Name: ____________________________

Date: October 26th

Class: 1st

Continue reading in your books on page 151 on the first whole paragraph. Answer questions below in complete sentences. 1. Cholly wants to find his father. Why does he want to find his father?

2. What strategies does Cholly use to run away?

Directions: Each underlined sentence needs to be edited for comma usage. (3) It occurs to Cholly, irrationally, that Darlene might be pregnant and he decides to run away and look for his father. He finds some money that Aunt Jimmy had hidden and spends several months working his way toward Macon, Georgia, where his father lives. (4) He finally purchases a bus ticket arrives in Macon and is sent to an alley to look for his father. There he finds men gambling in various states of excitement and desperation. (5) When he asks for Samson Fuller he finds a man who looks especially fierce, but who is, to Cholly’s surprise, shorter than he is. Samson thinks that Cholly has been sent by a creditor (or perhaps the mother of another child he has fathered) and curses him. Cholly stumbles back into the street and, in his effort not to cry,defecates in his pants. (6) He runs to the river hides under the pier and washes his clothes after dark. For the first time, he feels grief for Aunt Jimmy. (7) From this point forward Cholly is free in a dangerous way. He loves and beats women, he takes and leaves jobs, and he kills three white men—all the while remaining indifferent. He is indifferent about when or how he dies. (8)He meets Pauline, and her sweetness and innocence make him want to marry her, but marriage makes him feel trapped. His interest in life is sapped, and he begins to drink. Most of all, he does not know how to relate to his children. Now, in the present, Cholly comes home drunk and finds Pecola doing the dishes. With mixed motives of tenderness and rage, both fueled by guilt, he rapes her. (9) She faints, and he covers her with a quilt. She wakes to find her mother looking down at her.

10. In this chapter, we are made to sympathize with Cholly, as we read about his childhood, then the incident with the hunters, and his run-away. Following this, we read that he rapes his daughter. Why do you think the author sequence the order of these events in this way? Explain your answer.

“The Bluest Eye” Spring Chapter 9 Direction: Read the following excerpt from “The Bluest Eye”. The numbered and underlined portions need to be edit for correct comma usage. You may see serial commas, commas with fanboys, commas with dependent clauses (ABBI SAW A WUWU), commas with interrupters, or commas with modifiers. There are also questions to answer about your reading. Answer those questions in complete sentences. Once there was an old man who loved things, for the slightest contact with people produced in him a faint but persistent nausea. (1)He could not remember when this distaste began nor could he remember ever being free of it. As a young boy he had been greatly disturbed by this revulsion, which others did not seem to share. Having got a fine education, he learned, among other things, the word “misanthrope.” (2)Knowing his label provided him with both comfort and courage he believed that to name an evil was to neutralize if not annihilate it. Then, too, he had read several books and made the contact of several great misanthropes of the ages, whose spiritual company soothed him and provided him with yardsticks for measuring his whims, his yearnings, and his antipathies. (3) Moreover, he found misanthropy an excellent means of developing character. When he subdued his revulsion and occasionally touched, helped, counseled, or befriended somebody, he was able to think of his behavior as generous and his intentions as noble. (4) When he was enraged by some human effort or flaw, he was able to regard himself as discriminating, fastidious, and full of nice scruples. (5) As in the case of many misanthropes, his disdain for people led him into a profession designed to serve them. He was engaged in a line of work that was dependent solely on his ability to win the trust of others, and one in which the most intimate relationships were necessary. (6) Having dallied with the priesthood in the Anglican Church, he abandoned it to become a caseworker. Time and misfortune, however, conspired against him, and he settled finally on a profession that brought him both freedom and satisfaction. He became a “Reader, Adviser, and Interpreter of Dreams.” It was a profession that suited him well. His hours were his own, the competition was slight, the clientele was already persuaded and therefore manageable, and he had numerous opportunities to witness human stupidity without sharing it or being compromised by it, and to nurture his fastidiousness by viewing physical decay. (7)Although his income was small he had no taste for luxury—his experience in the monastery had solidified his natural asceticism while it developed his preference for solitude. Celibacy was a haven,

silence a shield. All his life he had a fondness for things—not the acquisition of wealth or beautiful objects, but a genuine love of worn objects: a coffee pot that had been his mother’s, a welcome mat from the door of a rooming house he once lived in, a quilt from a Salvation Army store counter. (8) It was as though his disdain of human contact had converted itself into a craving, for things humans had touched. The residue of the human spirit smeared on inanimate objects was all he could withstand of humanity. To contemplate, for example, evidence of human footsteps on the mat—absorb the smell of the quilt and wallow in the sweet certainty that many bodies had sweated, slept, dreamed, made love, been ill, and even died under it. (9) Wherever he went, he took along his things, and was always searching for others. This thirst for worn things led to casual but habitual examinations of trash barrels in alleys and wastebaskets in public places. All in all, his personality was an arabesque: intricate, symmetrical, balanced, and tightly constructed—except for one flaw. 10. Based on the text, you can infer that “misanthropes” are what? What context clues helped you infer the meaning of this word?

