The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is a novel born from the author’s experience with a little black girl who wanted blue eyes, an effect of “racial self-loathing” (Morrison 210). The novel explores a similar, but much more extreme story: the story of Pecola Breedlove. Pecola is a little black girl living not only in a world that divides itself by race and is prejudiced against black people, but also amidst a family that holds conflict and divisions within itself. Morrison’s novels are known for their
The Bluest eye would be described as influential to all women who profoundly admire the white race. If the bluest eye were to be analyzed by me, I would say its primary characters such as Pecola are obsessed with thinking of herself having shade of blue in her eyes and other traits that dazzle her. Other characters in the book would also envy people who carried those physical traits. An essential point that moves the audience reading the book, is that those African American girls had lack of love
The Bluest Eye initially depicts female friendship as confined to the proximity of family and cultural programming. For example, during Claudia and Frieda’s afternoon with Maureen, the sister’s defend Pecola from Maureen’s ridicule. This stems from the fact that Pecula is within a similar cultural program as the sisters and that she has been living with them. Similarly, Maureen is of a middleclass background and of no connection to Claudia and Frieda’s family, so she is resented both prior and after
“The Bluest Eye” “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison is a very complex story. While not being a novel of great length is very long on complexity. It tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl immersed in poverty and made “ugly” by the Society of the early 1940’s that defines beauty in terms of blonde haired white skinned , and in this case specifically Shirley Temple. The novel opens in the fall of 1941, just after the Great Depression, in Lorain, Ohio. Nine-year-old Claudia
In The Bluest Eye, Pecola the protagonist is taken under the Macteer family’s wing much like “The African family is community-based and the nurturing quality is not contained within the nuclear family, but is rather the responsibility of the entire community” (Ranström). In traditional Africa each child has a place and is welcome in the community. The act of parenting another child was not odd because every adult that lived in each community believed that any child is welcome in anyone’s home. This
Pages 5-6/ Quiet as it’s kept,….one must take refuge in how. Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl who immersed in poverty and categorized as “ugly” by society. Her abusive parents beat her at home and she is a subject to never-ending discrimination and racism. This extract is taken from the prologue of the novel; it is from the two pages before the first chapter “autumn”. Claudia narrates this extract. Prior to this passage, Toni
The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison in 1970. It was the first novel she ever wrote while she was a teacher at Howard University. This book was written different since it consists of different seasons instead of chapter to represent every time period despite the short space of time. The Bluest Eye is interesting because it shows the life of a young girl that wants really bad to be something she is not. The purpose of the book is to show how an African American girl wanted to be a white
Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, presents the lives of several impoverished black families in the 1940’s in a rather unconventional and painful manner. Ms. Morrison leads the reader through the lives of select children and adults, describing a few powerful incidents, thoughts and experiences that lend insight into the motivation and. behavior of these characters. In a somewhat unconventional manner, the young lives of Pauline Williams Breedlove and Charles (Cholly) Breedlove are presented to
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye follows Pecola Breedlove’s “journey” to obtain beauty in the form of the titular blue eyes. Not only is it told in Claudia’s perspective, but the readers witnesses several backstories, namely Geraldine, Pauline, Cholly, and Soaphead Church’s, which is in a third-person perspective. This might be seen as odd at first, but after taking a deeper look into their pasts, there is something that stands out: something “beautiful” in the eyes of these people. These “beautiful”
In the novel, The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, the author has all the main characters be African Americans, and live in a deprived time of segregation to encourage the reader to change their view to treat African Americans kindly and have a different idea of perfection than white skin and blue eyes. Throughout the novel, the author focuses on the clash between different cultures, and the the colors that symbolize each. First, the reader reads the title, The Bluest Eye. This initially starts the