The Bluest Eye Finale Ft Legend of Zelda

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Weekly Rants: AP Exams ft. The Bluest Eye

Wanna Fit In? Gotta Fit Out.

Toni Morrison continues to display African-American inferiority during those times. As seen on my previous blog, she also compares it with esthetics. This time, instead of using a doll, she uses the Breedlove family. 

“The eyes, the small eyes set closely together under narrow foreheads. The low, irregular hairlines, which seemed even more irregular in contrast to the straight, heavy eyebrows which nearly met. Keen but crooked noses, with insolent nostrils. They had high cheekbones, and their ears turned forward. Shapely lips which called attention not to themselves but to the rest of the face. You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly.”(39) The Breedlove are nothing similar to the white, blue-eyed, dolls. Their physical differences have made them therefore ugly. Because of this shame in appearance, Pecola is disgusted towards her physical traits and uses them as an excuse to her daily problems: conflicts at home and at school.

"Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike. She was the only member of her class who sat alone at a double desk." (45) Naively, Pecola thinks that the only reason there is to her isolation is because of her ugliness. Instead, it was racial segregation and discrimination that caused it. However, because of these things, one could say that the Pecola was a bit right. Society's regard for beauty and acceptance was solely based on the Caucasian race.  Morrison's reason for the Breedlove's description was to show the inferiority of the African-Americans during those times. 

It seems Morrison is portraying life as an African-American through esthetics and the experiences of Pecola, who is just going through emotional and physical change, coincidentally connected to the African-American culture, who too is experiencing these changes. 

 

More Color to the Text

Soliloquies (24): noun. An act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, esp. by a character in a play.

Zest (28): noun. Great enthusiasm and energy. 

Prodded (31): verb. Poke (someone) with a finger, foot, or pointed object.

Fester (34): verb. (of a wound or sore) become septic; suppurate.


Don't Google Infection!!!


Wad (35): noun. A lump or bundle of a soft material, used for padding, stuffing, or wiping.

Malaise (37): noun. A general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify.

Me when googleing infection....

Schemata (37): noun. A representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model.

Not the Same

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is set right before the civil rights movement in the United States. Morrison describes the life of Claudia, a nine year old African-American. The conditions in which she lives in are seemingly different from those around her. It's not only that, her behavior is explicitly unusual.

Claudia is either nine or ten years old. Girls like her are innocent and happy. The complete opposite seems to be happening in this case. Morrison displays the difference between Claudia and the normal girls of that time. By normal I mean Caucasian girls. That was the perspective then. Claudia seems to be aggressive and violent. As Morrison states in the first page, "When she comes out of the car we will beat her up, make red marks on her white skin, and she will cry and ask us do we want her to pull her pants down."Last time I checked, this was not normal behavior for a nine year old. Morrison shows how different African-Americans are from Caucasians, how they were brought up and, most importantly, their social status.

Further into the book we see how the difference between Claudia and the rest of society is shown. When Claudia receives a doll, Morrison states, "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs - all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girls treasured." (20) Based on this, the concept of beauty during those times was the description of the doll. A little bit after, Morrison describes, "Remove the cold and stupid eyeball, it would bleat still, 'Ahhhhh,' take off the head, shake out the sawdust, crack the back against the brass bed rail, it would see the disk with six holes, the secret of the sound." (21) Claudia seems to despise the site of the doll, societies perfection. This marks the difference between her and other girls, or even, African-Americans with Caucasians.

Morrison illustrates a key contrast between two races. She shows it by displaying Claudia's acts towards symbols of society's beauty and perfection. Based on what I have read, I foreshadow a fight against Caucasians for a definition of African-American beauty. Or just the opposite. 

Real Mind Tricks

"This sentence is a lie."(135) Ok, lets slow down here a little. Chapters O, P, and Q brings about the real definition of mind blown. We started seeing contradictions, doubt and thinking. This statement includes all three of them. Shields introduces paradoxes with this opening sentence. If it is stating that the sentence is a lie, then wouldn't it not be not not a lie? Now I'm messing with your head. Paradoxes relate to the topic of reality. Is the nature of reality paradoxical? Firstly, my definition of reality is what I feel and experience around me. Most importantly, it's my version of a story.  

“Something can be true and untrue at the same time” (135) Here we go. Something can be true for someone while it can be untrue for someone else. The topic of religion revolves around this. What Shields is trying to say with this is that truth is only true according to that someone who created it. 

