Of note: yesterday was the vocabulary quiz on the words from The Ancient Mariner. If you were absent, please make arrangements to take the test outside of class time.
AS well, yesterday we began reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. This is an in-class reading primarily, with added material on the blog. This text will be used on January's ELA exam. Do not fall behind on the reading.
For Wednesday, you are responsible for having read through the break on page 23.
In class today: you are writing on evidence-based essay on of the Ancient Mariner.
Take out your poem, while I hand out the directions and lined paper.
If you are absent from class, please allow yourself 40 minutes to complete the following assignment.
As noted yesterday in class, the grades for this marking period are organized as follows:
WRITING 40%
CLASS PARTICIPATION: 50%
HOMEWORK: 10 %
Class assignment: One of the themes of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is retribution, which is punishment that is considered to be morally right and fully deserved. In a well-developed paragraph, using textual evidence, discuss how Coleridge develops this theme through plot and characterization.
BEGIN WITH A CORRECT MLA HEADING
Note that all paper's papers essays and quick writes must have this heading.
Your name
Instructor's name
English III
Date (written day/ month written out/ year)- 22 October 2013
(title of essay)
in the case
Retribution in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Remember: You have a clear thesis statement
You will have three examples to prove the statement, accompanied by textual evidence. At the close of the paragrph, make a statement, as to the larger significance of retribution.
Your essay will not include "I think" or "I believe"
Avoid contractions
Use transition words: furthermore, moreover, in addition, however
Bluest Eye link:
https://www.google.com/#q=the+bluest+eye+pdf
Required reading for Wednesday, September 23
Bluest Eye
by
Toni Morrison
`
Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It
is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick, and
Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very happy. See
Jane. She has a red dress She wants to play. Who will play with
Jane? See the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play
with Jane. The kitten will not play. See Mother. Mother is very
nice. Mother, will you play with Jane? Mother laughs. Laugh,
Mother, laugh. See Father. He is big and strong. Father, will you
play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile. See the
dog. Bowwow goes the dog. Do you want to play with Jane? See the
dog run. Run, dog, run. Look, look. Here comes a friend. The
friend will play with Jane. They will play a good game. Play,
Jane, play.
Here is the house it is green and white it has a red door it is
very pretty here is the family mother father dick and jane live
in the green-and-white house they are very happy see jane she has
a red dress she wants to play who will play with jane see the cat
it goes meow-meow come and play come play with jane the kitten
will not play see mother mother is very nice mother will you play
with jane mother laughs laugh mother laugh see father he is big
and strong father will you play with jane father is smiling smile
father smile see the dog bowwow goes the dog do you want to play
do you want to play with jane see the dog run run dog run look
look here comes a friend the friend will play with jane they will
play a good game play jane play
Hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhiteithasareddooritisveryprettyhereisth
efa
milymotherfatherdickandjaneliveinthegreenandwhitehousetheyareve
ryh
appyseejaneshehasareddressshewantstoplaywhowillplaywithjaneseet
heca
titgoesmeowmeowcomeandplaycomeplaywithjanethekittenwillnotpla
ys
eemothermotherisverynicemotherwillyouplaywithjanemotherlaughsl
au
ghmotherlaughseefatherheisbigandstrongfatherwillyouplaywithjanef
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therissmilingsmILefathersmileseethedogbowwowgoesthedogdoyouw
antto
playdoyouwanttoplaywithjaneseethedogrunrundogrunlooklookherec
om
esafriendthefriendwillplaywithjanetheywillplayagoodgameplayjanepl
ay
Quiet as it's kept, there were no marigolds in the fall 1941.We
thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her
father's baby that the marigolds did not grow. A little
examination and much less melancholy would have proved to us that
our seeds were not the only ones that did not sprout; nobody's
did. Not even the gardens fronting the lake showed marigolds that
year. But so deeply concerned were we with the health and safe
delivery of Pecola's baby we could think of nothing but our own
magic: if we planted the seeds, and said the right words over
them, they would blossom, and everything would be all right. It
was a long time before my sister and I admitted to ourselves that
no green was going to spring from our seeds. Once we knew, our
guilt was relieved only by fights and mutual accusations about
who was to blame. For years I thought my sister was right: it was
my fault. I had planted them too far down in the earth. It never
occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been
unyielding.We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of
black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his
own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more
productive than his lust or despair.What is clear now is that of
all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains
but Pecola and the unyielding earth. Cholly Breedlove is dead;
our innocence too. The seeds shriveled and died; her baby too.
