Then she looked at me. I thought that she was looking at me for the first time. But then, when she turned around behind the lamp and I kept feeling her slippery and oily look in back of me, over my shoulder, I understood that it was I who was looking at her for the first time. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag on the harsh, strong smoke, before spinning in the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs. After that I saw her there, as if she'd been standing beside the lamp looking at me every night. For a few brief minutes that's all we did: look at each other. I looked from the chair, balancing on one of the rear legs. She stood, with a long and quiet hand on the lamp, looking at me. I saw her eyelids lighted up as on every night. It was then that I remembered the usual thing, when I said to her: "Eyes of a blue dog." Without taking her hand off the lamp she said to me: "That. We'll never forget that." She left the orbit, sighing: "Eyes of a blue dog. I've written it everywhere."
I saw her walk over to the dressing table. I watched her appear in the circular glass of the mirror looking at me now at the end of a back and forth of mathematical light. I watched her keep on looking at me with her great hot-coal eyes: looking at me while she opened the little box covered with pink mother of pearl. I saw her powder her nose. When she finished, she closed the box, stood up again, and walked over to the lamp once more, saying: "I'm afraid that someone is dreaming about this room and revealing my secrets." And over the flame she held the same long and tremulous hand that she had been warming before sitting down at the mirror. And she said: "You don't feel the cold." And I said to her: "Sometimes." And she said to me: "You must feel it now." And then I understood why I couldn't have been alone in the seat. It was the cold that had been giving me the certainty of my solitude. "Now I feel it," I said. "And it's strange because the night is quiet. Maybe the sheet fell off." She didn't answer. Again she began to move toward the mirror and I turned again in the chair, keeping my back to her.
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Show More“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a tragic coming-of-age story that switches between the first person point of view of character Claudia MacTeer and an omniscient third person narrator. The novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio 1941, a time when racism was still extremely prevalent, especially in the southern United States. African American women often faced many setbacks, simply because of their race and gender. Toni Morrison’s background helped to lay the foundation for her novel The Bluest Eye; racism, self-hatred, women’s roles, and rape culture are all societally imposed elements that follow Pecola Breedlove, Morrison’s main character,
There are many themes that seem to run throughout this story. Each theme and conflict seems to always involve the character of Pecola Breedlove. There is the theme of finding an identity. There is also the theme of Pecola as a victim. Of all the characters in the story we can definitely sympathize with Pecola because of the many harsh circumstances she has had to go through in her lifetime. Perhaps her rape was the most tragic and dramatic experience Pecola had experiences, but nonetheless she continued her life. She eliminates her sense of ugliness, which lingers in the beginning of the story, and when she sees that she has blue eyes now she changes her perspective on life. She believes that these eyes have been given to her magically and in some respects her eyes begin to corrupt her as an individual. The story begins to take a turn and the reader realizes that the main character has begun to entirely rely on self-image in order to build confidence. This leads to the question of how significant are the "Blue eyes" to society and how does the theme of beauty and ugliness linger throughout the story. With this in mind, how does this make Pecola a victim of society and a victim in herself?
In the novel, The Bluest Eye, the author, Toni Morrison, tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove. Pecola longs for acceptance from the world. She is an innocent little girl, however, she is rejected practically by the whole world, and her own parents. Pecola endures physical and verbal abuse at home, and also at school. She is always the main character in the jokes that usually refer to her very dark skin. Her mother cherishes the white daughter of the family she works for and calls her own daughter a "rotten piece of apple. Her father Cholly is constantly drunk, and sexually molests her daughter more than once, eventually rapes and impregnates her.
The first one is procedural memory. Procedural memory is when we recall how to do certain actions or operations such as riding a bike or running. We usually form procedural memory at an early age when we start to learn how to talk or walk. Episodic memory is also a type of long-term memory. It helps us recall special events and episodes and when and where they happened.
The story is written by Gabriel García Marquez, and is a magic realism novel.One Hundred Years of Solitude consists of the past of the segregated town, Macondo, as well as the Buendías family behind it. Besides a few gypsies that come to see the town every now and then to sell things, Macondo has had zero contact with the outside world for years.It is a very isolated village that keeps to itself, preferring to not involve themselves too much in the affairs of nearby nations. José ArcadioBuendía, the head of the family, is passionate and curious. He is very introverted, preferring not to be with others as he is deeply interested in mysterious events. He seems to spend a lot more time alone than with others. His descendants take on these attributes throughout the story. One of his sons, José Arcadio, inherits the great physique and impulsiveness of his father. The younger one, Aureliano, receives his father’s strong curiosity and intelligence. Over time, the village’s isolation vanishes when it comes in contact with the other towns nearby in its region.
