The bluest eye课件

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Beauty was not simply something to behold, it was something one could do. The Bluest Eye was my effort to say something about that; to say something about why she had not, or possibly never would have, the experience of what she possessed an also why she prayed for so radical an alteration. Implicit in her desire was racial self-loathing.
Topics for presentations:
The text represents the racial discrimination against the blacks and the dominant white culture’s destructive impact on the black’s cultural mutilation in American society. How are they represented ? Why do some black people hate their compatriots”?
Lesson 9 About the Book The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, the tragic heroine of Toni Morrison’s haunting first novel, grew out of her memory of a girlhood friend who wanted blue eyes. Shunned by the town’s prosperous black families, as well as its white families, Pecola lives with her alcoholic father and embittered, overworked mother in a shabby storefront that reeks of the hopeless destitution that overwhelms their lives. In awe of her clean well-groomed schoolmates, and certain of her own intense ugliness, Pecola tries to make herself disappear as she wishes fervently, for the blue eyes of a white girl.
Words and expressions in paras.1—2
glance off: touch sth. with a light blow and move quickly off at an angle, e.g. a. Every scolding that boy gets just seems to glance off him and not to change his behaviors at all.每次责骂对这个男孩似乎都不起作用，一点也没有改变他的品行。 soak up: draw in, absorb, e.g. a. With a memory that seemed phonographic, Mark Twain soaked up quickly and easily the colorful language the local people used. b. This device can soak up the heat of the sun and store it up for a considerable period of time.这种装置可以吸收太阳热并把它贮存相 当长的一段时间。c. If you air your quilt on such a wet day, it'll soak up the moisture.如果在这么潮湿的天晒被子，被子就会把
Our text is taken from “Winter” which describes Geraldine, the educated black woman who disowns her race and perverts her son so that he torture pets and friends alike.
Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes.In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting. Her father would stop drinking. Her brother would stop running away. If only she could be beautiful. If only people would look at her."
Words and expressions in paras.3—9
refinement: a quality of being refined, e.g. a man lack of refinement soothe: to soothe the pain; to soothe noises billow: swell out,e.g. The flags billowed in the breeze. stand（keep）guard over （守卫）watch over, take care of , e.g. The dog stood guard over the gate to prevent any strangers getting into the barn. sparingly: frugally, meagrely engage:attract the interest or attention, e.g.The faint footprints on the floor engaged the attention of the police. surfeit n. (of): excess, e.g. a surfeit of violence in the film (Surfeit v.(with)) the soft hill of hair: similar expressions: the dark cave of a room; a mountain of waves / facts; a giant of the player; a fool of a man seep (into, through):penetrate
"ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱ
While The Bluest Eye is about an African American family struggling with issues of identity and race, Toni Morrison explains why her book, in fact, has a message for everyone. "I think a lot has changed since the '60s in terms of self-image. But there's still a lot of pain young girls feel because the bar is always being raised. The stakes are always higher.“ When Oprah asked whether the word “beautiful“ should be eliminated, this was Toni‘s response: That’s what I thought. Of the virtues, it is not one. The virtues are not the accidents of birth. The virtues are things you work for. To be forthright(直率的) To be educated. To be in control. To be diplomatic. To be healthy. To be graceful. These are the things you can work for. You can get them. They are available to you." We don't have the vocabulary to tell children what to value. We do say, "Oh, you're so beautiful. Oh, you're so pretty. Oh—that's not really what we really ought to be saying. What do you tell a child when you want to say, "You are good, and I like that. You are honest and I like that. You are courageous. I really like that. I really like the way you behave. I like the way you do yourself.
Toni Morrison
About the title—The bluest eye
To Pecola, blue eyes symbolize the beauty and happiness that she associates with the white, middleclass world. They also come to symbolize her own blindness, for she gains blue eyes only at the cost of her sanity. The“bluest ” eye could also mean the saddest eye. Eye puns on I, in the sense that the novel’s title uses the singular form of the noun (instead of the ‘eyes’) to express many of the characters’ sad isolation.
Part 1 (Paras.1—9 )
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What do the brown girls look like? What kind of houses do they live in? What kind of education do they have? How do these girls behave?
湿气都吸去。
juice (in the text):the essence of anything;(slang) power and influence, e.g. the creative juice Their eyes do not bite: take hold of firmly, grip, e.g. The ice on the road was so hard that the tyres wouldn’t bite.