Culture Shock Plan

How does media play into a person’s self image? I have noticed that books, TV shows, movies, and other forms of entertainment uses some sort of a product placement in their plots with the characters. This technique works in many ways. The main way is that brand names make more money due to curiosity. The curiosity leads to a nice little boost in the great giant known as the economy. Every piece of media follows this trick religiously. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is no exception to the rule. Morrison uses Shirley Temple to play into her characters’ insecurities to drive tragic and powerful message home. I am purposing a closer look into the use of Shirley Temple throughout most of the book to get a greater understanding of their power to shape the characters’ self-image.

I plan to use the book, The Bluest Eye for my main research. I also want to use articles about The Bluest Eye for back-up. The important thing is to look up more about Shirley Temple. I want to know about what people were saying about her in the 1940s. A little background history of her could shed some light on how she has a strong hold on Pecola throughout the story. This could deliver a good and through search into what is known as The Bluest Eye.

Sources Cited

Eichelberger, Julia. Prophets of Recognition Ideology and the Individual in Novels by Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Saul Bellow and Eudora Welty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana state university press, 1999.

Gibson, Donald B. Text and Countertext in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers S.A. Printed in the United States of America, 1989.

Gornik, Helena, and Jerneja Petrič. The Quest for Identity in The Bluest Eye and Go Tell It on the Mountain: Diplomsko Delo. Ljubljana: [H. Gornik], 2008.

Hamblen, Hillary. Unlovability: Self Hatred in the Contemporary Fiction of Toni Morrison, Dorothy Allison, and Khaled Hosseini. Honors thesis, 2008. Honors thesis--Millsaps College, 2008, 2008.

Morrison, Toni.  The Bluest Eye.  New York: First Plume Printing, 1994.  Print.