This song that I chose really made me think about Pecola from the story, The Bluest Eye. Th only part of the song that made me relate it to Pecola was: “And I can’t change, Even if I tried, Even if I wanted to, And I can’t change, Even if I tried, Even if I wanted to, My love, my love, my love.” This shows that even if she knew deep down that having blue eyes will solve her problems, it would be impossible to have. The only thing that Pecola can do is dream and pretend that she’s a different person.

This image of a blue eye reminds me of the story, The Bluest Eye, because Pecola is somewhat obsessed with the idea of wanting to have blue eyes. These blue eyes will be her one and only token for getting into society and feeling apart of it. She wants to feel like she belongs and have a purpose in life which is why she wants to drastically change. In the image that I’ve provided, there’s a heart in the middle of the eyes which I think represents the love of having blue eyes.

Well That’s a Wrap! 

What a semester it has been! I honestly don’t know where to start. I can definitely say for sure that I have grown as a writer. But it wasn’t all about sparkles and sunshine. There were many times when I wanted to quit and give up, but I knew that if I had done so, then I would have been a complete failure. I knew that I was better than this which is why I continued to strive and prove myself right that I was capable of undergoing stress and survive my first semester as a college student. I got the opportunity to learn about Freuds psychoanalytic concepts and how they created such an impact on people’s lives. It crazy to say that when the semester first started, I didn’t have a clue who Sigmund Freud was and what he did and why he was so important. But now that the semester is over, I tend to look at things different and myself as well. I’ve learned many things like to use many outside sources to prove my point, not to leave things for last minute and the beauty of writing. 

I got to analyze an artwork which I thought would be completely boring, but little did I know I had a blast. It was very insightful to do this because at first, I didn’t know what I was looking at and how to feel but the more I analyzed it and read about the painter, I understood it more. I had to really dig deep and get open minded on this one because it was extremely hard to get an emotion out of me. I was confused and frustrated at the same time because I had all of these mixed emotions and didn’t really know which of these feelings I truly felt. But after a long process of elimination, I finally came to one and then I was unstoppable after that. 

I’ve learned so much from building a thesis statement to simply finding outside sources so that I can back up my claim and reasoning. Also, I’ve controlled myself when it comes to the point when I’m too overwhelmed and think that I can’t handle things which then leads me to get stressed over the tiny minimal things which results in me breaking out. When this happens, I’m obviously not happy and then makes me do poorly on trying to finish off my essay strong. My goal has always been to make everything perfect but in reality, not is and will never be perfect. People are constantly wrong, learning and developing in a sense that they’re changing and finding new ways to seek for an easier and better solution.  

One thing that I loved and really took advantage of was when we peered reviewed each other’s essays. Once I’ve finished writing my essay, I thought that it was the best and excellent. However, little did I know that some of my grammar were wrong. My peers were able to correct me and give me ways to make my essay better but in a nice way, of course. I enjoyed this part because I’m not a great writer and I’m still learning each day on how expand my knowledge about the whole writing process. At first, I had such a tough time with understanding what a thesis statement really is but with the help of my professor’s and peer’s, I got a more in depth understanding of what it really means. I didn’t really know and was completely confused on how to clearly state my thesis so that it will be easy to pinpoint for the readers. For any writing piece that I have made in the past, my weakness and what I struggled with the most has always been creating my thesis. I would feed excuses after excuses into my brain which made me put a barricade and lead me to always doubt myself and not believe in me. 

When writing any type of essays, the beginning is always the most difficult part out of everything. Constructing the introduction is a challenge to make because you want to explain yourself for your purpose of doing this essay but also, you want to make it interesting enough so that the audience, or whoever will read it, will continue to read the whole entire essay. I was confused on how to state my thesis. For any writing piece that I have made in the past, my weakness has always been in creating my thesis. I’ve always thought that I wasn’t creative enough, but I knew that couldn’t be it. I guess I didn’t try hard enough, or I didn’t grasp the concept of it. 

Wow, what a great semester this has been. I grew so much as a person and of course, as a writer. I feel much more confident in myself and in my writing. Throughout this whole journey of learning the true beauty of writing, I had many supporters behind me who would help me out if I ever needed a hand or who would push me to do better and encourage me. I will always remember this because now I tend to be much more confident and strong when it comes to my writing. For sure, there will be many obstacles that I may encounter with, but this just means that I will know how to handle myself and not get stressed, or at least for a little bit.  