There is really nothing more to say--except why. But since why is
difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.
Autumn
Nuns go by as quiet as lust, and drunken men with sober eyes sing
in the lobby of the Greek hotel. Rosemary Villanucci, our
next-door friend who lives above her father's cafe, sits in a
1939 Buick eating bread and butter. She rolls down the window to
tell my sister Frieda and me that we can't come in. 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.When she comes out of the car we will
beat her up, make red marks on her white skin, and she will cry
and ask us do we want her to pull her pants down.We will say no.
We don't know what we should feel or do if she does, but whenever
she asks us, we know she is offering us something precious and
that our own pride must be asserted by refusing to accept. School
has started, and Frieda and I get new brown stockings and
cod-liver oil. Grown-ups talk in tired, edgy voices about Zick's
Coal Company and take us along in the evening to the railroad
tracks where we fill burlap sacks with the tiny pieces of coal
lying about. Later we walk home, glancing back to see the great
carloads of slag being dumped, red hot and smoking, into the
ravine that skirts the steel mill. The dying fire lights the sky
with a dull orange glow. Frieda and I lag behind, staring at the
patch of color surrounded by black. It is impossible not to feel
a shiver when our feet leave the gravel path and sink into the
dead grass in the field. Our house is old, cold, and green. At
night a kerosene lamp lights one large room. The others are
braced in darkness, peopled by roaches and mice. Adults do not
talk to us--they give us directions. They issue orders without
providing information.When we trip and fall down they glance at
us; if we cut or bruise ourselves, they ask us are we
crazy.When we catch colds, they shake their heads in disgust at
our lack of consideration. How, they ask us, do you expect
anybody to get anything done if you all are sick?We cannot
answer them. Our illness is treated with contempt, foul Black
Draught, and castor oil that blunts our minds. When, on a day
after a trip to collect coal, I cough once, loudly, through
bronchial tubes already packed tight with phlegm, my mother
frowns. "Great Jesus. Get on in that bed. How many times do I
have to tell you to wear something on your head? You must be the
biggest fool in this town. Frieda? Get some rags and stuff that
window." Frieda restuffs the window. I trudge off to bed, full of
guilt and self-pity. I lie down in my underwear, the metal in my
black garters hurts my legs, but I do not take them off, for it
is too cold to lie stockingless. It takes a long time for my body
to heat its place in the bed. Once I have generated a silhouette
of warmth, I dare not move, for there is a cold place one-half
inch in any direction. No one speaks to me or asks how I feel. In
an hour or two my mother comes. Her hands are large and rough,
and when she rubs the Vicks salve on my chest, I am rigid with
pain. She takes two fingers' full of it at a time, and massages
my chest until I am faint. Just when I think I will tip over into
a scream, she scoops out a little of the salve on her forefinger
and puts it in my mouth, telling me to swallow. A hot flannel is
wrapped about my neck and chest. I am covered up with heavy
quilts and ordered to sweat, which I do--promptly. Later I throw
up, and my mother says, "What did you puke on the bed clothes
for? Don't you have sense enough to hold your head out the bed?
Now, look what you did. You think I got time for nothing but
washing up your puke?" The puke swaddles down the pillow onto the
sheet--green-gray, with flecks of orange. It moves like the
insides of an uncooked egg. Stubbornly clinging to its own mass,
refusing to break up and be removed. How, I wonder, can it be so
neat and nasty at the same time? My mother's voice drones on. She
is not talking to me. She is
talking to the puke, but she is calling it my name: Claudia. She
wipes it up as best she can and puts a scratchy towel over the
large wet place. I lie down again. The rags have fallen from the
window crack, and the air is cold. I dare not call her back and
am reluctant to leave my warmth. My mother's anger humiliates me;
her words chafe my cheeks, and I am crying. I do not know that
she is not angry at me, but at my sickness. I believe she
despises my weakness for letting the sickness "take holt." By and
by I will not get sick; I will refuse to. But for now I am
crying. I know I am making more snot, but I can't stop. My sister
comes in. Her eyes are full of sorrow. She sings to me: "When the
deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls, someone thinks of me.
..." I doze, thinking of plums, walls, and "someone." But was it
really like that? As painful as I remember? Only mildly. Or
rather, it was a productive and fructifying pain. Love, thick and
dark as Alaga syrup, eased up into that cracked window. I could
smell it--taste it--sweet, musty, with an edge of wintergreen in
its base--everywhere in that house. It stuck, along with my
tongue, to the frosted windowpanes. It coated my chest, along
with the salve, and when the flannel came undone in my sleep, the
clear, sharp curves of air outlined its presence on my throat.
