She treats the girls with some kindness, telling them that Pecola is with Mrs. Breedlove at the house where Mrs. Breedlove is a servant. (one code per order). Gros Ouvrages: These fortresses were the most important fortifications on the Maginot Line, having the sturdiest construction and the heaviest artillery. Artillery was coordinated with protective measures to ensure that one fort could support the next in line by bombarding it directly without harm. Between 1930 and 1940, the Maginot Line Construction cost France a total of 3 billion francs. When The Maginot Line asks if the girls are looking for someone, Claudia explains they are looking for Pecola. The Maginot Line by Bryan J. Dickerson, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maginot_Line&oldid=1141389027, Military installations established in 1930, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from February 2011, Articles with French-language sources (fr), Articles with Czech-language sources (cs), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Mostly intact, through the preservation of the French Government, To save manpower (France counted 39 million inhabitants, Germany 70 million), To cover the mobilisation of the French Army. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." Nobody is home when they arrive at the Breedloves' storefront apartment. You go around it. Yet at the same time the girls sense is also the communities sense of the prostitutes. They were also accommodated in complexes of wooden housing adjacent to each fortress, which were more comfortable than living inside, but were not expected to survive wartime bombardment. They realize the other prostitutes are not fat, and based on their mother's gossip about the prostitutes believe the reason for this is because they drink whiskey. Dont have an account? He doesn't poison the dog because he's terrified of personal contact with the animal. The Britishwho openly championed the German position on reparationsapplied intense economic pressure on France to change its policies towards Germany. The elephant in the rhyme is said to be a reference to the original Republicans, party of Abraham Lincoln and abolitionism, jumping the fence, or crossing the Mason-Dixon Line, to help free the slaves. What does the little girl call Mrs Breedlove? She is lonely and imaginative. [18] Given the diplomatic situation in the late 1920s, the Quai d'Orsay informed the government that French military planning should be based on a worst-case scenario that France would fight the next war against Germany without the help of Britain or the United States. Mrs. Breedlove's reflection in the white furnishings symbolically represents her desire to be white and embody whiteness. The design of the casemates is similar to the ones found in the southern part of the Maginot Line, and photographs of them are often confused with Maginot forts. | The houses are sturdier, literally because they are better constructed than the houses in the black section of town, and symbolically as the families that live in them are more stable than the black families in the story. Built between 1930 and 1940, it was one of the world's most impressive forts, yet it proved to be almost . Renew your subscription to regain access to all of our exclusive, ad-free study tools. creating and saving your own notes as you read. Sensitive and delicate, she passively suffers the abuse of her mother, father, and classmates. The blocks contained infrastructure such as power stations, independent ventilating systems, barracks and mess halls, kitchens, water storage and distribution systems, hoists, ammunition stores, workshops and spare parts and food stores. [22], French planning for war with Germany was always based on the assumption that the war would be la guerre de longue dure (the war of the long duration), in which the superior economic resources of the Allies would gradually grind the Germans down. The last line of defense was the Maginot Line's massive ouvrages, each large enough to hold 500 to 1,000 permanent troops. Their misinterpretation highlights their innocence. on 2-49 accounts, Save 30% Dont have an account? Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. The women live together in an apartment above the Breedloves. Ouvrage Hochwald is the only facility in the main line that remains in active service as a hardened command facility for the French Air Force known as Drachenbronn Airbase. The original construction did not cover the area ultimately chosen by the Germans for their first challenge, which was through the Ardennes in 1940, a plan known as Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), due to the neutrality of Belgium. The serpent is the largest remaining artifact from World War II. French military experts believed the line would deter German aggression because it would slow an invasion force long enough for French forces to mobilise and counterattack. The boldest and most pivotal German line of attack ran through the dense Ardennes Forest in Belgium, which both the French and the other Allies had dismissed as impassable. She invites the girls upstairs for a soda, but Frieda tells her that they are not allowed to visit her because she is "ruined." Attacking on 10 May, German forces were well into France within five days and they continued to advance until 24 May, when they stopped near Dunkirk. China, Poland, and Miss Marie These women are the local prostitutes in Loraine, Ohio. Origin of Marie. She is surprised to see them, and they ask her why she is not afraid of the Maginot Line. During the German offensive Operation Nordwind in January 1945, Maginot Line casemates and fortifications were utilised by Allied forces, especially in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est, and some German units had been supplemented with flamethrower tanks in anticipation of this possibility. The white neighborhood in which Mrs. Breedlove works is beautiful and well kept, demonstrating the connection between race and class. Frieda and Claudia walk to the lakefront houses, in a beautiful neighborhood with a park that is for white children only. We're sorry, SparkNotes Plus isn't available in your country. [19], The American historian William Keylor wrote that given the diplomatic conditions of 1929 and likely trends with the United States isolationist and Britain unwilling to make the "continental commitment" the decision to build the Maginot Line was not irrational and stupid, as building the Maginot Line was a sensible response to the problems that would be created by the coming French withdrawal from the Rhineland in 1930. The Maginot Line was built to fulfil several purposes: Maginot Line fortifications were manned by specialist units of fortress infantry, artillery and engineers. 