This image reminds me of Pecola from the story, The Bluest Eye, because in the section, winter,  she is constantly thinking whether or not someone else has bluer eyes then here. This image shows the robot scratching his head which makes me connect it to Pecola when she is always wondering about something. It seems like she is insecure about herself and wants to be known in society. However, she has to find a way to feel and get accepted into society which is why she doesn’t want any competition for herself. Perhaps the only thing that makes Pecola feel good about herself are her eyes. Because of that, she doesn’t want anyone to take away her one golden ticket into society. Without the blue eyes, she feels like she is an outcast.

The reason why I chose this image was because it reminded me of Emily from the story, A Rose for Emily. After she lost her father, it was like she didn’t know what to do with herself and how to live her life. Her father was the one who made decisions for her which is why Emily was a bit uneasy after the death of her father. Even though her father was controlling, she got used to not make decisions for herself. It’s as if Emily was scared to face the world by herself. This image that I chose shows a face that looks surprised or frightened. This face made me picture how Emily might’ve reacted to the death of her father and being alone for good, well until she finds someone who can “replace” her father.

While constructing my Critical Research Analysis Paper, I’ve discovered many new ways on how to write a well precise quality of a paper. One aspect of this paper that I worried most was the mandatory length I needed to construct. I was extremely nervous about this because I didn’t want to constantly repeat myself. I just knew that they key for this paper was to explain myself very thoroughly so that the audience who will be reading my paper could fully understand my reasoning behind my thesis statement and the evidence that I provided throughout the essay. I really had to dig deep and search for outside evidence that made sense and connected to the prompt that I chose to write about.  

For this essay, I chose to write about prompt number 3 and use the story, The Bluest Eye, and Freuds Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis to demonstrate my understanding about the world and what society expects from people. Society has many regulations that limits people from being like they belong there. One thing that I learned from doing this essay is do anyways keep my cool and to not worry about the length that the paper needs to be. As I’m typing, I feel this energy and it makes me go even deeper with my thoughts and feelings and inputting them into my writing. I know that if I can explain by reasoning behind everything then my audience will know exactly what I am referring to. One thing that I struggled the most was making my thesis statement understandable and not too long. I had to seek for help on how to make it well structured. Once I got the help that I needed, I automatically knew what I needed to be done.  

After doing many essays, I have learned many new ways on how to make it a great one! Having patience and courage is a major key for making any paper a huge success. I definitely grew a lot as a writing which I give thanks to my peers and professors for giving me lots and lots of feedback on how to make it a stronger essay and correcting my grammar. As a result, Freud impacted many people’s lives because they were able to understand the concepts about psychoanalysis and how it may impact and come upon a certain persons life. 

Society Let Me In! 

The 21^st century is a major time and place to live in and experience. It mostly revolves around social media which takes up a lot of a person’s time. They are constantly spending their time on their phones digging through social media viewing and analyzing these models. They’re making themselves go crazy over wanting to have this so called “special” figure and appearance. There are many factors that ties with the whole concept of having the “perfect” appearance which means that people are judged based on their race, skin color, body size, etc. In many cases, people are constantly getting picked on and judged because of how they look which is why they feel the need to change drastically in a short amount of time. Many people don’t understand the impact this has on people’s lives which later results in depression, anger and much more. People are extremely insensitive about other people’s feelings and criticize them on everything. Throughout, The Bluest Eye, Morrison focuses and insinuates that physical beauty has unfair standards that limits people from expanding themselves into society but more importantly as a person which is why Pecola demonstrates displacement and fixation due to society have so many regulations on how someone should appear or act like clouds and affects people’s minds. 

Who knew that the world was going to be this bad of a place that has so many regulations? You’d think it’s safe but people these days are extremely harsh on each other which makes everything ten times harder. Society as a whole, is extremely picky which means that you need to have certain qualifications just to feel like you’re welcome and safe in this environment that you think you know most about. People are always looking for many reasons to judge and that’s not right. We all have to help each other out because deep down that’s the right thing to do and we are all pretty much the same. Many people are not fully aware that once you mess up in life, it’s hard to recover from it. Things like this pretty much sticks to you for the rest of your life which definitely isn’t good for your image. We all tend to feel many emotions when it comes to this whole idea of not loving yourself which is where these psychoanalytic concepts come into place. These concepts take up a huge chunk of a person’s life. People most likely don’t realize that they’re going through something major which then affects them badly and negatively. Lots of people undergo many obstacles in life and some might be too challenging for them to face off and conquer. Also, most people take encounter other people’s opinion about themselves and this is what makes them go crazy and want to drastically change their image or act a certain way. 

