Analysis of the Bluest Eye Prologue - 727 Words

Each section of this prologue gives, in a different way, an overview of the novel as a whole. At a glance, the Dick-and-Jane motif alerts us to the fact that for the most part the story will be told from a child’s perspective. Just as the Dick-and-Jane primer teaches children how to read, this novel will be about the larger story of how children learn to interpret their world. But there is something wrong with the Dick-and-Jane narrative as it is presented here. Because the sentences are not spread out with pictures, as they would be in an actual reader, we become uncomfortably aware of their shortness and abruptness. The paragraph that these sentences comprise lacks cohesion; it is unclear how each individual observation builds on the†¦show more content†¦There is also a connection between action and questions of morality—the sisters feel guilty that their seeds have not grown, and they look for someone to blame. These are the kinds of connections that give a story meaning, in opposition to the seemingly meaningless order of the Dick-and-Jane sentences. Thus, Morrison’s two-part prologue has set up a structure for the work as a whole, and the novel moves between the extremes of the meaningless, fractured, and damaged (represented by the first part of the prologue), and the meaningful, lyrical, and whole (represented by the