PAPER Topics

Start of Term Paper
The Breedlove family has moved from the rural south to urban Lorain, Ohio, and the displacement, in addition to grinding work conditions and poverty, contributes to the family's dysfunction. Told from the perspectives of the adolescent sisters, ....

Middle of Term Paper
... dissonance between the realities of the Breedloves'--and especially Pecola's--lives and the chapter headings that begin with excerpts from the white, middle-class Dick & Jane reader. Much as Pecola's world falls apart in the novel, the Dick & Jane passages, repeated three times, degenerate into formless, meaningless print: "seemothermotherisverynice." The object of scorn for her "ugliness" from her family and acquaintances, Pecola yearns to become beautiful and, (she thinks) as a result of her beauty, loveable. That beauty is strictly defined by white and unattainable standards; however, a Shirley Temple mug and Mary Jane candies become the ...