Creative Essay Writing
Strategies: Reread the question three times. Take notes, free write. Write an introduction that has a thesis. For example:
An important theme in both Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye and in Martin Luther Kings Letter from a Birmingham Jail is the fall from innocence that characters, and particularly children, experience when confronted with the real world. Both authors suggest that this fall can have dire consequences.
Make an outline for your essay (you do not submit this– just the essay) Your essay should have a clear thesis. Paraphrase the quote if one is provided. Discuss the photograph attached. Show knowledge of the texts we have read so far this term. Use concrete examples. Answer the question completely. I won’t be counting paragraphs, but I would expect your answer to be a minimum of 3-5 pages. Proofread your work.
1. In Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye, Claudia recalls: Our astonishment was short-lived, for it gave way to a curious kind of defensive shame; we were embarrassed for Pecola, hurt for her, and finally we just felt sorry for her. Our sorrow drove out all thoughts of the new bicycle. And I believe our sorrow was the more intense because nobody else seemed to share it. . . . So it was with confidence, strengthened by pity and pride, that we decided to change the course of events and alter a human life. What we gone do, Frieda?
What can we do? Miss Johnson said it would be a miracle if it lived.So let’s make it a miracle. (191) How are children more vulnerable to the harsh realities of an environment that does not nurture them and what, do the authors suggest, are the consequences of a childs fall from innocence? Please answer using ANY of the texts we have discussed this term. Establish the fall from innocence by showing examples from the text of plot points or motifs (like the staining of the dresses and of Chollys pants) at the moments when they lose their innocence. Once you have discussed the texts, you can show how any of the attached photographs or paintings illustrates this theme. Please click on the linlk below to see the painings in the question. OR:
2. In The Bluest Eye, the narrator tells us that: Mrs. Breedloves skin glowed like taffeta in the reflection of white porcelain, white woodwork, polished cabinets, and brilliant copperware. (108) . . . She became what is known as an ideal servant, for such a role filled practically all of her needs. When she bathed the little Fisher girl, it was in a porcelain tub with silvery taps running infinite quantities of hot, clear water. She dried her in fluffy white towels and put her in cuddly night clothes. Then she brushed the yellow hair, enjoying the roll and slip of it between her fingers. No zinc tub, no buckets of stove-heated water, no flaky, stiff, grayish towels washed in a kitchen sink, dried in a dusty backyard, no tangled black puffs of rough wool to comb. (127) Parenting is a significant theme in The Bluest Eye and in Imitation of Life, (as well as in the brief clip of the Shirley Temple film, The Littlest Rebel we saw). Repeatedly, we have seen that the way a child looks (his or her physical characteristics) can affect the way adults respond to that child. Please discuss the quote and Benetton ads below, and include other examples from any texts or films we have read this term that speak to the quote and support your thesis.