3. Nazi Germany Conquers France: April 1940-December 1940, Constructing an Unbreakable Wall of Defense, The Nazis' End-run Around the Maginot Line, Special Offer on Antivirus Software From HowStuffWorks and TotalAV Security, multiple books on World War II military campaigns, magnificent fortified town of Neuf-Brisach, a string of obstacles, traps and artillery forts. She accepts everyone elses assumption that she is superior and is capable of both generosity and cruelty. She depends upon their interpretation of what has taken place in order to understand it herself. [37][38], Julian Jackson highlighted one of the line's roles was to facilitate that strategy by "free[ing] manpower for offensive operations elsewhere and to protect the forces of manoeuvre"; the latter included a more mechanised and modernised military, which would advance into Belgium and engage the German main thrust flanking the line. China, Poland, and Miss Marie Character Timeline in The Bluest Eye To push Germany into an effort to circumvent via Switzerland or Belgium. French engineers even constructed emergency dams and levees that could flood the surrounding fields to further slow the German attack. Her desire to disavow her daughter is proved when the white girl asks who the black children were and Mrs. Breedlove avoids answering her. Instant PDF downloads. Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. When Joffre, Maginot and others conceived of the Maginot Line, Germany was under tight military restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Purchasing She knows that Henrys actions are inappropriate, but she does not understand what they mean. It turns out that Henry touched Friedas breasts. The local prostitues, Miss Marie (also known as the Maginot Line) is fat and affectionate, China is skinny and sarcastic, and Poland is quiet. As a young boy, Cholly has a great friend in old Blue Jack, an older black man who works at the feed store. After that, her marriage with Cholly deteriorates rapidly. [18], After 1918, the German economy was twice as large as that of France; Germany had a population of 70 million compared to France's 40 million, and the French economy was hobbled by the need to reconstruct the enormous damage of World War I, while German territory had seen little fighting. [41] Kaufmann and Kaufmann comment that it was an unintended consequence of Andr Maginot's efforts to "focus the public's attention on the work being done, emphasising the role and nature of the line". They understand that China and Poland are ruined as well but think that they are not fat because they drink whiskey. Her mother reinforces this connection as well. Instead of worrying that her own daughter has been burned by the hot berries, she pushes Pecola down into the pie juice. If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. He is a religious hypocrite. The moment where she loses her tooth in the movie theatre is painful: juxtaposing Pauline as an awkward, gap-toothed, pregnant black woman to the idealized (and illusory) image of Jean Harlow on the screen shows the power of these images to destroy a black woman's belief in her own beauty. 9. She learns that Mr. MacTeer has beaten up Mr. Henry and kicked him out of the house. This logical but mistaken chain of reasoning adds a rare note of humor to the story that is unfolding. They associate being "ruined" with the prostitutes, as they sense it has something to do with distasteful sexual interactions like the one Frieda experienced, and assume because Miss Marie is fat, she must be ruined. Frieda is not given the chance to step gradually into her sexual identity; instead, this identity is forced upon her by an adult. Subscribe now. She then comforts the little white girl and begins to clean the black stain off of her pink dress. On the balcony above the door, Marie (the Maginot Line) is having a drink of root-beer. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1699 titles we cover. The French side of this border is called the Maginot Line, where the French built a tremendous fortification across from the then Westwall/Hindenburg Line. Because she is closer to adolescence, Frieda is more vulnerable to her communitys equation of whiteness with beauty. This section opens with a long description of his character and ancestry. The moment is painfully evoked: "There I was five months pregnant, trying to look like Jean Harlow, and a front tooth gone. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. She asks where "Polly" is, something that infuriates Claudia because even Pecola calls her own mother "Mrs. The Maginot Line ( French: Ligne Maginot, IPA: [li maino] ), named after the French Minister of War Andr Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications. Even as an adult, Mrs. Breedlove is inferior to the little white girl, as shown when the little girl calls her by the nickname "Polly." You'll also receive an email with the link. The Question and Answer section for Bluest Eye is a great to start your free trial of SparkNotes Plus. The Maginot Line tells them she works at a big white lakefront house. It's possible to see an unsettling connection between the blonde dolls and the blonde daughters of families that employ black servants: in playing with little blonde dolls, black girls must either pretend the child is theirsand so negate their own race and deny their own beautyor they must pretend that they, like Pauline, are servants caring for the children of white employers. The narrative then moves to the current story-line. Frieda says that they can't because Marie is a ruined woman. Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership. The World War II German invasion plan of 1940 (Sichelschnitt) was designed to deal with the line. The messages the girls hear about white superiority do not come only from the white media or light-skinned blacks like Geraldine. The Germany-facing section of the Maginot Line presented a string of obstacles, traps and artillery forts that ran 16 miles (25 kilometers) deep in places. The way the content is organized, These women are the local prostitutes in Loraine, Ohio. You'll be able to access your notes and highlights, make requests, and get updates on new titles. The dog devours the meat and dies almost immediately, and Pecola flees in terror. [31] Stephen Ambrose wrote that in January 1945, "a part of the line was used for the purpose it had been designed for and showed what a superb fortification it was." Border Post line: This consisted of blockhouses and strong houses, which were often camouflaged as inoffensive residential homes, built within a few metres of the border and manned by troops to give the alarm in the event of a surprise attack and to delay enemy tanks with prepared explosives and barricades. Theylive above the Breedlove apartment and befriendPecola. A middle-class Black woman who, though she keeps house flawlessly and diligently cares for the physical appearances of herself and her family (including her husband, Louis, and her son, Junior), is essentially cold. Then another neighbor, Miss Dunion, came in and suggested that they take Frieda to the doctor because she might be ruined, a fear that now makes Frieda weep. [32], After the war, the French re-manned the line and underwent some modifications. THE MAGINOT LINE I31 ernment.I As a result, much of the spirit of the reform was quietly nullified, though the law, including the two-year service, remained on the statute books. By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy. The Germans then broke through the fortification line as defending French forces retreated southward. The quest for whiskey and the girls' disdain for the Maginot Line show, once again, the esteem the girls have for their mother's opinion and her wisdom. 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