Download or read book Wasted Talent in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison written by Surinder Kaur and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific Essay from the year 2015 in the subject American Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: The Bluest Eye is simple yet a difficult narrative of a twelve year old black girl Pecola’s desire to have blue eyes. The question arises why does a black girl want blue eyes? Why does she want to look differently? What causes this desire in her? As the story unfolds we get answers to these questions and also a realization that how the simple things like cup images or candy wrappers can be a strong factor in influencing an individual’s psychological response to beauty and his/her own self importance. The present paper while building on existing criticism tries to explore the popular culture, for instance children items (cups, dolls, candies) and movies and its individual psychological response. These commercial products play a pivotal role in establishing beauty aesthetics. Regular exposure to these ideals results in their idealization and a longing in people to have these defining physical features of beauty. It creates an environment of superiority and inferiority. People who possess the defining features (physical) are considered superior to those who don’t have these physical features. This adversely affects their psyche and becomes a reason for their downfall.
Download or read book Wasted Talent in the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison written by Surinder Kaur and published by . This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific Essay from the year 2015 in the subject American Studies - Literature, language: English, abstract: The Bluest Eye is simple yet a difficult narrative of a twelve year old black girl Pecola's desire to have blue eyes. The question arises why does a black girl want blue eyes? Why does she want to look differently? What causes this desire in her? As the story unfolds we get answers to these questions and also a realization that how the simple things like cup images or candy wrappers can be a strong factor in influencing an individual's psychological response to beauty and his/her own self importance. The present paper while building on existing criticism tries to explore the popular culture, for instance children items (cups, dolls, candies) and movies and its individual psychological response. These commercial products play a pivotal role in establishing beauty aesthetics. Regular exposure to these ideals results in their idealization and a longing in people to have these defining physical features of beauty. It creates an environment of superiority and inferiority. People who possess the defining features (physical) are considered superior to those who don't have these physical features. This adversely affects their psyche and becomes a reason for their downfall.
Download or read book Toni Morrison written by Pelagia Goulimari and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toni Morrison's visionary explorations of freedom and identity, self and community, against the backdrop of African American history have established her as one of the foremost novelists of her time; an artist whose seriousness of purpose and imaginative power have earned her both widespread critical acclaim and great popular success. This guide to Morrison’s work offers: an accessible introduction to Morrison’s life and historical contexts a guide to her key works and the themes and concerns that run through them an overview of critical texts and perspectives on each of Morrison’s works cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism a chronology of Morrison’s life and works. Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of Toni Morrison and seeking a guide to her work and a way into the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds it.
Download or read book The Bluest Eye written by Toni Morrison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-05-08 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtly and grace. In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. Here, Morrison’s writing is “so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry” (The New York Times).
Download or read book God Help the Child written by Toni Morrison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A New York Times Notable Book • This fiery and provocative novel from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride’s mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that “what you do to children matters. And they might never forget.” “Powerful.... A tale that is as forceful as it is affecting, as fierce as it is resonant.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Download or read book Beloved written by Toni Morrison and published by Everyman's Library. This book was released on 2006-10-17 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past. Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present. Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.
Download or read book Silver Sparrow written by Tayari Jones and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-02-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking tale of family secrets, from the international bestselling author of An American Marriage AN OBSERVER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE CHRISTMAS GIFT LISTING A GUARDIAN 'BEST BOOK OF 2020 TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS' A BOOKSELLER SMALL PUBLISHERS 2020 TOP 20 A Most Anticipated Book for 2020 according to The Sunday Times, the FT and the Guardian 'My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.' SECRETS Dana and Chaurisse are sisters, bound together by the life-changing secret of their father's double life. LIES Only one of them knows the truth. When they do finally meet and form a friendship, the fragile balance of ignorance and silence that has kept James' secrets safe for so long threatens to explode. HOPE This soulful story of friendship and sisterhood paints an unforgettable picture of the messy knots that bind families together, from the prize-winning author of An American Marriage.
Download or read book A Time of Gifts written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2011-09-14 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written. At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, Leigh Fermor’s book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube. At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.
Download or read book Toni Morrison s The Bluest Eye written by Harold Bloom and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the writing of The bluest eye by Toni Morrison. Includes critical essays on the work and a brief biography of the author.
