Toni Morisson's The Bluest Eye

Toni Morisson's The Bluest Eye

Toni Morisson's novel The Bluest Eye is about the life of the Breedlove family who reside in Lorain, Ohio, in the late 1930s (where Morrison herself was born). This family consists of the mother Pauline, the father Cholly, the son Sammy, and the daughter Pecola. The novel's focal point is the daughter, an eleven-year-old Black girl who is trying to conquer a bout with self-hatred. Everyday she encounters racism, not just from the White people, but mostly from her own race. In their eyes she is much too dark, and the darkness of her skin somehow manifests that she is inferior, and according to everyone else, her skin makes her even "uglier." She feel she can overcome this battle of self-hatred by obtaining blue eyes, but not just any blue. She wants the bluest of the blue, the bluest eye.

Pecola Breedlove is an innocent little girl who, like very other young child, did not ask to be born in this cruel world. It is bad enough that practically the whole world rejects her, but her own parents are guilty of rejection as well. Her own father, who is constantly drunk, sexually molests his daughter more than once. The first time he has sexual intercourse with his daughter, he leaves her slightly unconscious, and lying on the kitchen floor with a guilt covering her frail, limp, preteen body. The next time he performs the same act, but this time he impregnates her. Of course, the baby is miscarried. This is obviously not a love a father should be sharing with a daughter. This act displays hatred in the worst way.

Her mother's rejection is subtle yet potent. When Pecola tells her mother about the molestation, Mrs. Breedlove does not believe her own flesh and blood. Pecola calls Pauline Mrs. Breedlove...

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...n females read this book because I am very curious about how they would react. I feel that they could relate to, and benefit most from this novel, and I bet every young African-American female can relate to at least one character in this book.

Toni Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio in 1931. Her birth name was Chloe Anthony Wofford. She attended Howard University, where she received her B.A. She also received an M.A. from Cornell University. Besides being a writer, she teaches as well. She is now a professor at Princeton University. She is known for such novels as Sula, Beloved, and Tar Baby. She has won numerous awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved and the Nobel Prize for Literature.1

Works Cited:

1Kennedy, X.J., Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Sylvia A. Holladay. The Bedford Guide for College Writers. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin Press.