And in the night, when my coughing was dry and tough, feet padded
into the room, hands repinned the flannel, readjusted the quilt,
and rested a moment on my forehead. So when I think of autumn, I
think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die.
It was autumn too when Mr. Henry came. Our roomer. Our roomer.
The words ballooned from the lips and hovered about our
heads--silent, separate, and pleasantly mysterious. My mother was
all ease and satisfaction in discussing his coming. "You know
him," she said to her friends. "HenryWashington. He's been
living over there with Miss Delia Jones on Thirteenth Street. But
she's too addled now to keep up. So he's looking for another
place."
"Oh, yes." Her friends do not hide their curiosity. "I been
wondering how long he was going to stay up there with her. They
say she's real bad off. Don't know who he is half the time, and
nobody else." "Well, that old crazy nigger she married up with
didn't help her head nonq." "Did you hear what he told folks when
he left her?" "Uh-uh. What?" "Well, he run off with that trifling
Peggy--from Elyria. You know." "One of Old Slack Bessie's girls?"
"That's the one.Well, somebody asked him why he left a nice good
church woman like Delia for that heifer. You know Delia always
did keep a good house. And he said the honest-to-God real reason
was he couldn't take no more of that violet water Delia Jones
used. Said he wanted a woman to smell like a woman. Said Delia
was just too clean for him." "Old dog. Ain't that nasty!" "You
telling me.What kind of reasoning is that?" "No kind. Some men
just dogs." "Is that what give her them strokes?" "Must have
helped. But you know, none of them girls wasn't too bright.
Remember that grinning Hattie? She wasn't never right. And their
Auntie Julia is still trotting up and down Sixteenth Street
talking to herself." "Didn't she get put away?" "Naw. County
wouldn't take her. Said she wasn't harming anybody." "Well, she's
harming me. You want something to scare the living shit out of
you, you get up at five-thirty in the morning like I do and see
that old hag floating by in that bonnet. Have mercy!" They laugh.
Frieda and I are washing Mason jars.We do not hear their words,
but with grown-ups we listen to and watch out for their voices.
"Well, I hope don't nobody let me roam around like that when I
get senile. It's a shame." "What they going to do about Delia?
Don't she have no people?" "A sister's coming up from North
Carolina to look after her. I expect she wants to get aholt of
Delia's house." "Oh, come on. That's a evil thought, if ever I
heard one." "What you want to bet? HenryWashington said that
sister ain't seen Delia in fifteen years." "I kind of thought
Henry would marry her one of these days." "That old woman?"
"Well, Henry ain't no chicken." "No, but he ain't no buzzard,
either." "He ever been married to anybody?" "No." "How come?
Somebody cut it off?" "He's just picky." "He ain't picky. You see
anything around here you'd marry?" "Well ... no." "He's just
sensible. A steady worker with quiet ways. I hope it works out
all right." "It will. How much you charging?" "Five dollars every
two weeks." "That'll be a big help to you." "I'll say."
Their conversation is like a gently wicked dance: sound meets
sound, curtsies, shimmies, and retires. Another sound enters but
is upstaged by still another: the two circle each other and stop.
Sometimes their words move in lofty spirals; other times they
take strident leaps, and all of it is punctuated with warm-pulsed
laughter--like the throb of a heart made of jelly. The edge, the
curl,
the thrust of their emotions is always clear to Frieda and me.We
do not, cannot, know the meanings of all their words, for we are
nine and ten years old. So we watch their faces, their hands,
their feet, and listen for truth in timbre. So when Mr. Henry
arrived on a Saturday night, we smelled him. He smelled
wonderful. Like trees and lemon vanishing cream, and Nu Nile Hair
Oil and flecks of SenSen. He smiled a lot, showing small even
teeth with a friendly gap in the middle. Frieda and I were not
introduced to him--merely pointed out. Like, here is the
bathroom; the clothes closet is here; and these are my kids,
Frieda and Claudia; watch out for this window; it don't open all
the way.We looked sideways at him, saying nothing and expecting
him to say nothing. Just to nod, as he had done at the clothes
closet, acknowledging our existence. To our surprise, he spoke to
us. "Hello there. You must be Greta Garbo, and you must be Ginger
Rogers." We giggled. Even my father was startled into a smile.