After reading, “The Bluest Eye,” Toni Morrison, the author, incorporates many Freudian concepts one being displacement. The protagonist of the story, Pecola surely undergoes these concepts very harshly and critically because she wants to feel pretty and get accepted into society. It seems like there is this barricade that limits Pecola from presenting her true self to the world and everyone. Pecola is a young black girl living in the era where the Great Depression had ended a couple years back. It may seem that people don’t get her which is why things for Pecola it’s ten times harder for her. It also looks like she’s scared but there’s more to it. She’s mainly focused on other’s interpretation about her. One major factor that revolves around this idea that she has glued to her mind is that since she is a person of color, she has to be extra careful and more cautious about other people who may want to hurt her intentionally. 

When people displace their feelings, they are putting their emotions and anger towards someone else or something, like an object. In the text that Ariela Freedman constructed she states, “This distortion or displacement does not replace the previous meaning but adds additional meaning” (Freedman). People displaces their anger and pain they have inside of them towards something else. What Freedman is trying to make her readers understand is that even if people displace their rage and anger, it’s presents will still be there. Displacing something will not make it vanish or go away. In the story, Pecola constantly has anger built up inside of her which is why Morrison states, “Anger stirs and wakes in her; it opens its mouth, and like a hot-mouthed puppy, laps up the dredges of her shame” (50). This demonstrates that Pecola is going through a tough time and doesn’t know what to do with herself or how to approach the situation. Anger can potentially cloud a person’s mind and may make them do something bizarre in life. Morrison also states, “Anger will not hold” (50). This shows that all of the anger Pecola has will eventually come out, but this is the result of always being rejected into society. 

In some cases, Pecola seemed annoyed that people pitied her a lot and felt sorry for her. In the text, Morrison states, “we were embarrassed for Pecola, hurt for her, and finally we just felt sorry for her” (190). This shows how people were embarrassed for another person and not themselves. They’re too worried and focus on another person which is what this world consists of and makes people not be able to mind their own business. Nothing can’t be kept private anymore because news can travel as fast as lightning. There also comes the fact that once you do something in society, it will probably stick around even if it was a good or bad action.  

Another psychoanalytic concept that is represented throughout, The Bluest Eye, is fixation. At one point of the story, Pecola wants to make sure and has a slight bit of an obsession that she wants to be the prettiest girl amongst all of the other girls. She has this image glued to her mind on how she should look like. Most of this thinking is the result of her oppression with Shirley Temple which influenced Pecola greatly. Shirley Temple is well known for being many young women’s inspiration. All they want in life is too be like her and have her features. Shirley Temple has blue eyes, blonde hair and a slim figure which is the ideal appearance that most of us girls would kill to have. Pecola believes that being white will help her entry into society since she’s black. Shirley Temple’s look is the key for her happiness. Pecola constantly is stating whether or not if her eyes “are prettier than the sky,” and “prettier than Johanna” (Morrison 201). Morrison is insinuating that Pecola wants to make sure that after if she gets the opportunity to have this “gift,” which are the blue eyes, she wants to be the only person but more specifically, the only girl, with blue eyes or at least with the bluest eyes. Morrison states, “The blue eyes in the black face held her” (90). Pecola believes that these blue eyes can be one of the many ways to get the “golden ticket” into society and to feel good about herself.  

In Freud’s lecture, he talks about the meaning of fixation and how it can change a person mentally. He states, “This fixation of mental life to pathogenic traumas is one of the most significant and practically important characteristics of neurosis” (Freud 2206). This relates to Pecola because she has this mentality of wanting to be like her idol/role model and she wants to make sure that this envision she has in her mind will get accomplished. Not only does she want to change but she needs to change in order to feel like she’s apart of society. This is the only way that she will be happy and live the life she knew she was meant to always have. In the article that relates to fixation, Longe states, “These early stopping points would be analogous to the fixations people develop in early life, attaching themselves to a period of safety and security before the entire journey of life is fully accomplished” (426). What this means is that when a person has a fantasy since they were little, it creates an illusion which then results in this obsession about being like someone they have always wanted to be like. Morrison states, “We had just started elementary school. She said she wanted blue eyes” (2). This shows that ever since Pecola was a little girl, she has always known what she wanted, and nothing could change that.  

