Peeped

While reading the first chapter I realized there were specific phrases or sentences that were unique when it came to the understanding of the characters and the author’s illustration of their lives.

Sentence #1

“Gone the ink marks from legs and face, all my creations and accumulations of the day gone, and replaced by goose pimples”(22).

Claudia is actually saddened by the fact that the shower is washing away the marks on her skin, yet we usually perceive a shower for washing away the dirt, filth and even memories or emotions. When you are stressed out by a situation there is nothing more soothing than a nice hot bath, but for Claudia it is obviously the worst ending for her day. This sentence emphasizes the childlike narration because children actually HATE taking a shower and what we perceive as dirt and filth, Claudia sees as “creations and accumulations of the day gone”. She feels like her memories are erased every time she steps in and she is fixated on the way the ink runs down her legs alongside the drops of water.

Sentence #2

“ Ain’t nobody even peeped in here to see whether that child has a loaf of bread. Look like they would just peep in to see whether I had a loaf of bread to give her but naw”(25).

Although written in a very informal conversational tone, Mama has a far more important social statement that uses a loaf of bread as her metaphor towards economic injustice. “Ain’t nobody” can perhaps be “old trifling Cholly”, Pecola’s father, who has been out of jail for two days and hasn’t bothered to pick up his daughter. It might also be the government for not supporting her financially now that she is raising a girl that is not even her own. Her irritated tone implies that the problem is not whether Mama is giving her kids enough food, its whether she has food to give them, and nobody has bothered to peep in and realize it.

Sentence #3

“I picked toe jam, Frieda cleaned her fingernails with her teeth, and Pecola finger-traced some scars on her knee-her head cocked to one side”(24).

In a healthy environment when we just sit there, you can say: I fixed my dress, Beatriz finished the last crumbs of her cake, and Andrea painted her nails. This is an event more suitable and typical when it comes to girls of a young age. Obviously an event these three girls are far from experiencing . Toni Morrison uses a simplistic tone in order to exemplify the way tracing one’s scars is just anotherway to entertain yourself, its normal. I hope I’m not the only who agrees to disagree, but the author wants this exact reaction in the reader: I WANT TO LOOK AWAY!