The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

About Writer:

Toni Morrison, original name Chloe Anthony Wofford, (born February 18, 1931, Lorain, Ohio, U.S.—died August 5, 2019, Bronx, New York), American writer noted for her examination of black experience (particularly black female experience) within the black community. She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Morrison’s first book, The Bluest Eye (1970), is a novel of initiation concerning a victimized adolescent black girl who is obsessed by white standards of beauty and longs to have blue eyes. In 1973 a second novel, Sula, was published; it examines (among other issues) the dynamics of friendship and the expectations for conformity within the community. Song of Solomon (1977) is told by a male narrator in search of his identity; its publication brought Morrison to national attention. Tar Baby (1981), set on a Caribbean island, explores conflicts of race, class, and sex. 

The critically acclaimed Beloved (1987), which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is based on the true story of a runaway slave who, at the point of recapture, kills her infant daughter in order to spare her a life of slavery. A film adaptation of the novel was released in 1998 and starred Oprah Winfrey. In addition, Morrison wrote the libretto for Margaret Garner (2005), an opera about the same story that inspired Beloved.

About Novel:

"The Bluest Eye", published in 1970, is the first novel written by author Toni Morrison. Morrison is an acclaimed African American novelist, Pulitzer, and Nobel Prize winner whose works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the US. This novel is also based on the topic of racism.

“The Bluest Eye” tells the story of an African – American girl named Pecola. Pecola is a young girl of may be 9 or 10 years old. She suffers mentally and physically. Her father is a drunkard and her mother works at the house of white wealthy family. Both of them don’t have time for Pecola. Both of them used to fight verbally and physically. Pecola suffers the racism at school, in her neighbourhood and mostly every where. Claudia and Frida, are sisters. They both are friends of Pecola.

Once Pecola’s father raped her, and it happened again also. After raping second time Cholly runs away, by leaving pregnant Pecola behind. Then Pecola comes to know about their parents suffering by having black skin. Everybody except Claudia and Frida wants that Pecola’s baby should die. Her baby born pre mature and that is why baby dies. Pecola now had lost her mental stability. Now she wish for blue eyes, which in hypocritically racist society believes as standard of beauty. At the end she also believes that she has got blue eyes, and that is why everybody has changed their behaviour with Pecola.

So, this is how the racism affects the life of every African American person. Of this is what they suffer then there is something wrong in other peoples’ culture and thinking. That something wrong should be identify and removed, so others Pecola can live with their own eye color.