A reality and presence.
And awareness of worth. It is a lovely
searching.”
How would you describe anger?
The Breedloves
 Poor and black
 Ugly
 Poverty is traditonal
 Unique ugliness
“You looked at them and wondered why they
were so ugly; you looked closely and could
not find the source. Then you realized that
it came from conviction, their conviction (...)
they accepted it without question.”
“The Great Depression was an economic
slump in North America, Europe, and
other industrialized areas of the world
that began in 1929 and lasted until about
1939. It was the longest and most severe
depression ever experienced by the
industrialized Western world.” (Britannica
Concise Encyclopedia, 2010, n.p.)
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/de
pression/about.htm
Novel is set at
the end of
depression
 Cholly is jobless
 Poverty and
migration

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/
07/04/0426_dow/image/2_gre
at_depression.jpg
Pecola
Why do you think Pecola is obsessed with
blue eyes in relation her search for love?
Blue eyes means beauty
 She would not sit alone in classroom
 Cholly and Pauline would be different
 Her teacher would like her
Mrs. Breedlove

Pauline thinks that Cholly fulfilled her need for
love

Going movies alone
Happiness means wearing pretty clothes and having
a lovely smile

Do you think that marriage kills love?
Cholly
“Cholly had always thought of his father as a
giant of a man, so when he was very close
it was with a shock that he discovered that
he was taller than his father.”
What would be your reaction if your father
wouldn’t accept you as his child?
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http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/2195378179_56873737bb.jpg
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5439utopia/images/ToniMorrison.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wLIulHENwY4/Rq6nMdwzKhI/AAAAAAAA
ALU/4Fz0WuaKido/s400/TheBluestEye1400.jpg
Great Depression. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved
May 11, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/243118/GreatDepression
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/about.htm
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/04/0426_dow/image/2_great_
depression.jpg
http://punchbutton.beloblog.com/archives/images/0906/richie%20rich
.bmp
https://sucourse.sabanciuniv.edu/access/content/group/ENG102A2B2C2D2200902/Novel/The%20bluest%20eye%20STUDY%20GUIDE.pdf