Morrison and Aesthetics

I don't know if Claudia's mind is shaped by "the eye of the beholder" (which is the culture, the magazine editors and video directors) or not. Therefore, I decided to carry out an investigation that will define if Claudia is or isn't following the ideas of the way in which aesthetics are being imposed to her.

When she receives a blonde-blue-eyed doll for Christmas, she destroys it. Her parents tell her that this doll is astonishing and imply that having that doll will classify her as a normal girl. I have two theories for my investigation:
1. Claudia thinks she doesn't fit the mold, and because the doll represents that whole media, she is angry she can't be like the doll.
2. She doesn't agree with the beauty scheme she lives in. She purposely doesn't think the doll is beautiful as everyone says so. 

The first one implies that she is, in fact, shaped by the beauty scheme because she is already judging herself based on other's opinions of "beauty." The second one shows how she doesn't "go with the flow." Well let's see...
Claudia is a little girl who doesn't understand much about the harsh reality she's living. This mentality would lead her to actually nodding and yielding to what she's told. But remember what I had said in my previous entry: she isn't just any child, she's a prodigy. Prodigies often go against the flow. They don't let their society manipulate their thoughts. Claudia doesn't let anyone alter her perception of beauty. Look at how she destroys that doll.

Oohh but wait a second...why would then Claudia describe, thoroughly, her family's ugliness?
Would this mean that she isn't part of it but wants to be? Well, I am not sure but even if she's not shaped by it, she is till being influenced by it. It's inevitable to avoid and not-surrender.

A Little Bit of Behaviorism

It all has to do with our childhood.

It's funny how everyone victimizes themselves when talking about their childhood. When someone has to synthesize their life as little kids, somehow they were never cool, they were always bullied and pressured by their other friends. Well, just for the hell of it...I WAS A FOLLOWER AND MANIPULABLE AND WEIRD TOO. When Claudia puts herself in that weird, freak-like position, I imagine myself, physically, doing the exact same thing. I imagine myself with the typical awkward face, looking around to see if someone is watching me, not because I'm doing something wrong, but because I know that what I'm doing is extremely queer and am uncomfortable to watch (whoops, victimizing again). Yes, little Claudia inspires that type of inner child in me. Child reasoning is very, very tangled. 

Everything is manipulable. Even our behavior. Well, actually only manipulable if we are trained since little.

Let's see if AP Psych actually served me something.

Claudia's way of interpreting stuff is also very...different. Her type of behavior approaches our instinctive kind-of-behavior. When we are little, we are less influenced by humanity and its rules to everything. These are the times in which our inner animal is let out. When Claudia doesn't understand something, she twists and adapts it to her own comprehension. For example, while watching two people have a conversation,  she immediately catches their gestures and says that "their conversation is like a...dance: sound meets sound, curtsies, shimmies, and retires"(15). Did you see that? You just experienced the way of processing thoughts and encoding them of little Claudia. Interesting huh. Those brains are full of wonders. 

You may wanna write that down, it all has to do with classical conditioning. (Old guy in pic). 

Okay, we don't want to drive off too far from the topic. Think Great Depression. Think different ways of interpreting crises. Think genuine imagination. Think modesty, incomprehension, and mostly, failed love attempts. Conclusion (for today): corrupted childhood and innocence because of the evil ways of humanity. 

Different Claudia is Different

So there's this girl called Claudia. She's kinda like the typical prodigy that sees everything differently. You can tell this by the way she narrates the events. She seems so naive and questions everything like a child would, but her questions are often about humanity at its worst, without her knowing of course.  Poor kiddo. 

You know how Harry Potter's family thought he was weird and dumb and he turned out to be wizard Gandhi? Well, this book is kinda like this, except for the magic. Claudia is a special/weird nine-year-old, African American that narrates her tough present (and past?) through the Great Depression. I imagine you can imagine what she imagined at that time. She lived it tough and she didn't know that until she compared her Great Depression reality with the one she lives in the present. The Bluest Eye, is told from that perspective: a tormented past. 

While in some parts the book addresses innocent, casual everyday life situations, in other parts, it introduces dark topics such as oppression, fear and inequality. 

Although the way Ms. Morrison writes at the beginning doesn't continue, there is still an infant-innocent-like tone going on, which, I think, is there to create empathy. Also, let's have in mind that we read whatever Toni wants us to read. Therefore, the way she writes tells us something about her that she wants us to know but can't directly say. 

There is much more to this novel than just a little innocent girl trying to understand the world.

Unintentionally a Hipster

People say not to judge a book by it's cover. Well, that I don't agree with. You can perfectly judge a book by it's cover, more precisely, it's title. For example: The Bluest Eye. There is an eye that stands out from others. Not because it's blue but because it's the bluest. But, why would Toni Morrison write about only one eye? Is she referring to a certain type of person? Like specifically someone that doesn't fit in with the standard model of fitting-in...?

Any who, I really enjoyed how in the first chapter, Toni Morrison arranged the punctuation and proved us that just with this, the tone of the story can change enormously. At first she narrates a her trying to find someone to play with. It all seems very innocent and playful. When she finishes doing both (playing and narrating), the story begins all over again, but this time with no punctuation whatsoever. Reading this non-stop, gives the reader the sensation that someone, not the girl, is reciting the story by memory. After this paragraph, the same one is introduced with the exception of spaces between words. The fact that the author repeats the story three times and each time it gets faster and more monotonous, gives the sensation of "that's soo freaaaaky." Each time, the image of her telling the story becomes darker, and the camera in your brain starts to close-up her face. She's in a dark room, reciting this story non stop. MAKE IT STOP.

We are already seeing a pattern here: there is something that doesn't fit the mold. For now we have a queer little girl and a bluest eye. 

Let's dig.