Final Exam (passage analysis)

SOAP (5 answers)
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I was surprised by the extent to which people looked at this question from Soaphead's perspective, but that was definitely one way to go. Morrison does ask us to try to see things through the eyes of her characters, even the distasteful ones. One of the interesting things that emerged from this question was that some saw Soaphead as a target of satire, while others saw him as a satirist himself. As with the other Morrison questions, a couple of you missed the point pretty widely by identifying M's ideology with that of cleanness or "innocence" in the conventional sense. But mostly, lower scores reflected a lack of focus on the "how" details of the passage, probably a result of time management issues more than anything.

Some of the details you guys paid special attention to: "like buying shoes," "white laughter," "like a streak out of blue heaven."

CAT (5 answers)
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The cat is black, but it also has blue eyes! That was a puzzler a few of you worked on. Most had something to say about the relative class status of Junior and Pecola's families, or about this being one of P's many experiences of abuse or trauma.

CANDY (9 answers)
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This one yielded the best answers, for whatever reason. All of you picked up on the linkage between the Mary Jane's logo and the "bluest eye" ideology, but the really interesting bits were how you analyzed the notion of consuming the candy/image, and how you analyzed the role of the grocer. Some noted the dandelion as P's projection of her experience of inferiority. Others noted how the scene began with a convention asymmetry between children and adults, or a conventional scene of desire, the kid at the candy store, and went in a darker or more complex direction. Others pointed out that this is one of only two times in the novel when Pecola is described as angry.

Side note: I disagree with the idea that comparing the candy-eating to an orgasm represents the "perversion" of innocence or some such. We have to look at this from Morrison's perspective, wherein it probably represents: 1) extreme pleasure, 2) double-consciousness, the externalization of pleasure outside the self. The pleasure, in other words, is really Mary Jane's, whereas Pecola's pleasure is only vicarious. I think that's the perversion here. Also, surely there was some other way to talk about the many levels of social hierarchy in 1940s Ohio than by simply calling the grocer a "gross immigrant." I don't think Morrison would much approve of that tactic... I agree that the description of him is grotesque, but remember, this is free indirect discourse from Pecola's perspective, so be careful of writing your own answers in free indirect discourse! Yakobowski is a sort of villain here, but I don't see what good it does to redirect the racism towards him.