Lit Anal #5

1. The Color Purple is a novel about an African American woman named Cecil who struggles throughout life. She had to take the part f her mother when she passed away, and during that time her father rapped. She had two children which she never met. Soon after that she is forced to marry another man who already has children. The children as well as her husband are cruel to her and do not respect her. After a couple of years she adjusts to the life. Her sister Nettie moved in with them for  a while but  when she refused to have a relationship with Cecil’s husband she was told she could no longer live there. When Nettie left the house she went to be a servant for an African couple and later became a missionary with them in Africa. Cecil not only morns with the loss of her sister but also with the fact that her husband cheats on her with a singer named Shug. After years of having Shug live with them Cecil begins to form a physical as well as emotional relationship with Shug. Together Shug and Cecil discover letters from Nettie to Cecil that her husband had been hiding from her. When Shug announces that she is leaving Cecil says that she will leave as well, she gets the courage to tell her husband how she really feels about him. Cecil begins her own store and becomes very successful. She goes back to the town to discover that her husband is a changed man and while there she is reunited with her sister.

2. The theme of this novel is that strength can be hidden in the people that appear to be weak. This theme mainly applies to Cecil because she started off as a push over and ends up being independent. She is pushed around by everyone at first and then comes out being strong. She dealt with her father abusing her and then with the abuse of her husband. Shug was the person that Cecil needed to push her to be strong.

3. The tone in this novel is serious and tragic. Though there is a couple of happy moments in there it is mainly filled with sad ones. Since the very beginning Cecil introduces the fact that she was raped and her tone was very somber. She had a very difficult life and spoke of it with a serious tone. The majority of her life was not very good and enjoyable for her. Even when Nettie sent the letters they always contained serious topics and a tragic tone to all she said. Toward the end of the novel it begins to brighten up a bit but Cecil still speaks with a tragic tone.

4. The literary elements in this novel were diction, zenith, and  characterization. The diction was used with the slang that Cecil spoke in. It was effective by making this novel more realistic as well as making Cecil more realistic. The zenith occurred when Shug and Cecil found the letters from Nettie. This was a turning point for the way the story took place because Cecil’s attitude changed after this. The characterization added a better idea f the characters. It helped make sense of why they did what they did. For example the death of Cecil’s husbands ex wife explained his cruel attitude. 

Lit Anal #4

1.       The novel “Black Boy” written by Richard Wright, also the protagonist, is about all of the struggles that Richard faces through life. He is an African American living in a time where blacks were not respected and had no type of freedom, though it was after the Civil War. Since a young age Richard questioned the relationship between blacks and whites and could not understand why it was not equal. He not only struggled with that but also with problems at home. He was constantly beaten and when his father abandoned the family he never had a stable home. As the years went by he began to develop a passion for reading and writing, something that his family did not understand or support. He decided to leave to the north in hopes of a better place but whines up in the same place. Struggling from job to job and still facing discrimination. He turned to a communist group for answers but ends up at the same spot he started.

2.       The theme that this book promotes the most is the theme of equal rights. It constantly shows how Richard struggles to be treated fairly. He is discriminated at every job he obtains. As well as out in public both in the north and in the south. 

3.       The tone that the author uses is serious and melancholy. This novel has nothing funny about it because it depicts a life of a discriminated black man. Mostly all of the events in his life were tragic and sad in some way and so it only makes sense for the author to use this tone.

4.       Richard chose to use simple everyday diction. His choice made reading the novel enjoyable and simple. He also used many literary techniques such as foreshadowing, analogy, dialect, diction, and personification which made the novel that much more interesting. He would use foreshadowing by speaking about his future plans. Though they were only his dreams at the moment they grew to be realities.

Lit Anal #3

1.       The novel The Bluest eye takes place after the great depression and describes the life of African Americans. The main characters are Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola. Claudia and Frieda are sisters and they meet Pecola when she and another man named Henry move into their home for a while. At first they are hesitant about Pecola but soon begin to help her and guide her. Pecola is obsessed with having blue eyes and blonde hair like Shirley Temple. Pecola is also very troubled because of the family she comes from, her parents constantly argue and the arguments constantly turn violent. One day Pecola is rapped by her father, Cholly, and she becomes pregnant. Everyone in the neighborhood judges her and her mother even beats her. The neighborhood hopes her baby dies but Claudia and Frieda hope otherwise. The baby ends up dying because it was born prematurely. After her child’s death Pecola goes mad and believes everyone hates her because her blue eyes are so beautiful.

2.       The theme of this novel is lack of love. This is constantly seen with every character in the novel. Not only does Pecola not receive love from her own family but the community doesn’t show her love either. Her parents did not receive much love when they were growing up which explains why they can’t show love to their own children. The lack of love which Pecola receives ends up driving her crazy and to hating herself so much.

3.       Toni Morrison uses first person point of view which gives us an inside look to the novel. It makes it be that much more interesting and detailed. Her tone is melancholy and through every event we foreshadow something bad resulting from it. Some of the examples in the novel are “All he would do was get drunk sand beat her.” Also “although his income was small he had no taste for luxury.”

4.       The literary techniques that Morrison used that helped me better understand the novel were foreshadowing, diction, dialect, and imagery. The foreshadowing allowed us to get a heads up for all of the bad things to come. The dialect used allowed me as a reader to be able to get a better understanding of the characters. The imagery made the reading become more realistic and the diction was very simple which made reading enjoyable.