The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye

By Toni Morrison

Image Credit: Penguin Random House

1.      Bibliography

Morrison, T. (2007). The Bluest Eye. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0307278441

2.      Plot Summary

A grown woman, Claudia, tells us about an incident that happened years ago in Lorain, Ohio. The memory of this event continues to trouble her today because there are no answers as to why it happened. The knowledge that a friend of Claudia and her sister was pregnant with the child of her own father, suddenly ripped away all of their childhood innocence. They knew that men often get violent when they are drunk and that sometimes men, in blind despondency, commit mean and hateful acts – including rape. But neither Claudia nor her sister had ever seen anyone whose father had raped his own daughter.

They wished long and hard that the baby would be well and strong. In an attempt to help make this happen, they secretly planted some marigold seeds thinking that if the marigolds grew and bloomed, then maybe there would be hope for their friend’s baby. But they didn’t. Claudia has decided that the earth was suppressing the repulsive act of rape, letting people know a terrible atrocity had occurred and that people should realize that the absence of marigolds would be remembered as a symbol of this crime against nature.

3.      Critical Analysis

The Bluest Eye is an introspective novel of black consciousness, written in 1970 by Toni Morrison. The author grew up in Lorain, Ohio, not far from Cleveland.  She was deeply influenced by the authors William Faulkner, James Joyce, and Virginia Hamilton. She began writing books that she wanted to read; books that no one had written yet, while she worked as an editor at Random House. Her novel Song of Solomon received the Book Critics Circle Award for fiction; Beloved received the Pulitzer Prize. In 1993, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

The Bluest Eye takes place mostly in Lorain, Ohio although, the back-story of the primary character’s parents takes place in Georgia and Kentucky.  The primary story takes place from 1940 to 1941. The key characters include Pecola Breedlove; an exceedingly plain young black girl who is placed in the MacTeer home after her father accidentally and drunkenly burns the family house to the ground. Pauline Breedlove; Pecola’s mother who was left with a permanent limp after stepping on a nail when she was a child. Cholly Breedlove; Pecola’s father who was discarded and left to die on a pile of junk when he was only a few days old. Sammy Breedlove; Pecola’s brother who lives in perpetual dread of this father’s violence. Geraldine; a black woman striving for middle-class status. Louis, Jr; Geraldine’s son. Soaphead Church; a mixed-blood, eccentric, self-claimed faith healer whom Pecola seeks out, asking him to give her the miracle of blue eyes. And, Claudia MacTeer; the frame narrator of the novel.

The main themes of the novel include the need for a home, acceptance, and fantasy.  Pecola and both of her parents have felt abandoned and alone through most of the story; they long for a loving home.  The theme of acceptance also is a major thread of the story. Pecola does not feel love or belonging (acceptance) anywhere.  Her father ignores her, her mother pours more comfort into the daughter of the family for whom she keeps the house.  And, because she feels ugly due to the extreme blackness of her skin, she feels that even her friends don’t want her. The theme of fantasy runs through the novel.  Several characters live in the fantasy of a better life.  Pecola’s fantasy of having blue eyes is central to the story.  Her mother “plays house” by trying to make her siblings have a better life.  The MacTeer’s border, Mr. Henry watches his fantasy life in a motion picture.  Pecola’s father’s fantasies are triggered by alcohol when he imagines that Pecola is a younger version of his wife.  Soaphead Church imagines he’s of noble ancestry. Maureen Peel, the most popular girl in school, is the sexual fantasy of all the schoolboys.

            The main symbols of the novel include blue eyes, marigolds, Dick and Jane, a Shirley Temple Drinking Cup, and “two lynch ropes”.  To Pecola, blue eyes are a symbol of the seemingly perfect world of white people. She latches onto this idea from reading the primer picture books with the blue-eyed children, their loving family, fun pets, and near-perfect life. Pecola believes that if she had blue eyes, she would be pretty and others would love an accept her.  Geraldine had a prized black cat with blue eyes.  And, owning that cat made her feel special, classier and unique.  She blames Pecola for killing her cat and makes Pecola feel more unworthy of approval.  Marigolds are a hardy fall flower. Claudia feels that, since they generally grow easily, it is a sign when they can’t get the flowers to grow in the barren earth. This lack of fertility, she feels, is nature crying out against the violation of what parents can do to their children. Dick and Jane, the -white family in the books that were used to teach children to read, was worshiped by Pecola.  She feels that this is the family and life you get to lead if you have blue eyes. The Shirley Temple cup is the cup that Pecola gets to use at the MacTeer house.  Pecola drinks a lot of milk just so she can gaze at the blond-haired, blue-eyed image on the cup. Toni Morrison describes the character of Maureen as having her hair braided into ‘two lynched ropes’. The schoolchildren adore her for her ‘white looks’ and have been taught by their parents and Hollywood to value images with white-woman-coifed-hairdos. The MacTeer girls have better self-esteem and don’t see Maureen as their other classmates do.

            The novel is written from the vantage point of a frame narrator with Claudia MacTeer recounting the story after she is grown. Each section starts with sentences from the Dick and Jane primers.  She runs them all together in a dizzying effect. The sentences are repeated over and over as if Pecola is trying to memorize them and learn the secret of how to live in that fantasy world.  The sentences come a spiral and blue as Pecola herself spin into madness. The story is told through four seasons.  This structure is used to show the passage of time.  The seasons are used as section headers but don’t seem to be used to mean anything within the story.  The backstories of Pecola’s mother and father interrupt the flow of time as does the story of Geraldine’s cat. The seasons, as a passage of time, indicate how much a young girl’s life can change in such a short amount of time.

            The Bluest Eye was Toni Morrison’s first novel.  It started as a short story that Morrison read to members of a literary club at Howard.  Unlike most stories of the time, it was not about a brave black girl battling prejudice but about a victim and bias for light skin.  Morrison writes about racial harassment by her black schoolmates, family, and neighbors.  And, Pecola, who never protests or retaliates but is a victim and lets things happen all while hoping and believing that blue eyes would deliver her from her terror and squalor.  It is also a novel of survival.  Even though Pecola goes seemingly mad, she survives.  Her friend Claudia fights battles for her friend.  Pecola’s mother is also a survivor.  She endures years of abuse at her husband’s hands, and through a subservient job in order to provide, and in the end provides a home for Pecola who is unable to care for herself.  In Morrison’s story, the women survive and the men perish or run.

4.      Expert Reviews

-          Kirkus Review: “A skillfully understated tribute to the fall of a sparrow for whose small tragedy there was no watching eye.”

-          New York Times: “So precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry.”

-          Newsweek: “This story commands attention, for it contains one black girl’s universe.”

-          The Detroit Free Press: “A profoundly successful work of fiction. Taut and understated, harsh in its detachment, sympathetic in its truth…it is an experience.”

5.      Connections

Other books by Toni Morrison:

-          (1973). Sula. Knopf. ISBN 1400033438

-          (1977). Song of Solomon. Alfred Knopf, Inc. ISBN 140003342X

-          (1987). Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN 1400033411

-          (2012). Home. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN 0307594165