"The real story isn't the official story; the real story is my version (wrong, too, but I'm aware that it's wrong) of the official story." (139) Again, each one has their own version of what is real. Something like history is written by the victor. The victor tells his part of the story without taking into account the looser. There is no way in telling what is actually true. This doen't necessarily needs to be written in history books. An argument between friends or colleagues can end the same way. Each one has their own version of the story and only they know what is actually true. Many times both stories contradict each other. Therefore reality can be paradoxical. To avoid any further headaches, I'll continue living my version of reality. 

Less > More

Growing up, we've always had the idea that writing more meant it was better. We disregarded quality over quantity. This is specifically done by Collegeboard, the organizers of the SAT. According to their rubric, test readers are only allowed thirty seconds for every essay. In those thirty seconds they must identify the thesis, examples that support the thesis, a conclusion that wraps it all up, and the length. A study conducted by a student showed the correlation between the length of the essays and the scores they got. "Milo says out of 115 samples, longer essays almost always garnered higher scores."(ABCNews Has Teen Unlocked the Secret to a Better SAT Score?) This type of essay has gone through much controversy since its incorporation to the SAT in 2005. Experts say it doesn't measure a students true skill of writing if ultimately length is what affects the score. "Milo's advice? For a higher score, write more."(ABCNews Has Teen Unlocked the Secret to a Better SAT Score?)

Shields would disagree with Collegeboard. He points this out when he states, “The merit of style exists precisely in that it delivers the greatest number of ideas in the fewest number of words” (127). He believes in quality over quantity and suggests that by being concise, the point is reached out more effectively. It's easier to understand a point if explained briefly but well. Long texts might confuse the reader and even bore him/her.

Another point that supports Shield's argument is Kimball's project of writing post cards. He fills hundreds of post cards with people's experiences. Last time I checked, post cards were 9x13 centimeters. That's pretty small. "Sometimes these interviews have run to more than 5,000 words. As the life stories get longer - 508 words is the longest so far - my handwriting has got smaller."(The Guardian Brief Lives) Kimball is forced to compress long and interesting stories into a brief summary. Though, he does it with no problem and the end result is people enjoying his results.

“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a whole book-what everyone else does not say in a whole book” (129) I wouldn't mind having everything summarized. I am the type of person who gets bored after reading an excerpt with no end in sight. Most of them are just the same old thing repeated or lines of uninteresting junk. In the end, getting your point across is what matters. There is no point in writing something if you don't want your audience to understand. 

"Collage's parts always seem to be competing for a place in some unfinished scene."

My Interpretation

It's important to know what we make of things. But is it real?

“G 197. We all stretch the truth and tell lies by omission. Just getting along with people involves both. Humans are hardwired to deceive. We deceive when we’re competing with other members of the same sex; we deceive when we’re trying to attract the other sex. Deception is more the state of nature than not deceiving. In the animal kingdom, virtually every species deceives all the time. Why don’t we lie even more? It helps our reputation for people to know they can believe us.” (67). Lying has become a commodity for us humans. Actually it has always been, only seen as a taboo in most societies. It’s mostly related with competition that the desire to lie is so big it’s basically inevitable to do so. When reality isn’t quite what you hope it is, why not make it the way it should be. Of course, it’s all about the prize in the long run just as Shields shows when comparing us to animals, which deceive for the perfect mate. After all, it’s all about the sex isn’t it? Improve your image and you’ll get laid easier. Therefore I strongly agree with this fragment. Everyday, people improve their image to not be swallowed whole by the truth.

“H 243. We’re overwhelmed right now by calamitous information. The real overwhelms the fictional, is incomparably more compelling than an invented drama.” (82) Most of us live in a social bubble that seems hard to get out of. Actually we are just confortable inside with our easy and seemingly fictional lifestyle. Therefore when we get a taste of the world outside our bubble, we are shocked. There are many things going on around the world that are alarming and have gotten our attention. Funnily enough, it has paused our fictional living and given us a perspective to the outside world. It overwhelms us. We know we have been living easily and getting out of that comfort zone is hard and uneasy. Therefore knowing that a world like that exists behind those walls makes everyone distracted from their easy life making them grow a conscious of the problems.