"Want a penny?" He held out a shiny coin to us. Frieda lowered
her head, too pleased to answer. I reached for it. He snapped his
thumb and forefinger, and the penny disappeared. Our shock was
laced with delight.We searched all over him, poking our fingers
into his socks, looking up the inside back of his coat. If
happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy. And
while we waited for the coin to reappear, we knew we were amusing
Mama and Daddy. Daddy was smiling, and Mama's eyes went soft as
they followed our hands wandering over Mr. Henry's body.We loved
him. Even after what came later, there was no bitterness in our
memory of him.
She slept in the bed with us. Frieda on the
outside because she is brave--it never occurs to her that if in
her sleep her hand hangs over the edge of the bed "something"
will crawl out from under it and bite
her fingers off. I sleep near the wall because that thought has
occurred to me. Pecola, therefore, had to sleep in the middle.
Mama had told us two days earlier that a "case" was coming--a girl
who had no place to go. The county had placed her in our house
for a few days until they could decide what to do, or, more
precisely, until the family was reunited.We were to be nice to
her and not fight. Mama didn't know "what got into people," but
that old Dog Breedlove had burned up his house, gone upside his
wife's head, and everybody, as a result, was outdoors. Outdoors,
we knew, was the real terror of life. The threat of being
outdoors surfaced frequently in those days. Every possibility of
excess was curtailed with it. If somebody ate too much, he could
end up outdoors. If somebody used too much coal, he could end up
outdoors. People could gamble themselves outdoors, drink
themselves outdoors. Sometimes mothers put their sons outdoors,
and when that happened, regardless of what the son had done, all
sympathy was with him. He was outdoors, and his own flesh had
done it. To be put outdoors by a landlord was one
thing--unfortunate, but an aspect of life over which you had no
control, since you could not control your income. But to be slack
enough to put oneself outdoors, or heartless enough to put one's
own kin outdoors--that was criminal. There is a difference between
being put out and being put outdoors. If you are put out, you go
somewhere else; if you are outdoors, there is no place to go. The
distinction was subtle but final. Outdoors was the end of
something, an irrevocable, physical fact, defining and
complementing our metaphysical condition. Being a minority in
both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life,
struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep
singly up into the major folds of the garment. Our peripheral
existence, however, was something we had learned to deal
with--probably because it was abstract. But the concreteness of
being outdoors was another matter--like the difference between
the concept of death and being, in fact, dead. Dead doesn't
change, and outdoors is here to stay.
Knowing that there was such a thing as outdoors bred in us a
hunger for property, for ownership. The firm possession of a
yard, a porch, a grape arbor. Propertied black people spent all
their energies, all their love, on their nests. Like frenzied,
desperate birds, they overdecorated everything; fussed and
fidgeted over their hard-won homes; canned, jellied, and
preserved all summer to fill the cupboards and shelves; they
painted, picked, and poked at every corner of their houses. And
these houses loomed like hothouse sunflowers among the rows of
weeds that were the rented houses. Renting blacks cast furtive
glances at these owned yards and porches, and made firmer
commitments to buy themselves "some nice little old place." In
the meantime, they saved, and scratched, and piled away what they
could in the rented hovels, looking forward to the day of
property. Cholly Breedlove, then, a renting black, having put his
family outdoors, had catapulted himself beyond the reaches of
human consideration. He had joined the animals; was, indeed, an
old dog, a snake, a ratty nigger. Mrs. Breedlove was staying with
the woman she worked for; the boy, Sammy, was with some other
family; and Pecola was to stay with us. Cholly was in jail. She
came with nothing. No little paper bag with the other dress, or a
nightgown, or two pair of whitish cotton bloomers. She just
appeared with a white woman and sat down.We had fun in those few
days Pecola was with us. Frieda and I stopped fighting each other
and concentrated on our guest, trying hard to keep her from
feeling outdoors. When we discovered that she clearly did not
want to dominate us, we liked her. She laughed when I clowned for
her, and smiled and accepted gracefully the food gifts my sister
gave her. "Would you like some graham crackers?" "I don't care."
Frieda brought her four graham crackers on a saucer and some milk
in a blue-and-white Shirley Temple cup. She was a long time with
the milk, and gazed fondly at the silhouette of Shirley Temple's
dimpled
face. Frieda and she had a loving conversation about how cu-ute
Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration
because I hated Shirley. Not because she was cute, but because
she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy,
and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me.
Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing
with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down
under their heels. So I said, "I like Jane Withers." They gave me
a puzzled look, decided I was incomprehensible, and continued
their reminiscing about old squint-eyed Shirley. Younger than
both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning
point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to
love her.What I felt at that time was unsullied hatred. But
before that I had felt a stranger, more frightening thing than
hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world. 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. The other dolls, which were supposed
to bring me great pleasure, succeeded in doing quite the
opposite.When I took it to bed, its hard unyielding limbs
resisted my flesh--the tapered fingertips on those
dimpled hands scratched. If, in sleep, I turned, the bone-cold
head collided with my own. It was a most uncomfortable, patently
aggressive sleeping companion. To hold it was no more rewarding.
The starched gauze or lace on the cotton dress irritated any
embrace. I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what
it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the
desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. Adults,
older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs--all the
world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned
doll was what every girl child treasured. "Here," they said,
"this is beautiful, and if you are on this day 'worthy' you may
have it." I fingered the face, wondering at the single-stroke
eyebrows; picked at the pearly teeth stuck like two piano keys
between red bowline lips. Traced the turned-up nose, poked the
glassy blue eyeballs, twisted the yellow hair. I could not love
it. But I could examine it to see what it was that all the world
said was lovable. Break off the tiny fingers, bend the flat feet,
loosen the hair, twist the head around, and the thing made one
sound--a sound they said was the sweet and plaintive cry "Mama,"
but which sounded to me like the bleat of a dying lamb, or, more
precisely, our icebox door opening on rusty hinges in July.
Remove the cold and stupid eyeball, it would bleat still,
"Ahhhhhh," take off the head, shake out the sawdust, crack the
back against the brass bed rail, it would bleat still. The gauze
back would split, and I could see the disk with six holes, the
secret of the sound. A mere metal roundness. Grown people frowned
and fussed: "You-don'tknowhowto-takecareof-nothing.
I-neverhadababydollinmywholelifeandused-tocrymyeyesoutfor-them
.
Now-yougotoneabeautifuloneand-youtearitupwhat'sthematterwith-y
ou?" How strong was their outrage. Tears threatened to erase the
aloofness of their authority. The emotion of years of unfulfilled
longing preened in their voices. I did not know why I destroyed
those dolls. But I did know that nobody ever asked me what I
wanted for Christmas. Had any adult with the power to fulfill my
desires taken me
seriously and asked me what I wanted, they would have known that
I did not want to have anything to own, or to possess any object.
I wanted rather to feel something on Christmas day. The real
question would have been, "Dear Claudia, what experience would
you like on Christmas?" I could have spoken up, "I want to sit on
the low stool in Big Mama's kitchen with my lap full of lilacs
and listen to Big Papa play his violin for me alone." The lowness
of the stool made for my body, the security and warmth of Big
Mama's kitchen, the smell of the lilacs, the sound of the music,
and, since it would be good to have all of my senses engaged, the
taste of a peach, perhaps, afterward. Instead I tasted and
smelled the acridness of tin plates and cups designed for tea
parties that bored me. Instead I looked with loathing on new
dresses that required a hateful bath in a galvanized zinc tub
before wearing. Slipping around on the zinc, no time to play or
soak, for the water chilled too fast, no time to enjoy one's
nakedness, only time to make curtains of soapy water careen down
between the legs. Then the scratchy towels and the dreadful and
humiliating absence of dirt. The irritable, unimaginative
cleanliness. Gone the ink marks from legs and face, all my
creations and accumulations of the day gone, and replaced by
goose pimples. I destroyed white baby dolls. But the dismembering
of dolls was not the true horror. The truly horrifying thing was
the transference of the same impulses to little white girls. The
indifference with which I could have axed them was shaken only by
my desire to do so. To discover what eluded me: the secret of the
magic they weaved on others.What made people look at them and
say, "Awwwww," but not for me? The eye slide of black women as
they approached them on the street, and the possessive gentleness
of their touch as they handled them. If I pinched them, their
eyes--unlike the crazed glint of the baby doll's eyes--would fold
in pain, and their cry would not be the sound of an icebox door,
but a fascinating cry of pain.When I learned how repulsive this
disinterested violence was, that it was repulsive because
it was disinterested, my shame floundered about for refuge. The
best hiding place was love. Thus the conversion from pristine
sadism to fabricated hatred, to fraudulent love. It was a small
step to Shirley Temple. I learned much later to worship her, just
as I learned to delight in cleanliness, knowing, even as I
learned, that the change was adjustment without improvement.
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