11. Describe this new character in your own words

(12)Soaphead was reflecting once again on these thoughts one late hot afternoon, when he heard a tap on his door. Opening it, he saw a little girl, quite unknown to him. She was about twelve or so, he thought, and seemed to him pitifully unattractive. (13)When he asked her what she wanted she did not answer but held out to him one of his cards advertising his gifts and services. The card read, “If you are overcome with trouble and conditions that are not natural, I can remove them; Overcome Spells, Bad Luck, and Evil Influences. Remember, I am a true Spiritualist and Psychic Reader, born with power, and I will help you. Satisfaction in one visit. (14) During many years of practice I have brought together many in marriage and reunited many who were separated. If you are unhappy, discouraged, or in distress, I can help you. Does bad luck seem to follow you? Has the one you love changed? I can tell you why. I will tell you who your enemies and friends are and if the one you love is true or false. (15) If you are sick, I can

show you the way to health. I locate lost and stolen articles. Satisfaction guaranteed.” 16. What are some odd aspects of Soaphead’s advertisements?

Soaphead Church told her to come in. “What can I do for you, my child?” She stood there, her hands folded across her stomach, a little protruding pot of tummy. “Maybe. Maybe you can do it for me.” “Do what for you?” “I can’t go to school no more. And I thought maybe you could help me.” “Help you how? Tell me. Don’t be frightened.” “My eyes.” “What about your eyes?” “I want them blue.” (17) Soaphead pursed his lips or he let his tongue stroke a gold inlay. He thought it was at once the most fantastic and the most logical petition he had ever received. Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty. (18) A surge of love and understanding swept through him, but was quickly replaced by anger. Anger that he was powerless to help her. Of all the wishes people had brought him—money, love, revenge—this seemed to him the most poignant and the one most deserving of fulfillment. A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. (19) His outrage grew and it felt like power. For the first time, he honestly wished he could work miracles. Never before had he really wanted the true and holy power—only the power to make others believe he had it. It seemed so sad, so frivolous, that mere mortality, not judgment, kept him from it. Or did it? (20) With a trembling hand he made the sign of the cross over her. His flesh crawled; in that hot, dim little room of worn things, he was chilled. “I can do nothing for you, my child. I am not a magician. I work only through the Lord. He sometimes uses me to help people. All I can do is offer myself to Him as the instrument through which he works. If He wants your wish granted, He will do it.” Soaphead walked to the window, his back to the girl. His mind raced, stumbled, and raced again. How to frame the next sentence? How to hang on to the feeling of power? His eye fell on old Bob sleeping on the porch.“We must make, ah, some offering, that is, some contact with nature. Perhaps some simple creature might be the vehicle through which He will speak. Let us see.” (21) He knelt down at the window, and moved his lips. (22) After what seemed a suitable length of time he rose and went to the icebox that stood near the other window. From it he removed a small packet wrapped in pinkish butcher paper. From a shelf he took a

small brown bottle and sprinkled some of its contents on the substance inside the paper. He put the packet, partly opened, on the table. “Take this food and give it to the creature sleeping on the porch. Make sure he eats it. And mark well how he behaves. If nothing happens, you will know that God has refused you. (22) If the animal behaves strangely, your wish will be granted on the day following this one.” The girl picked up the packet; the odor of the dark, sticky meat made her want to vomit. She put a hand on her stomach. “Courage. Courage, my child. These things are not granted to faint hearts.” She nodded and swallowed visibly, holding down the vomit. (23) Soaphead opened the door, and she stepped over the threshold. “Good-bye, God bless,” he said and quickly shut the door. At the window he stood watching her, his eyebrows pulled together into waves of compassion, his tongue fondling the worn gold in his upper jaw. He saw the girl bending down to the sleeping dog, who, at her touch, opened one liquid eye, matted in the corners with what looked like green glue. She reached out and touched the dog’s head, stroking him gently. She placed the meat on the floor of the porch, near his nose. The odor roused him; he lifted his head, and got up to smell it better. He ate it in three or four gulps. (24) The girl stroked his head again and the dog looked up at her with soft triangle eyes. Suddenly he coughed, the cough of a phlegmy old man—and got to his feet. The girl jumped. The dog gagged, his mouth chomping the air, and promptly fell down. He tried to raise himself, could not, tried again and half-fell down the steps. Choking, stumbling, he moved like a broken toy around the yard. The girl’s mouth was open, a little petal of tongue showing. She made a wild, pointless gesture with one hand and then covered her mouth with both hands. She was trying not to vomit. The dog fell again, a spasm jerking his body. Then he was quiet. The girl’s hands covering her mouth, she backed away a few feet, then turned, ran out of the yard and down the walk. (25) What happened to the dog? Why did Soaphead plan for this to happen?

(26) How will this experience affect Pecola?