Appearance will always be a major factor in people’s lives. People need to catch up with the latest trends or else they’re just a loser and no one wants to be that type of person. Pecola feels ugly in comparison from the rest of the girls. She is somewhat traumatic with the idea of not completing her fulfillment about her appearance. Once I finished reading, The Bluest Eye, I got more of a gist about Toni Morrison’s point of view of how society really works. She insinuates that Pecola goes through a tough time accepting herself. In order to be accepted into society, you have to accept yourself first. The psychoanalytic concepts, displacement and fixation, manifests the idea of beauty having all of these standards and rules that people must follow so that they can be welcome into society.   

Work Cited Page 

The Gale Encyclodpedia of Psychology, “Fixation.” 2016, pp. 425–426. 

Freedman, Ariela. “Gifts, goods and Gods: H.D., Freud and trauma.” English Studies in Canada, vol. 29, no. 3-4, 2003, p. 184+. Gale Academic Onefile, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A169457976/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=caa6b0ae. Accessed 3 Dec. 2019. 

Freud, Sigmund. “Five Lectures on Psycho-analysis.” (1909): 1-45 

Critical AnalysisCritical AnalysisMorrison, Toni. “The Bluest Eye.” FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MAY 2007 Copyright © 1970, copyright renewed 1998 by Toni Morrison Foreword © 1993, 2007.  

What I’m Capable of 

After finishing my Literacy Narrative essay, I’ve learned how to critique an image and painting without using any outside source but just using my knowledge and emotions. At first, I’m not going to lie, I was a bit worried on how I was going to construct this essay with only using my feelings, but I knew I could overcome this barrier. When I looked at the painting titled, “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière,” that was made by Andre Brouillet, I didn’t know what to feel. I had mixed emotions which was why I had trouble with the start of this essay. After analyzing the painting, a bit more, I knew exactly what I was going to write about. My goal was to “chimney sweep” any emotions I had about this painting into my Literacy Narrative so that my audience knew my position and mentality towards the painting. Letting go all of my emotions motivated me to continue and demonstrate what it was like to be a woman and be sick in that period of time. 

Constructing the introduction for this essay was a bit of a challenge. I was confused on how to state my thesis. For any writing piece that I have made in the past, my weakness has always been in creating my thesis. I’ve always thought that I wasn’t creative enough, but I knew that couldn’t be it. I guess I didn’t try hard enough, or I didn’t grasp the concept of it. I also made sure to include my feelings and emotions regarding Andre Brouillet’s painting. 

For my body paragraphs, I broke it down into four sections. In the first body paragraph, I focused on the painting. I described what was happening and my observations. Following, in my second, third and fourth paragraph, I wrote about my feelings. More specially, what intrigued, disturbed and surprised me. I thought this was a great idea, so I put each feeling into separate paragraphs and went more in depth with my explanations on why I felt this way. I made sure to always refer to the painting so that I can back up my reasoning. I wanted to connect the painting to today’s world and compare the differences from back then to now. Also, I made sure to have a strong topic sentence for every paragraph so that the readers won’t get bored. 

For the conclusion paragraph, I tried to incorporate what it would be like if I was the woman who’s in distress. Being a woman in that time was tough. They were seen as if they were nothing and useless, which is sad and the truth. For this paragraph, I wanted to focus on how lucky and fortunate us women are today. We have many rights and especially, the right to speak freely, which is extremely important to have. 

Having the opportunity for someone like my peers to revise and critique my writing was a major benefit. Not only did one of my peers edited my work but two, which means I got double the feedback on how to improve my essay and make it better. I was encouraged to develop many strategies for reading, drafting, revising and editing. Having a peer tell me what I needed to work on was awesome. I learned new vocabulary and ways to shorten my sentences but make them strong and powerful so that I wouldn’t have to spend too much time in the drafting stage. My main goal was to grab my readers attention so that they can learn about my perspective about this painting.  

Being Powerless and Nothing

While viewing and analyzing the painting titled, “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière” by Andre Brouillet, a tremendous and massive amount of emotions rushed through me. At first, I didn’t know what to feel and how to act, but little by little I wrapped all my thoughts together and it just hit me what was happening in that painting and I wasn’t okay with it. I felt emotions that I never thought I would feel while just simply looking at a painting. While feeling disturbed intrigued and surprised, it helped me get a clear visual of what the painting is showing. It looks like Jean-Martin Charcot is conducting a lecture for his post-graduate students and there is a woman who is unconscious and passed out while he is lecturing. This lecture is taking place at the Salpêtrière, which is a hospital in France, and it makes me feel like this poor woman is being used for an “experiment” and a privilege for these students to learn from her.

