The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison | Summary & Analysis

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Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth analysis of the plot, characters, symbols, and themes of Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye.

Download the free study guide and infographic for The Bluest Eye here: https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Bl...

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is a harrowing yet beautiful parable of racial inequality and sexual abuse in the black community. It uses the unique perspective of young women to examine these problems.

Through the eyes of Claudia MacTeer, the novel takes a critical look at the social standards that can lead young black women to idealize Caucasian characteristics.

Her friend Pecola is obsessed with having blue eyes. Her wish represents the cultural messages African American girls can hear: messages that tell them they can never be beautiful.

After Pecola is raped by her father, she becomes mentally unstable in the wake of the assault, desperate for eyes so pretty that no one will ever be cruel to her again. Morrison traces the genesis of the tragedy back to the difficult early lives of Pecola's parents and uses Claudia's youthful naiveté as a mechanism for understanding how ignorance allows such problems to perpetuate across generations.

American author Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye was first published in 1970. Although The Bluest Eye was her first novel, written while working as an editor and single mother, it was not well-received when it was published. Morrison has since earned numerous accolades and awards for her novels, many of which raise important questions about race.

The Bluest Eye contains many powerful themes, including the dangers of love, as love and sex are complicated and can sometimes lead to abuse; the construction of beauty, as society shapes our understanding of beauty and often equates beauty with worth; and self-loathing, as the characters learn from American culture to despise themselves for not being white. The novel also contains many important symbols including movie stars, light eyes, and flowers.

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