Eng102

English 102
December 12, 2010 Bluest Eyes by Morrison(novel), The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (short story),August Wilson's Fences and W. H. Auden’s poem The Unknown Citizen Beauty is in the eye of the holder ,that’s if you have someone holding it, as for Pecola she is a young girl who is constantly reminded how ugly she is ,which makes her wish she had blue eyes so that someone can see and appreciate her. Both her parents find happiness somewhere ,her father finds joy in drinking and her mom is happy when she is with the rich white family she works for, living Pecola with no one to show her love.” Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike." (pg. 45)At the beginning of the novel, two desires form the basis of her emotional life: first, she wants to learn how to get people to love her; second, when forced to witness her parents’ brutal fights, she simply wants to disappear. Neither wish is granted, and Pecola is forced further and further into her fantasy world. As time went by she is raped by her father and gets pregnant .Everyone blames her for the pregnancy but her friend Claudia and her sister Frieda. The story is not only about Pecola but rather it is a story of the Black American trying to make it in life surrounded by hate, child abuse, racism and other things. Lorain, Ohio serves as the setting for The Bluest Eye. The writer Toni Morrison was born there. The story happens around 1940`s which shows how the issue of racism was still too hot and hard for people of color. It gives the reader an insight of what was really happening in those years. Yes racism is still here today but not as bad as it was back then. The superiority of white people is also shown ,especially when we look at Pauline who is said to have been happy when she was with the rich white family she worked for, and saw her own daughter as being ugly. Claudia gets a white doll and she is told how beautiful the doll was, but since it was white she did not like the doll. 'Here,' they said, 'this is beautiful, and if you are on this day "worthy" you may have it.'" (pp. 21) Pecola`s wish of blue eyes was also fueled with how white people were seen, beautiful, rich, clean and everything that is good. Like Rosemary who had all the good thing because she was white. "We stare at her, wanting her bread, but more than that wanting to poke the arrogance out of her eyes and smash the pride of ownership that curls her chewing mouth."( pg. 9)” This also tells us how life back then was filled with hatred for one another and also self hate. The atmosphere in the family of Pecola Breedlove is very hostile ,which makes up for all the terrible things that happen in their house. The parents fight ,the father rapes the daughter and the son moves out. All we read about the Breedlove`s is sad no part of them being a family shows a happy and caring family. Pecola 's mother Pauline hates the entire family because she keeps comparing the life of the white family for whom she works as a maid with hers. All these things affects Pecola so much to the extend of self destruction, self hate and lack of confidence. Walking along the sidewalk one day, Pecola notices dandelions (Morrison 50). She does not understand why people say they are ugly but because like her people have a way of choosing what they think is ugly or pretty.

The Lottery by Jackson also shows us how important setting is, The Lottery creates a mood of peacefulness and tranquility. “Atmosphere can also serve to increase irony”.(McMahan 151) This setting also creates an image in the mind of the reader, the image of a typical town on a normal summer day, in the town square ,and the day’s atmosphere is clear and sunny which is an ironic picture of the dark side of events about to unfold as the lottery kicks off. The setting of the story immediately makes the reader aware that some thing unpredictable is going to happen with this so-called lottery. The main theme in the story is about adhering to tradition. The atmosphere tells a lot by the restlessness shown on peoples faces that something hard to explain is about to happen. The tone of the story evolves into one of panic the further along we go.

W. H. Auden’s poem The Unknown Citizen shows how important the tone is for people to understand the poem. The tone in is ironic. The man being described in The Unknown Citizen is not described by name ,but rather by number To the speaker the man was only known by statistics not by personal achievement as a free man because his feelings are not reflected. “Was he free? Was he happy?” McMahan “et al“( 503) The speaker asks and he ends up saying if anything we would have had. This poem is ironic because everything he did will be remembered except his name ,how can a nameless person be remembered that’s really ironic.

