The 2nd group presented Elaborate symbols/ Dick and Jane readers; Shirley Temple and Bojangles/ Race and beauty. Dick and Jane story series were published in 1930s to teach children to read. This story is about a white American family. There is father, mother, little boy- Dick, little girl- Jane, the baby- Sally, Spot the dog, Puff the cat and Tim the teddy bear. This family is very happy; they all love each other and live in a pretty house. The father goes to work, the mother is at home and doing house stuffs. Jane helps her mother while cooking, cleaning. So we can say everything goes ‘good’. Toni Morrison starts her novel with a description of Dick and Jane story. She starts with these paragraphs to show the great ideal white American family. When we start to read the novel, firstly we see the difference between the house in Dick&Jane story and Pecola’s home (they don’t live in a house, they live in a storefront). Then we see the contrast between Pecola’s life and Dick&Jane’s life. Pecola has an unhappy family, her mother and father fight each other all the times; her father is always drunk, finally he raped Pecola.
As I said before there is a very important place of Dick&Jane in this story to show the contrast between ‘whites’ life & ‘blacks’ life. Also the story shows us the point of view of blacks about whites by the dialogues between Claudia, Frieda and Pecola.
It's a really interesting and unique device, I think. I never even considered criticising Dick and Jane stories until I read this novel. They were so much a part of my life growing up - in fact, I think they were the first books I read when I was 4 years old!
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