Which One?

     Throughout this punctuation debate, I learned that we created two different categories of punctuation; hence our arguments for team 1 and team 2.  Punctuations can be used subjectively in creative literature in order to add dramatic pauses, emotions, respiration, and so on. This is shown through the works of shakespeare, through the poems by Elizabeth Auster and Emily Dickinson, and through the inner struggles that Ben Dolnick has about using semi-colons.  On the other hand, punctuation can also be used under precise guidelines. This is seen through Lewis Thomas's briefing on how and when each punctuation mark should be used. The integration of both uses seem to morph into our daily lives as we communicate verbally and creatively through the subjective use of punctuation, and we use the current set of rules for punctuations in grammar applications during class. The ambiguity of our punctuation is what confuses a lot of people, but it is necessary in order for modern language to exist.

Those Beautiful Eyes

As "The Bluest Eye"  comes to a close. We encounter a section of the book where Pecola converses with her friend about how beautiful her blue eyes are.  She brags on and on about how she has the bluest eyes and how nobody looks at her or talks to her because of her eyes.  In reality,  we know that the reason why  nobody talks to Pecola is because she is pregnant with her father's baby.  The people feel too pitiful,  ashamed, repulsed, or maybe even detested to acknowledge Pecola's existence. On the other hand Pecola completely ignores the fact that she is pregnant and perceives them as envying her "blue eyes." Pecola seems to be in absolute denial of the fact that she has been raped by her father twice. She use the fake blue eyes that Soaphead Church granted her to try to omit the fact that she is raped. This makes Pecola perceive herself as being beautiful instead of pitiful, poor, and  un-pure. The false identity of beauty helps Pecola mask the truth but ultimately make her gradually more unstable until, the blue eyes ultimately drive Pecola insane.

Irony

As the story of "The Bluest Eye" progresses, we come across the scene where Pecola enters the home of the three prostitutes. Pecola describes the prostitutes with nothing but positive statements. Stating that Poland has a "sweet and hard voice" voice that is like "new strawberries." (Morrison 51) China is described as "forever and forever curling her hair," giving her this eternal aura of perfection(52). Marie is given an always positive and optimistic personality,  "Marie threw back her head...  Laughter came like the sound of many rivers, freely, deeply, muddied, heading for the room of an open sea." (52) The three, even though despised by most of the world, are portrayed in the most glorious and beautiful descriptions found in the book so far. This is ironic.  The decent characters in the book are mangled and tainted with negative descriptions of physical and emotional ugliness; yet the three "whores"  are washed with positive remarks by Pecola. To Pecola, the three prostitutes are far better people than what the majority view as normal decent people. The question of why arises.  Maybe it's because the three prostitutes are few of the only people that do not look down on Pecola; maybe Morrison is trying to tell us that what defines one is not one's job but one's treatment towards others and his/her personality.