Setting can influence how the short story drama, poetry, novel , comes out. Settings enables the reader to better envision how a story unfolds by relating necessary physical details of a piece of literature. The setting can at times be simple for easy understanding but at times it can be hard. Understanding the setting is useful because it enables us to see how an author captures the attention of the reader by painting a mental picture using words . Visualizing what the words are saying is very important because it gives you a picture of what the writer is saying.

In the Bluest Eye we see hate from almost all the people that are in the novel.
"We stare at her, wanting her bread, but more than that wanting to poke the arrogance out of her eyes and smash the pride of ownership that curls her chewing mouth."( pg. 9)Even kids had so much hatred towards one another. We also see that Pecola was Claudia `s strength on the other hand Claudia was also Pecola `s .Claudia thought Pecola was strong which at the end when Pecola is pregnant we see Claudia protecting her .In Fences we see deception from the father to the kids .The father Troy uses his brothers money for compensation to build a house but makes it look like it was his money. Cory Troy’s son also deceives his father by lying about getting his old job back. In The Lottery we see that people always gather at the square and wait for Mr. Graves to bring the black box .This is like tradition because it happens like that every single year, which symbolizes the death of someone every year when that box comes out.

The recurring events at times are there to remind us of certain things, symbolize an occasion and at times they help to stress a point. These events tell the way we live in the world .When parents do something while kids are watching ,it has a way of coming back so that the kids can also make that same mistake like what Troy did in Fences. Troy and Cory are just repeating the cycle of deception. When someone is deprived of love it will also be hard for them to show love like what Cholly did in the Bluest Eyes. In today’s world l would think what goes around comes around. In the Bluest Eyes, Maureen Peal “high -yellow dream child”(53) is only mentioned once but has a large impact on Pecola because to her she seemed to have it all causing Pecola to wish for the perfect image she sees in Maureen. When Cholly decided to experience the first thrill of sex, two white men saw Cholly making out with her girlfriend and berated them; ridiculed them and harassed them ."Cholly, moving faster, looked at Darlene. He hated her. He almost wished he could do it - hard, long, and painfully, he hated her so much. The flashlight wormed its way into his guts and turned the sweet taste of muscadine into rotten fetid bile. He stared at Darlene's hands covering her face in the moon and lamplight. They looked like baby claws." pg. 148 After this incident it caused him to have so much hate and also to abuse woman and children.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, Old Man Warner has seen and taken part in the lottery for 77years yet he is still alive. This means that some people are lucky some are not. Attending the Lottery that much means he has stoned people for all those years, Every word that leaves Old Man Warner’s Mouth reeks of tradition. He never stops criticizing new ideas about the lottery, the way it is run, or complaining because he is the oldest person in that village which means he knows more about the tradition more than anyone else. Mr. Graves is the man who carries in the black box and the three-legged stool. His name hints to what will happen to Tessie Hutchinson. It is also from Mr. Graves whom the citizens get the papers from, therefore it is almost like he is the one who has the most influence over whose grave it will be next. Mr. Graves is never described, and he never has a line of dialogue ,which makes him scary like his name. The children are the first to get to the square McMahan “et al“(118) Bobby Martin, Bobby and Harry Jones, and Dickie Delacroix have already begun collecting stones (for what purpose, we do not yet know). When they're called to order so that the fateful drawing can begin, the boys heed their parents reluctantly. The boys play a really big part of giving us a hint on whats going to happen by piling a hip of stones.

August Wilson's Fences brings people like Alberta who is just there but nothing much is known about her, causes so much pain to Rose . Troy confesses to Rose about his infidelity. He explains not only that he has a mistress, but that she is pregnant with his child. He uses a baseball metaphor to explain why he had an affair. Troy's illegitimate child, mothered by Alberta, his lover Raynell is the only Maxson child that will live with few scars from Troy. Though innocent her role plays an important part role of how his father was such a big deceiver.

The minor characters helps the story to move along and also help to shape it up. More attention should also be paid to them ,because they might be the back born of the story. I n the Lottery if Mr Graves was not there then maybe the story would have had such an ending. Works cited

McMahan, Day and Robert Funk . Literature and the Writing Process (8th Edition).New Jersey: Pearson Education: 2007

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume: 1994.

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