Overview
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) is the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old Black girl who believes that if she had blue eyes, she would finally be beautiful, loved, and safe. The novel is set in Lorain, Ohio, in 1940-1941. Much of the story is narrated by Claudia MacTeer, one of Pecola’s girlhood friends. Claudia and her sister Frieda witness Pecola’s suffering at the hands of her family and the community. The novel explores the themes of internalized racism, community complicity, generational trauma and pain, and loss of innocence.
Morrison began Pecola’s story as a short piece in 1962; it became a novel-in-progress by 1965. She said The Bluest Eye developed out of a conversation she had with a friend when she was in elementary school. She and her friend were discussing whether or not God existed. Morrison said, “yes”; her friend said, “no,” and presented as proof that she had prayed for two years to have blue eyes, and God had not answered her prayer. Morrison was thinking about this conversation in the 1960s, when the “Black is Beautiful” movement was working to reclaim African American beauty and she began her first novel. The questions that Morrison was compelled to explore in the novel were: “How does a child learn self-loathing? Where does it come from? Who enables it? How is it infectious? What are its consequences?”
As in all of Morrison’s novels, the community is integral to The Bluest Eye.The novel foregrounds the various ways individuals in the community attempt to navigate and reconcile their past and present circumstances as they struggle to create a livable future; and it places in stark relief the ways that those harmed by racism can perpetuate, or be complicit in the perpetuation of, harm towards the most vulnerable of its members.
In terms of The Bluest Eye‘s narrative structure, the chapters have no titles; they are divided into four sections, each section bearing the name of one of the four seasons. Historical events are referenced throughout the novel (World War I and II, the Great Migration, The Great Depression), but nature guides the actions and the themes of the narrative. The present action takes the reader from 1940 to 1941. As with most of her novels, Morrison reveals the entire plot of the novel in the beginning pages and then guides the reader backward and forward in time—weaving together the past and the present—to discover the “how,” if not definitively the “why.”
The Bluest Eye blendselements of several literary genres: Bildungsroman (coming-of-age), psychological fiction, and tragedy into an examination of the damage internalized racism can do to the most vulnerable member of the community, who is, according to Morrison, a young Black girl.
Background Knowledge and Historical Contexts
The optional readings and videos below provide some historical context which may be useful when reading the novel.
- The Great Migration: The Great Migration (1910-1970) | National Archives
- The Great Depression: The Great Depression | Federal Reserve History
- World War I & World War II: African American History and WWI | National WWI Museum and Memorial and World War II: Causes, Timeline, Key Battles, Facts & Legacy | HISTORY
- The Maginot Line: The French Maginot Line: Its Full History and Legacy after WWII
Questions/Topics to Consider While Reading
- Family, Community, Migration: Being “put outdoors” is the ultimate terror and humiliation according to the community. How does this metaphor function in the novel? Note all the images of poverty, barrenness, and death that fill the first three paragraphs of the novel. Explain how these images might clue the reader into the state of the Black community in 1940-1941 America. Consider the importance of community and companionship in the novel. How do the residents create and maintain a sense of community? How does Morrison set up comparisons between a Northern Black community and the Southern Black way of life? What values have been lost in the migration north? Why do you think Morrison says that the most vulnerable member of the Black community is a young girl? How does she support this idea in the novel? One of the themes in the novel is that of the “pariah” or outcast. Which characters can be considered pariah and why? What is the role of the pariah in this novel?
- Standards of Beauty: What are the parameters of “beauty” as created in the novel? In what ways does the community as a whole internalize and enforce white standards of beauty and respectability? Why do the Breedloves believe they are ugly?
- Exploration of Memory and the Past: How do the personal traumas the characters have experienced in their pasts affect their ability to live in the present?
- Identity/Naming: Discuss the significance of names and naming in the novel (Pecola Breedlove, The Maginot Line, Poland, China, Soaphead Church). What does “Pecola’s unbeing” mean, and who is to blame for it?
- Love and Relationships: Why does the narrator say that the concepts of “romantic love” and “physical beauty” are probably “the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought”? Where do the characters first encounter the ideas of romantic love and beauty? How do the characters’ lives bear out that statement? What aspects of love are examined in the novel? How can Claudia possibly say that Cholly loved Pecola? On what does she base this belief? Discuss the statement at the end of the novel, “Love is never any better than the lover… .” How does this statement apply to the characters in the novel? Compare Pauline’s dream of finding her “someone” with Nel’s dream of finding her “someone” in Sula and Violet’s dream of finding her “someone” in Jazz? What do you think Morrison is saying to the reader about the nature of love, for Black women in particular? What is the broader cultural significance of Cholly hating Darlene rather than the white men who shine the flashlight on both of them during their sexual encounter?
- Womanhood and Motherhood: What does the doctor say about Pauline and Black women in general during childbirth? What does Pauline do to contradict this attitude? The three mothers—Mrs. MacTeer, Pauline Breedlove, and Geraldine—represent different responses to motherhood under oppression. How do these women’s parenting styles reflect their attempts to navigate racism, poverty, and cultural expectations of Black women? How does the novel explore the tension between self-identity and motherhood? Contrast church women’s ways of coping with poverty, racism, and sexism with the prostitutes’ ways of coping. What statement do you believe Morrison is making through this comparison/contrast? Examine the theme of sisterhood and the different female relationships in the novel. Why are Frieda and Claudia able to survive their experiences while Pecola is unable to survive hers?
- Morality, Religion and Ethical Dilemmas: What roles do religion and morality play in the novel? Which character(s) best reflect(s) these roles? Discuss Soaphead Church’s letter to God. What is Morrison saying about religious beliefs/concepts through Soaphead’s character? Discuss the implications of being “clean,” “nasty,” and “ruined” in the novel. Who makes these determinations? On what are they based? How do these judgments function in the community as a whole? What do you think Morrison is telling us by having the “good Christian women” who take care of Aunt Jimmy when she’s sick put their faith in M’Dear, the community’s folk healer, and by having the pastor transport M’Dear to and from Aunt Jimmy’s bedside?
- Imagery and Symbolism: Discuss the nature symbolism in the novel (the seasons, marigolds, dandelions, grass growing up through a crack in the sidewalk) Is Morrison’s use of natural imagery hopeful or ironic? What is the symbolic significance of the marigolds in the section of “Autumn”? What is the symbolic significance of Pauline’s deformed foot? Morrison uses eyes and vision as central symbols throughout the novel. What significance do you find in Pecola’s desire for blue eyes, in characters being “seen” or rendered invisible, and in the community’s way of looking at Pecola?
- Morrison’s Writing Style: Analyze the two prologues to the novel. What is the significance of Morrison’s use of the Dick and Jane reading primer that children traditionally read in first or second grade? What does it mean when the text of the primer runs together in a flood of unpunctuated words? How are the two prologues (the primer and Claudia’s prologue) similar and/or different? Discuss the connection between the lines from the primer that begin each chapter and the focus of that chapter. How does the cyclical structure of the novel (autumn to summer) relate to the content of each section and the overall themes of the narrative? How many narrators are there in the novel? How do they function? Which narrative point of view do you think is most central to the novel and why? Why does Morrison choose Claudia to narrate Pecola’s story? At the end of the novel, Claudia questions her own right or ability to tell the truth about Pecola’s experience. How seriously are we to take her questioning? How does Claudia as narrator shape the reader’s understanding of the characters and the community? Is she a reliable narrator? Who is Pecola talking to at the end of the novel?
