. . Then I wrote it out as a she' story, and that didn't work . . . It was me, the author, sort of omnipotent, talking- (Bakerman 59). Morrison intentionally kept Pecola from any first person narration of the story. Morrison wanted to "try to show a little girl as a total and complete victim of whatever was around her,"" and she needed the distance and innocence of Claudia's narration to do that (Stepto 479). Pecola's experiences would have less meaning coming from Pecola herself because "a total and complete victim- would be an unreliable narrator, unwilling (or unable) to tell relate the actual circumstances of that year (Stepto 479). Claudia, from her youthful innocence, is able to see and relate how the other characters, especially Pecola, idolize the "ideal- of beauty presented by white, blue-eyed movie stars like little Shirley Temple. .
In addition to narrative structure, the structure and typography of the novel itself help to illustrate how much and for how long white ideas of family and home have been forced into black culture. Instead of conventional chapters and sections, The Bluest Eye is broken up into seasons " Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. This type of organization suggests that the events described in The Bluest Eye have occurred before, and will occur again. Linda Dittmar, in her article examining form in The Bluest Eye, says, "Inherent in the notion of the seasons is the fact that they are an annually recurring condition from which there is no escape- (143). Further dividing the book are small excerpts from the "Dick and Jane- primer that is the epitome of the white upper-middle class lifestyle. Each excerpt has, in some way, to do with the section that follows. So the section that describes Pecola's mother is started with an excerpt describing Dick and Jane's mother, and so on. The excerpts from "Dick and Jane- that head each "chapter- are typeset without any spaces or punctuation marks.
The names used when referring to Clarissa Dalloway in this novel signifies different things. Mrs. Dalloway is used in the novel to signify a lady of class. Somebody that is distinguished, who has responsibilities and power. It is also used so the reader sees her as Mrs.Dalloway the other half of...
The Failures of Life in a Modern Society A common theme in many novels is for the protagonist to come to some sort of realization about life, therefore enriching and fulfilling some goal or desire in his own life. Most of the time he will learn a lesson, realize some truth, or derive some meaning ...
In Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway, she portrays numerous complicating and intriguing passages in which she presents the readers with many questions and confusing scenarios. One particular section that I feel is very problematic and controversial, but also very interesting, is the passage in w...
Upon viewing "Mrs. Dalloway" I was not impressed. The movie seemed to jump from the present to the past. The character Septimus didn't appear to have any purpose in the storyline. Clarrisa also seemed to be tightly bound by the Victorian lifestyle of the day to make her interesting to me. The plot j...
Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway-. ... And "Mrs Dalloway- is a typical work dealing with women's difference from men. (If we already might go into detailed examples, one such but not the only is Mrs Dalloway's relationship with Sally. When she recalling it, Mrs Clarissa Dalloway admits to herself: "It was not like one's feeling for a man. ... The problem in "Mrs Dalloway- is that actually it is rather hard to state to whom and what belongs the voice of the narrator. ...
1 Everyone passes strangers throughout life. Each stranger has a life completely different than the people we pass each day. But every now and again we are similar in thought. Although we know not what each thinks, our thoughts converge in similar fashions. Whether it be something in the sky...
Virginia Woolf attaches great importance to this phenomenon in her novel Mrs. Dalloway, and throws the reader into a storyline consisting of accounts and thoughts of characters. ... Being published in 1925, Virginia Woolf´s novel Mrs. ... Such a connecting device is presented when Clarissa Dalloway is at the flower shop, when suddenly a car backfires in front of the flower shop. ... So the car serves as a connection point insofar as the narrator shifts between the minds of Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus, allowing the reader an insight of how both of them experience this situation. ...
Septimus Warren Smith and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway Works Cited Dowling, David. Mrs. Dalloway: Mapping Streams of Consciousness. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishing, 1991. Gilbert, Martin. The First World War: A Complete History. New York, NY: Henry Ho...
Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" is an account of one day in the life of an upper class British woman, her husband, her daughter and her circle of friends. Woolf's narration of Clarissa Dalloway's day begins with her protagonist's preparations for a party she is holding at her house that evening, an...
