Table of Contents
- Author- Toni Morrison
- Year of publishing- 1970
- Toni Morrison (Born 1931)
- She wrote The Bluest Eye- her 1st novel, while working as an editor and single mother
- Her novels raise important questions about race + her works address the harsh consequences of racism
Crux of the novel
- Story of Pecola- a black girl who wishes she was BLONDE + had blue eyes
- She BELIEVES that she is ugly
- Pecola believes that if she had blue eyes, she would be loved and her life would be TRANSFORMED
- She continually receives confirmation of her own sense of ugliness
- Boys make fun of her
- Maureen (a light skinned girl), who temporarily befriends her makes fun of her too
- She is wrongly blamed for killing a boy’s cat and is called a “nasty little black bitch” by his mother
- Pecola, an African American girl from an abusive family, YEARNS for blue eyes Pecola’s wishes= represent the “cultural messages that African American girls hear, messages that tell them they can never be beautiful.”
- When Pecola’s father rapes her, she becomes desperate for eyes so pretty that no one will ever be cruel to her again
Construction of beauty
- Society shapes our understanding of beauty + often white, fair, slim body type is considered to be ‘beautiful’
- Main Characters
- Pecola Breedlove Abused girl
- Equates having blue eyes with happiness
- Claudia MacTeer
- The narrator; friend of Pecola; daughter of Mr and Mrs MacTee
- r, who are the neighbourhood black family of Breedlove family
- Cholly Breedlove
- Angry, abusive, hard drinking father
- Pauline Breedlove Stern, religious mother; believes she is ugly
- Frieda MacTeer
- Girl obsessed with Shirley Temple; defends Claudia and Pecola Sam Breedlove- Pecola’s elder brother
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