On the third and final podcast of this week of,” The Brief Wondrous Podcast” we will be discussing the creation of this book, how and why the author wrote it the way they did, and how effective this novel is to our lives.

In the final episode of The Cheese Table, we discuss what we thought Toni Morrison’s intent was for writing The Bluest Eye. Listen to find out our final thoughts of the book!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jAWRdtHjCvY1LfGC71YyPu1MdiSbs6J4/view?usp=share_link

Hosts: Nick, Jet, Terrance, & Sun-ra

In the final podcast we discuss the authors intent. At the end of the book we see that Balram has gone full circle, becoming the rich business man that he hated and murder yet he still feels free. We also talk about how he justifies his action and whether or not his reasoning are valid.

In this week’s final episode we discussed the author’s intent. We talked about how trauma was passed on in the book as well as how the story was told impacted how we understood it. Hope you enjoy!

https://anchor.fm/seyiram-foley

In this episode, we look at The Bluest Eye through a feminist lens.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OIaoZJ6sCKNxmWv-diDk5v71cVqEeUA4/view?usp=sharing

This week we are discussing the “White Tiger” through the Marxists lens. We talked about Balram and his journey through the business world.

Nick -

“Marxism in India.” Taylor & Francis, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00472337485390621?journalCode=rjoc20.

As said in the article Marxism has been an active intellectual force in India for over 50 years. Throughout “The White Tiger” We get glimpses of it as Balram progresses the life of a business man. He starts of works in a tea shop and works his way up by uses murder as his number one tatic. Marxism is “characterizes as the philosophy revolutionary social action, the activities of the Marxists as thinkers organizers.”

Sun-Ra -

Butt, Shaehroz Anjum, and Zarina Qasim. “Rise by Sin or Fall by Virtue: A Marxist Study of Class Consciousness in The White Tiger, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.” Journals.uop.edu.pk, 2021, http://journals.uop.edu.pk/papers/3(19).pdf.

The Article “Rise by Sin or Fall by Virtue: A Marxist Study of Class Consciousness in The White Tiger, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” illustrates the divide between the rich and poor in Adiga’s White Tiger by using the Marxist lens. The authors highlight how the main character, Balram, segregates people based on their social status, “Balram learns that the rich are able to digest everything and everyone who comes in their path while the poor owing to their lack of desire for material possessions remain helpless in the capitalist jungle.”(Page 7). This provides additional insight into both the novel and the Marxist lens because it analyzes Balram’s division of society based on other characters’ income.

Nat -

University, Perdue. “Georg Lukács – ‘the Ideology of Modernism’ (1962).” Taste to Waste, Perdue, 23 Feb. 2012, https://tastetowaste.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/georg-lukacs-the-ideology-of-modernism-1962/#:~:text=A%20very%20compelling%20critique%20of,the%20form%20of%20social%20protest Links to an external site..

This article summarizes Lukacs’ points about modernism, and because the article was written in 2012 it does offer some potential to compare the two eras. I wish it did more compare and contrast rather than just summarizing key points he made, however, I noticed a lot of articles regarding Lukacs’ work seemed to summarize rather than analyze. The article talks about how Lukacs’ gets so in depth with his analysis that he “manages to overshoot its mark and reveal Lukács own allegiance to art…” This suggests that Lukacs’ own bias is shown through his work and his arguments, even if he has a legitimate point.

Host: Synai, Devin, Seyiram, Aliyah, Phoebe

In the second episode of our podcast, we will go through the novel using a feminist lens. We will break down our women characters and react to the situations that are brought upon them and how it affects their mental health and responses.

https://anchor.fm/devin-hang

Synai

Works Cited “International Women’s Day 2022: Why Colour Purple Symbolises Feminist Movement.” News18, 8 March 2022, https://www.news18.com/news/lifestyle/international-womens-day-2022-why-colour-purple-symbolises-feminist-movement-4834931.html. Accessed 10 January 2023. Jackson, Lauren Michele. “Alice Walker’s Journals Depict an Artist Restless on Her Laurels.” The New Yorker, 18 April 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/25/alice-walkers-journals-depict-an-artist-restless-on-her-laurels-gathering-blossoms-under-fire-valerie-boyd. Accessed 10 January 2023. WATKINS, MEL, and Alice Walker. “Some Letters Went to God.” The New York Times, 25 July 1982, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/specials/walker-color.html?module=inline. Accessed 10 January 2023.

Out of the three articles I read, I think I enjoyed the New York Times on the web because it dove deep Into the context of the book and addressed several lenses, with feminism being the most prominent one. It also sums the book up from a different perspective and opened my eyes to more information that I didn’t automatically see about the story. One idea I thought was important was the role and influence that the women character had on each other and the influence she had on the males, especially her husband Albert who changed his ways because of Celie,” it is Albert’s real love and sometimes mistress, Shug Avery, and his rebellious daughter-in-law, Sofia, who provide the emotional support for Celie’s personal evolution. And, in turn, it is Celie’s new understanding of an acceptance of herself that eventually leads to Albert’s re-evaluation of his own life and a reconciliation among the novel’s major characters.”

Devin

Wilson, Jennifer, “Untangling the Legacy of The Color Purple.” New Republic, 1 February 2021, https://newrepublic.com/article/161165/legacy-color-purple-alice-walker-book-review

This source tends to connect the novel with the musical a lot because it blew up during the time the broadway was airing. With the feminist lens, we would see the book as a girl who is a rape survivor. And it is connected to Alice Walker on a personal level. However, male writers who do not see through this lens think the book is an attack on them. Black Writer Ishmael Reed believes that this book is an attack on black men and how they are characterized as rapists. With an open mind and with or without a feminist lens, this book is not the case. It is more focused on how there was sexual abuse and what it is like to experience it at a young age rather than race and time period. It is one of the main things that is throughout the book because this trauma has been carried out the entire way and the plot that is continuing the story. From young sexual abuse to marriage at a young age. And through all of its mistreatment of women.