A secondary source comparison activity for the Bluest Eye
Tony Morrison’s Rootedness
That, if an action were to be done as in a community, its regarded as safer
It is a very personal grief and a personal statement done among people you trust. Done within the context of the community, therefore safe.
Public (white-washed) and private image, by necessesity, is separated
it’s just important that it be private. And then, whatever I do that is public can be done seriously.
that people are only defined by the uniqueness they have out of the tribe
My single solitary and individual Jifejs like the lives of the tribe; it differs in these specific ways, but it is a balanced life because it is both solitary and representative
Purpose of the novel is enlightening as well as an art form
It should have something in it that enlightens; something in it that opens the door arid points the way. Something in it that suggests what the conflicts are, what the problems are.
The Novel is a middle class art form
The history of the novel as a form began when there was a new class, a middle class, to read it; it was an art form that they needed.
That there is already a form of artistry for the lower class, but not middle class
The lower classes didn’t need novels at that time because they had an art form already they had songs and dances, and ceremony, and gossip, and celebrations.
novels of manners tell people of a different world
we call 1t the novel of manners, an art form designed to tell peole something they didn’t know.
Portrays quintessential forms of connection
How to get married. What a good living was.
The African Americans became unexclusive
For a long time, the art form that was healing for Black people was music. That music is no longer exclusively ours; we don’t have exclusive rights to it.
That the story of the novel is told where the reader constructs the story together
To construct the dialogue so that it is heard. So that there are no adverbs attached to them: “loudly,” “softly,” “he said menacingly.'
That the artistry is not described as Black but inherently black
Black, because it uses the characteristics of Black art