When I was analyzing this image, I came across many observations that made me think even more what was going on. It looks like this woman who is hysterical and vulnerable is being used as an example for a lecture. People are very unpredictable which means you shouldn’t trust anyone especially if you’re not awake. As a matter of fact, I was having trouble understanding why the woman was there at the first place letting these students critique her but then after sitting down and soaking in the painting, I finally understood that she wasn’t at capacity to speak and was sick. Some of the students are even touching and tilting their heads which shows me that they have interest in this, and they all seem really focused analyzing her and listening to Charcot lecturing them.

In the painting, “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière,” it shows a bunch of Charcot’s students observing and analyzing this poor woman who is passed out. Seeing this made me extremely intrigued because she is being used as a prop and to explain hysteria and that just didn’t sit well with me. I take public transportation every single day to school or to travel in general and I always get intrigued when people stare at me a type of way. Even though this is not the same scenario as the woman in the painting, but I still have the potential and the ability to stand up for myself and ask if something is wrong and in the case of this woman, she can’t. She doesn’t have a voice and is powerless because she’s hysterical and is being used like an object. Even though this woman is unconscious, men are taking advantage of her by examining her and learning information about hysteria. The worst part is that she can’t do anything about it because she’s not awake. 

What disturbed me the most from this painting was the way the man, who was next to Charcot, was holding the girl like she was nothing and not a human being. You can also see a nurse who was behind the girl trying to help stabilize her body. The man was holding her with one hand, and you can clearly see her body draping down. This showed me that not one male had respect for her regardless of her condition which was sad. They simply enjoyed having a physical image present in front of them, or example for them to learn and it didn’t even bother them the way the girl was being treated. The only person who had sympathy and respect was the nurse. She tried to help the woman but since she was a female and not a male she couldn’t because she didn’t have power.

I was also surprised to see that none of the students were concerned whatsoever for the girl. They were okay with learning and expanding their knowledge from this way. What I saw straight away from just looking at this painting was a poor girl in need of help which she never got. It was more important for these male students to learn and become something big then to assist and help a girl who couldn’t even do that for herself. This comes to show that men were powerful and “valuable” in the sense that woman were nothing and “worthless” and men couldn’t care less.

After much deliberation between myself about this painting, I finally understood how lucky and fortunate I am to be able to have a voice and speak for myself. I honestly don’t know what I would do if I ever ended up or experiencing a similar life that the woman in the painting did. Whenever I want or need something, I can express myself and speak but sadly the woman can’t. Hysteria is restricting her from coming out to the world and being free.

My Accomplishments

After finishing up my Exploratory essay, I feel much more comfortable with writing essays. Creating essays has always been a struggle for me due to stressing myself over little things. This affects my writing process because I tend to get nervous easily which definitely reflects poorly on my work. In this Exploratory essay, I had to choose between four amazing stories to write about and analyze in depth some Freudian concepts that is use throughout the story. In this case, I chose to write about “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates. Reading the first couple of paragraphs automatically grasped my attention which led me to write about how the author connects her story to Freud and his psychoanalytic concepts.

Throughout this essay, I have identified that Oates uses repression, splitting of consciousness and resistance on her characters and their way of being. This helps the audience understand the characters better so that they can get a broad understanding of each and every one of them. She also incorporates many examples of how the characters are going through these Freudian concepts. These concepts really help the audience, like me, understand the whole gist of the story and if you don’t understand, nothing will make sense. Also, it makes the story feel more alive and the audience can imagine that their one of the characters which would allow them to get a better feel to it.

My favorite part about this whole writing process was when we hit the stage of peer reviewing. My partner did an amazing job at giving me exquisite and positive feedback. From this, I knew that I wasn’t after all a horrible writer. On every essay, I continue to develop every day and learn more strategies for reading, drafting, revising and editing. With this, I was able to cut back on unnecessary sentences that were inputted in my essay and the ones that were somewhat repeated as well.

I am constantly growing as a writer which is why I like to take advantage of the feedback that my peers and professors give me. Having this privilege will for sure advance my writing skills and getting positive comments will up my attitude and give me energy to continue writing. From all of this, I was able to evaluate evidence critically so that my thesis was backed up and made sense. The story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” helped me understand Freuds psychoanalytic concepts better by incorporating them onto the characters.