Tuesday, February 28

A little bit of literature

“It had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll. From the clucking sounds of adults I knew that the doll represented what they thought was my fondest wish. I was bemused with the thing itself, and the way it looked. What was I supposed to do with it? Pretend I was its mother? I had no interest in babies or the concept of motherhood. I was interested only in humans my own age and size, and could not generate any enthusiasm at the prospect of being a mother. Motherhood was old age, and other remote possibilities. I learned quickly, however, what I was expected to do with the doll: rock it, fabricate storied situations around it, even sleep with it. Picture books were full of little girls sleeping with their dolls. Raggedy Ann dolls usually, but they were out of the question. I was physically revolted by and secretly frightened of those round moronic eyes, the pancake face, and orangeworms hair.”

Vocabulary build-up

The transitive verb bemuse means “to occupy the attention of; absorb or engross; to cause to be bewildered; confused.” Close synonyms are “puzzled”, “bewildered”, and “stumped”.

The adjective moronic means “showing foolishness or stupidity ;exhibiting mild intellectual disability.”

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To end the Black History Month in our Literature Tuesday, we will talk about Toni Morrison, one of the most celebrated authors in the United States. As the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, Morrison’s work has inspired a generation of writers to follow in her footsteps. Although she had always studied and taught English literature, especially regarding African-American authors, Morrison did not publish her first novel, “The Bluest Eye” until she was 39 years old, in 1970. Two decades later, in 1993, Morrison became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the book “Beloved”. Her work is an everlasting influence on writers and artists through her focus on African American life and her commentary on race relations. Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” is a novel of initiation, which concerns a victimized eleven-year-old Black adolescent, Pecola Breedlove, who is obsessed by white standards of beauty and longs to have blue eyes. The novel is timeless, as it passionately depicts a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that raises questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace. Because of its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment, “The Bluest Eye '' continues to be one of Toni Morrisons's most powerful, unforgettable novels, and a must-read book in American fiction.