As a journalist in 1920 for the New York Herald Tribune, Sophie Treadwell was assigned to go to Mexico to follow the situation after the Mexican Revolution. (Mexican Revolution 1910-1917) She covered many important aspects of the Mexican Revolution during this time, including relations between the U.S. and Mexico. She was even permitted an interview with Pancho Villa in August 1921 at his headquarters. This interview and other events that she experienced in Mexico are presumably what led her to write the play Gringo. In Gringo Treadwell tries to depict the stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes that Mexicans and Americans have about each other. There is a demonstration of how Mexican women are looked at in the Mexican culture and how they see themselves. The play also corresponds to similar events that occurred during the Mexican Revolution.
Author Mariano Azuela's novel of the Mexican revolution, The Underdogs, conveys a fictional representation of the revolution and the effects it had on the Mexican men and women who lived during that time. The revolutionary rebels were composed of different men grouped together to form small militias against the Federalists, in turn sending them on journeys to various towns, for long periods of time. Intense fighting claimed the lives of many, leaving women and children behind to fend for themselves. Towns were devastated forcing their entire populations to seek refuge elsewhere. The revolution destroyed families across Mexico, leaving mothers grieving for their abducted daughters, wives for their absent husbands, and soldiers for their murdered friends. The novel's accurate depiction also establishes some of the reasons why many joined the revolution, revealing that often, those who joined were escaping their lives to fight for an unknown cause.
"And Pecola. She hid behind hers. (Ugliness) Concealed, veiled, eclipsed--peeping out from behind the shroud very seldom, and then only to yearn for the return of her mask" (Morrison 39). In the novel The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, the main character, Pecola, comes to see herself as ugly. This idea she creates results from her isolation from friends, the community, and ever her family. There are three stages that lead up to Pecola portraying herself as an ugly human being. The three stages that lead to Pecola's realization are her family's outlook toward her, the community members telling her she is ugly, and her actually accepting what the other say or think about her. Each stage progresses into the other to finally reach the last stage and the end of the novel when Pecola eventually has to rely on herself as an imaginary friend so she will have someone to talk to.
Beauty is dangerous, especially when you lack it. In the book "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison, we witness the effects that beauty brings. Specifically the collapse of Pecola Breedlove, due to her belief that she did not hold beauty. The media in the 1940's as well as today imposes standards in which beauty is measured up to; but in reality beauty dwells within us all whether it's visible or not there's beauty in all; that beauty is unworthy if society brands you with the label of being ugly.
The Old Gringo is a fiction novel written by one of Latin America's most renowned and eloquent authors, Carlos Fuentes. Filled with war, adventure, love and more, this novel takes you back to the Mexican revolution fought in 1912. This contemporary fiction is based on many themes found and experienced by the main characters in this novel. The relationship between Mexico and the United States, the drive to find one's true self and the different ways two men need a woman are only a few themes contained in this story. The question: Is he Ambrose Bierce or just an old gringo, is one that I had to answer while reading this book. We all have different opinions, but it is a question that all ask themselves while reading The Old Gringo.
In the book Borders and Dreams, Chris Carger shows the readers the hardships of Alejandro, a Spanish-American boy with very little educational background. In her case study of both Alejandro and his family she shows how the limitations of Alejandro, his parents, and an overpopulated school system can make succeeding in an American school nearly impossible. In this paper I will look at all the obstacles that Alejandro faced both before and during his education. Also, I will identify both the things that I felt were done right in his schooling and the things I felt were done wrong. To finish I will give some of the idea's I have that could possibly have helped Alejandro.
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye provides social commentary on a lesser known portion of black society in America. The protagonist Pecola is a young black girl who desperately wants to feel beautiful and gain the “bluest eyes” as the title references.
The way we see ourselves is often reflected in the way we act. Hamlet views himself as different to those young nobles around him such as Fortinbras and Laertes. This reality leads us to believe that over time he has become even more motivated to revenge his father's death, and find out who his true friends are. How can you be honest in a world full of deceit and hate? His seven soliloquies tell us that while the days go by he grows more cunning as he falls deeper into his madness. This fact might have lead Hamlet to believe that suicide is what he really wants for his life's course.
What makes us who we are? Do we make this choice ourselves? Many people are shaped and influenced by the society. We tend to consider social norms and consequences of our actions. In the 1940s, black people were considered less superior than white people. Black people felt powerless so they tried to better themselves among their community. In The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, Cholly and Junior’s personalities are influenced by their parents’ treatments and the society which makes them become violent towards women.