Download or read book Toni Morrison and Motherhood written by Andrea O'Reilly and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces Morrison's theory of African American mothering as it is articulated in her novels, essays, speeches, and interviews. Mothering is a central issue for feminist theory, and motherhood is also a persistent presence in the work of Toni Morrison. Examining Morrison's novels, essays, speeches, and interviews, Andrea O'Reilly illustrates how Morrison builds upon black women's experiences of and perspectives on motherhood to develop a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different from motherhood as practiced and prescribed in the dominant culture. Motherhood, in Morrison's view, is fundamentally and profoundly an act of resistance, essential and integral to black women's fight against racism (and sexism) and their ability to achieve well-being for themselves and their culture. The power of motherhood and the empowerment of mothering are what make possible the better world we seek for ourselves and for our children. This, argues O'Reilly, is Morrison's maternal theory—a politics of the heart. "As an advocate of 'a politics of the heart,' O'Reilly has an acute insight into discerning any threat to the preservation and continuation of traditional African American womanhood and values ... Above all, Toni Morrison and Motherhood, based on Andrea O'Reilly's methodical research on Morrison's works as well as feminist critical resources, proffers a useful basis for understanding Toni Morrison's works. It certainly contributes to exploring in detail Morrison's rich and complex works notable from the perspectives of nurturing and sustaining African American maternal tradition." — African American Review "O'Reilly boldly reconfigures hegemonic western notions of motherhood while maintaining dialogues across cultural differences." — Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering "Andrea O'Reilly examines Morrison's complex presentations of, and theories about, motherhood with admirable rigor and a refusal to simplify, and the result is one of the most penetrating and insightful studies of Morrison yet to appear, a book that will prove invaluable to any scholar, teacher, or reader of Morrison." — South Atlantic Review "...it serves as a sort of annotated bibliography of nearly all the major theoretical work on motherhood and on Morrison as an author ... anyone conducting serious study of either Toni Morrison or motherhood, not to mention the combination, should read [this book] ... O'Reilly's exhaustive research, her facility with theories of Anglo-American and Black feminism, and her penetrating analyses of Morrison's works result in a highly useful scholarly read." — Literary Mama "By tracing both the metaphor and literal practice of mothering in Morrison's literary world, O'Reilly conveys Morrison's vision of motherhood as an act of resistance." — American Literature "Motherhood is critically important as a recurring theme in Toni Morrison's oeuvre and within black feminist and feminist scholarship. An in-depth analysis of this central concern is necessary in order to explore the complex disjunction between Morrison's interviews, which praise black mothering, and the fiction, which presents mothers in various destructive and self-destructive modes. Kudos to Andrea O'Reilly for illuminating Morrison's 'maternal standpoint' and helping readers and critics understand this difficult terrain. Toni Morrison and Motherhood is also valuable as a resource that addresses and synthesizes a huge body of secondary literature." — Nancy Gerber, author of Portrait of the Mother-Artist: Class and Creativity in Contemporary American Fiction "In addition to presenting a penetrating and original reading of Toni Morrison, O'Reilly integrates the evolving scholarship on motherhood in dominant and minority cultures in a review that is both a composite of commonalities and a clear representation of differences." — Elizabeth Bourque Johnson, University of Minnesota Andrea O'Reilly is Associate Professor in the School of Women's Studies at York University and President of the Association for Research on Mothering. She is the author and editor of several books on mothering, including (with Sharon Abbey) Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment, and Transformation and Mothers and Sons: Feminism, Masculinity, and the Struggle to Raise Our Sons.
Download or read book Sula written by Toni Morrison and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2002-04-05 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. This brilliantly imagined novel brings us the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
Download or read book Post Colonial and African American Women s Writing written by Gina Wisker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-04 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This accessible and unusually wide-ranging book is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonial and African American women's writing. It provides a valuable gender and culture inflected critical introduction to well established women writers: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Suniti Namjoshi, Bessie Head, and others from the U.S.A., India, Africa, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and introduces emergent writers from South East Asia, Cyprus and Oceania. Engaging with and clarifying contested critical areas of feminism and the postcolonial; exploring historical background and cultural context, economic, political, and psychoanalytic influences on gendered experience, it provides a cohesive discussion of key issues such as cultural and gendered identity, motherhood, mothertongue, language, relationships, women's economic constraints and sexual politics.
Download or read book Perish written by LaToya Watkins and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brave triumph of a novel that readers won’t forget long after finishing it.”—The New York Times Book Review Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Good Morning America * Essence* Esquire * The Root * Bustle * Ebony * PopSugar * Ms. * The Millions Bear it or perish yourself. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateful night in her cousin’s outhouse that change the trajectory of her life. Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean—the matriarch of the Turner family—makes and the way those choices have rippled across generations. We meet four members of the Black Texan family: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth and the time spent under Helen Jean’s thumb; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark and twisted past; Jan, a mother of two who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem, Texas, behind for good; and Lydia, a woman whose marriage is falling apart because her body can’t seem to stay pregnant. Called home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother, each family member is forced to confront long-kept secrets and ask themselves important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame. Set in vividly drawn Texas, this beautiful yet heart-wrenching novel explores the intricacies of family and the ways bonds can be made, maintained, or irrevocably broken. “This novel will serve as a hand extended through the darkness to a great many of its readers.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis) “Like Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Perish lures readers past the pain with a spellbinding, buoyant use of language.”—Texas Monthly “Miraculous and moving, light glimmers at the edges of this wise novel.”—Esquire
Download or read book Tar Baby written by Toni Morrison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-07-24 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary reinvention of the love story by the legendary Nobel Prize winner Jadine Childs is a Black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a Black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between Blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.
Download or read book Critical Theory Today written by Lois Tyson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-09-10 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical Theory Today is the essential introduction to contemporary criticial theory. It provides clear, simple explanations and concrete examples of complex concepts, making a wide variety of commonly used critical theories accessible to novices without sacrificing any theoretical rigor or thoroughness. This new edition provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African American criticism, and postcolonial criticism. The chapters provide an extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts; a list of specific questions critics who use that theory ask about literary texts; an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory; a list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works; and a bibliography of primary and secondary works for further reading.
Download or read book The Listener written by and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 894 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The New York Times Book Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents extended reviews of noteworthy books, short reviews, essays and articles on topics and trends in publishing, literature, culture and the arts. Includes lists of best sellers (hardcover and paperback).
