Essay 3
Choose one of the prompts at the end of this document, and write a thesis-driven essay of at least 1,250 words analyzing The Bluest Eye. Construct a narrow thesis that argues for your interpretation of the novel.
NOTE: You must turn in this assignment by the due date in order to receive credit and have the opportunity to revise it. Late assignments will be graded, but you won’t have the opportunity to revise them and they won’t receive feedback.
Outside Sources
At least two outside source are required for this essay. You can use more if you’d like. They should be appropriate for an academic audience, but they don’t have to be “scholarly” sources. Use the CRAP test.
Good ideas for sources:
Any of the videos or quoted material provided in the lectures
Books or articles about The Bluest Eye
Books or articles about other novels that you can apply to The Bluest Eye
Interviews with Morrison
Non-fiction writing by Morrison (Playing in the Dark, for example), including the “Foreward” or “Afterward” of The Bluest Eye
Articles about concepts (e.g., child development) related to your argument
Bad ideas for sources:
Wikipedia
SparkNotes (or similar study websites)
Student essays and blog entries available on the internet
Suggestions
Reread the sources you’re writing about and take careful notes
Start early and go through multiple drafts
Use tutoring and/or office hours
Prompts
PROMPT 1: In reference to movements like Black Is Beautiful, Morrison says, “Before we decide that we are all beautiful, and have always been beautiful, let me speak . . . for some of us who didn’t get that right away.” How does The Bluest Eye “speak” for people “who didn’t get that right away”? Why does it matter?
Questions to consider (but not necessarily answer in your essay):
What were cultural phenomena like the Black Is Beautiful movement trying to achieve? Why?
In what ways is The Bluest Eye a response to the cultural moment in which it was written and published?
PROMPT 2: What purpose do animals or references to the natural world (plants, weather, earth, etc.) serve in the novel?
Questions to consider (but not necessarily answer in your essay):
What are the relationships like between animals/plants/natural objects and humans?
Why do characters in the novel sometimes refer to other characters as animals?
How does the treatment of animals resonate with people’s treatment of each other in the novel?
What attitudes toward natural things (flowers, tornadoes, land, etc.) do we encounter in the novel?
PROMPT 3: What does The Bluest Eye suggest about parenting?
Questions to consider (but not necessarily answer in your essay):
What contrasts does the novel make between Pecola’s family and Claudia’s family?
What does the novel encourage us to consider about parenting in the early 1940s?
What constitutes effective parenting in the novel?
What forces contribute to parenting failures in the novel?
Ill include the rubric in the files
