Summary Of The Bluest Eye And Where We Once Belonged

Drawing inspiration from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Sia Figiel utilizes some of the same techniques and covers similar themes in her novel Where we Once Belonged which primarily centers around Alofa, a girl growing up in a village Samoa. Although the narrative voices of Claudia from The Bluest Eye and Alofa from Where we Once Belonged differ in their presence and focus, they both offer a young female adolescent’s perspective on life in their communities and how the influences of different cultural expectations affect their own identity. Claudia and Alofa grow up with specific classifications of â€Å"good† and â€Å"bad† in their communities causing them both to react emotionally to the surface level qualities and traits they are expected to†¦show more content†¦Whether regarded as good, bad, or in-betweeners, Alofa realizes the layers underneath each individual are not always what other’s might envision. Similarly, Claudia confronts set racialized standards of â€Å"good† and â€Å"bad† which compel her to also react with jealous anger at the glorification of the white American lifestyle as â€Å"good.† After receiving a white baby doll for Christmas, Claudia gives a detailed description of her destruction of the doll and states her hatred for such dolls. She also notes that â€Å"the dismembering of dolls was not the true horror. The truly horrifying thing was the transference of the same impulses to little white girls† (22). When Maureen Peal, a light-skinned girl from an upwardly mobile family, transfers to Claudia’s school, she instantly attracts the everyone’s attention. Claudia mentions, â€Å"When she was assigned a locker next to mine, I could indulge my jealousy four times a day† (63). Claudia understands she will never be a perfect little white girl or even a light-skinned well-off girl. Facing the lack of inherent s tatus and attention she receives as a result of the cultural standards she finds herself in, she is driven to jealous, which she constantly throws herself into. She even admits that her jealousy is an indulgence that feeds her and gives her some twisted satisfaction since she herselfShow MoreRelatedMarketing Mistakes and Successes175322 Words   |  702 Pagesnew Google and Starbucks cases should arouse keen student interest, and may even inspire another generation of entrepreneurs. A fair number of the older cases have faced significant changes in the last few years, for better or for worse, and these we have captured to add to learning insights. After so many years of investigating mistakes, and more recently successes also, it might seem a challenge to keep these new editions fresh and interesting. The joy of the chase has made this an intriguing