“I 252. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and they’re here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction because we live in fictitious times. (85). This fragment relates to the previous one in chapter H. It mentions a problem people with opportunities, like us, suffer: our life in the bubble. When Shields explains that he and his friends like nonfiction, we can infer that he has managed to escape from his enclosure and seen much of the real world. Life for few has become too good to be true, thus becoming fiction as they are able to make up their life with no problem. Reality, which is mostly perceived as hardship, is a stranger to those living in fiction. I agree with Shields in this one as I too live in a bubble and should learn to acknowledge the world outside: the real world.

English: Where Are You Not At?

A. The word assassin derives from the Arabic Word hashashin.

B. The English Lexicon is large with over a million words in the dictionary and takes root words from many languages around the world.

C. Recognizable prefixes: pre-, anti-, dis-, multi-, super-, and re-. Suffixes: -able, -ize, -ate, and -ive.

D. Neologistic borrowings entered the English language in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because it was a time in which technology and cultures had spread from Britain and the United States to other continents. This created mixture of languages, new technological/scientific terminologies, and communication between different cultures. 

E. The language will maintain an empire together with unity and tradition. It also identifies who belongs to what empire because of its linguistic characteristics.

F. I think that language helps populations identify to which region or place they belong to even in the twenty-first  century. It could unify people but not as strongly as in the past as language has spread around most part of the world.  

Linguistic Quests

Whoa, it's as if we traveled forward in time from the 80's to the 2000's in a matter of days. Also, we're not listening to a story of English but an adventure. What time does to some stuff. Anyway The Adventure of English brought us examples of people who already had enough of common people speech and wanted a proper way of speaking.

Firstly we have John Locke, after surviving a plane crash and magically gaining strength in his legs... Right wrong one. Locke wrote an essay believing in that if all misunderstandings were removed, there would be no more conflicts. It could be done. How many times have there been bar fights because someone misunderstood someone else? Plenty.

As seen from 1:10 onward we can see how misunderstanding can lead to conflict. Seeing from that point we can agree if there was more understanding between people then such consequences won't occur. Though could it solve wars and other deeper conflicts? No. I guess Locke only wanted a language in which everyone understood each other with no mistakes. It seems that idea will always seem unreachable as everyday language seems to change and society not quite keeping up with it.

After that we have Jonathan Swift and Samuel Johnson. Both wanted to improve Standard English and have done everything possible such as setting up institutions for language and coming up with the first dictionary. They were worried slang would change the English language and have some sort of base in which everyone would have to follow. Though sadly, they weren't so lucky as their idea of the perfect English was not approved by everyone and sought to be too archaic. We can relate to this now a days as there has been an increase in slang in the last few years. These include words founded in music, games and movies. If you think about it, most of them came from the media.

Finally there is Robert Burns and William Wordsworth who completely disregarded the guys' theories mentioned above. They wrote poems (pronounced "perms" in the video) in the Scottish dialect. Both showed and helped Scottish thrive after constant batter for English to be only used in Britain. Wordsworth said there was no need for a deep poetic diction since poetry could be written in the mans common tongue.

There is so much to talk about in language. It’s hard to say what the future brings to English as its uncontrollable and always changing. Without a doubt, there will always be more words inserted into the language and some won't be heard of again.

I Do Declare

Influence in North America not only came from Britain, but from Africa a couple of centuries later. It's funny how the United States had evolved into what it is today from their rulers to their workers. Immigration seemed unstoppable, even if it was forced, for the U.S and brought new advances to the culture of the people. Descendants from Africa mixed in the growing population of the East Coast and with it it brought new dialects and pidgins of the English language. It was mostly forced do to the mix between African and American cultures.

"Even though I'm Nigerian, I can understand the pidgin. It sounds so much like Nigerian pidgin :)" Uche N comments on the close relationship between Gullug and Nigerian. This is an example of how African languages, such as Nigerian, and English are combined into an english dialect which unfortunately is dying. Of course the rise of these dialects across the south and the east of the U.S was mostly for communication between the masters and themselves. Though other dialects and pidgins were created for recreational reasons, such as signing and story telling while tending the tough plantations.

Eventually African Americans surged into an era that influenced American culture forever. Their lavish songs made it into white folks ears in the early twentieth century. The famous Blues came to be known and resembled the lifestyle of the working class in the South at that time, the African Americans. These contained their slang and colloquialisms, many which are still used today. “The speech in music became more popular.” (The Story of English). Such popularism became important as it was quickly picked up around the nation and eventually across sees. 

