ENG311

Writing in Context: The Civil Rights Era

Directions: Use this document to write your answers to the guiding “Reader Response” questions that have been posed here about each of your readings. Then, use these responses to help you formulate your response to the Quizzes.

“A Party Down at the Square”

1. In Ellison's work, group pressure fuels, literally, the night’s events and the action of the story.  

a. How are the crowd and the boy affected by peer pressure?

b. How does the story comment on the power of external influences on individual action?  

2. Study what you know of the boy’s background and his behavior throughout the "party.” Then study his comments as the party ends, and he moves into the next day. 

a. Has the experience changed him in any way? 

i. What do you make of his finishing comments? 

1. What do they reveal about his attitude and the way he will behave or think in the future?

3. Did you sympathize with the boy? 

a. Why or why not? 

i. Could he have done anything differently? 

1. Why or why not?

4. To what degree does this story illustrate that we are products of our environments?

a. How difficult will it be for the boy to break free of this social conditioning (ingrained thinking/expectations for behavior)? Why?

5. How did you feel as you read this story? 

a. Were you surprised to discover the type of “party” being held?

i. Why do you think Ellison chose this term to refer to the event?

b. How were you affected by the language in the story?

6. How does Ellison’s story relate to the issues of the Civil Rights era and movement?

a. What social or political action might Ellison be suggesting via this story? 

“The Bluest Eye”

1. Describe the community of the novel.

a. What forces influence this community (consider the setting of the story 1940s and what you’ve learned about that period in history).

b. Is it cohesive? Why or why not?

2. Look at the way the Breedlove’s treat each other. For instance, Pecola’s parents are deliberately abusive to each other.

a. How do their behaviors and the way the family lives and interacts affect Pecola’s sense of self—as a girl and as an individual?

3. Consider how the Breedlove’s house is described – history, layout, location, furniture, sleeping arrangements, and bath facilities. Morrison takes a good amount of time describing all of this to her readers.

a. What is the relationship between these details and Pecola’s situation?

b. Do we have to know all of this to understand Pecola?

c. In terms of how we view others, how much does it matter where they live, the type of house they live in, the furniture they own? Explain your answer.

4. What is significant about Pecola’s experience with Geraldine, her cat, her son?

a. How are the cat and Pecola similar?

b. Why does Geraldine treat Pecola as she does?

5. Study the stories of Pauline and Cholly.

a. Why do you think Morrison spends so much time telling us their life histories?

b. How does this information affect your views of these two people and their actions toward their daughter?

6. How does Soaphead Church affect Pecola?

a. What is his role in the community?

b. Why do you think she responds as she does to her interaction with him?

7. How do you account for the way the women of the neighborhood treat Pecola?  

a. Why do Claudia and Frieda treat her differently than the women do?

b. What comment about women and their relationships with each other do you think Morrison is trying to make through this situation in the text?

c. How would you treat a girl like Pecola?  

8. What contributes to Pecola's sense of self?  

a. Itemize the aspects of her life that go into the development of her identity.  

b. How does each element of her life shape her?  

c. What do Claudia and Freida have that Pecola does not that makes it easier for them to avoid Pecola’s fate?

9. Pecola is obsessed, as are practically all the females she encounters, with the blond, blue-eyed beauty ideal.  

a. Does this ideal still exist today and if so, how does it affect a young girl’s self-image? 

10. Study Cholly’s sequence of emotions -- “revulsion, guilt, pity, then love” --when he sees Pecola washing dishes?

a. Why do you think he feels this way?

11. How do you feel about what Cholly does to his daughter?

a. How is this incident a defining moment in Pecola’s life on the one hand and on the other, just another element of Pecola’s misery and issue of the community? 

12. What issues are raised in Morrison’s story that speak to the Civil Rights era and movement?  

a. What issues are still relevant?  

b. Who or what is responsible for Pecola’s demise?

“Every Day Use”

1. How does Mama feel about Dee’s visit home?

a. What are her expectations?

b. What does her dream reveal about her relationship with her daughter?

c. What does the dream reveal about Mama?

2. Mama takes a good bit of time telling us about her daughters. Make a list of the details Mama provides about Dee and Maggie.

a. What do you learn about Dee and Maggie from these details?

b. What kind of women have Mama’s daughters turned out to be?

3. The story is told in the first person, from Mama’s perspective. Can you believe everything she says? Why or why not?

4. Why has Dee changed her name?

a. What is significant about the kind of name she has selected? Apply what you’ve learned in this module about the Civil Rights Movement.

b. What does her name choice and reason for changing her name indicate about Dee’s mindset and values?

c. How does Mama feel about Dee’s name change?

i. Why is Dee’s name important to Mama?

5. Did Dee come home to see her family, or is she there for another reason? Explain your answer.

6. Dee and Maggie have different views of their family’s heritage. Explain their differing views based on evidence from the text.

a. What is the values conflict in Dee and Maggie’s joint desire for the quilts?

7. Why does Mama give the quilts to Maggie?

a. Is she justified in her choice? Why or why not?

8. What message about African American heritage is Walker trying to convey through the story? How does this message relate to the issues you have studied in this Module about the Civil Rights era and movement?