Seems I have jumped a few years in this blog. Ultimately without pidgins and dialects from the African Americans, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the fine music from the 50's. 

Gonnae, Leavin', Tint

It is sad tae see hoo languages oan yer bike in th' middle ay time as cultures jist forgit abit them. th' evolution ay leid destroys an' creates. Ah guess there's nae room fur aw th' languages. scootlund has bin huir uv a important fur britain as it shares history in politics an' in leid. thocht ben time, everythin' changes. scootlund eventually becomes part ay th' british empire an' ye auld scottish isnae widely spoken anymair. sassenach can be a bummer. noo as it seems thaur is only a body bodie alife tae thes day, ur in th' 80's, 'at kent almost aw th' scottish folk stories. Ah can imagine th' pressure 'at bloke has tae feel tae bide oan.

Ah hae recently reid an article describin' hoo an ancient leid is becomin' extinct coz thaur ur only tois fowk remainin' fa can spick it. "the leid ay ayapaneco has bin spoken in th' lain noo knoon as mexico fur centuries. it has survived th' spanish conquest, seen aff wars, revolutions, famines an' floods. but noo, loch sae mony other indigenoos languages, it's at risk ay extinction."(Language at Risk of Dying out - the Last Two Speakers Aren't Talking)* jist unbelievable hoo coontless ay languages ur bein' spoken less an' less coz ay its lack ay importance. thes is jist a body ay mony hundreds 'at in th' up comin' years micht ne'er be heard ay again.

Mebbe thaur is a difference atween scootlund an' mexico thocht they suffer frae a common problem, extinction ay languages. scottish seems huir uv a important fur th' coontry men as it has a vest history behin' it. it woods be a sham tae lit it disappear.

Guid cheerio the nou!

*Tuckman, Jo. "Language at Risk of Dying out - the Last Two Speakers Aren't Talking." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 13 Apr. 2011. Web. 15 Jan. 2013.

History Repeats Itself

I was proven wrong after seeing the second episode of The Story of English. It seems we'll be covering everything the English language has gone through. We can see similarities between languages as they share the same roots. Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese all come from latin making it easy for native speakers of one latin decedent language to learn another. Though, where did English come from. Well the good friends from Northern Europe helped colonized the celtics in Britain and bringing up what today we consider the most widely spoken language in the world. The Anglo-saxons just had to kill some natives and claim the land theres but it was worth it. Hey haven't we seen that in another occasion?

After six-hundred years after the Anglo-saxon's conquered Britain, The British Empire conquered North America. English has made a transition between location to location. Although the english spoken in North America isn't as distant from Britain as it was from Britain to the Saxon's, we still see some differences. Words such as "color" in North America is written "colour" in Britain. There are tons of other examples. I would like to see if North Americans will some day introduce english to other parts and see the change it has. Oh wait, they already have.

The Story of English. Dir. Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum, and William Cran. BBC, 1986. 27 Aug. 2009. Web. 13 Jan. 2013.

The Most Common Letter in English is "E".

It was interesting to see a documentary about a language with a rich history of about 1000 years, but focusing on its recent influences. The Story of English displayed its importance to the modern world after centuries of being created. The world has seen many changes in society in just a mere century. These changes brought new ways of sharing and communicating between every corner of the world.
It seems that the english language has evolved into a universal language for many functions. It's the official language for aeronautical, and maritime communications. Such so, "So when an italian pilot, flying an italian plane, into italian airspace, contacts italian ground control speaking only in english." (The Story of English). Flying is one of the most common means of transportations and allows cultures from countries to interact between others. Because of so much diversity a common-spoken language was necessary for pilots and control towers to communicate.

Having the accessibility to travel and share, varieties of the english language are mixed up and evolved as people leave their past. Though what is the right variety of the english language. According to The Story of English, Oxford english is the correct way of speaking the language. I truly do not believe there is a correct way of speaking english. Well pronouncing words in a understandable way and with a proper syntax is a correct way of speaking, but there is no correct accent. The important aspect of speaking english is that it is understandable to whomever is trying to understand.

The Story of English. Dir. Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum, and William Cran. BBC, 1986. 27 Aug. 2009. Web. 13 Jan. 2013.