The beginning of the novel is the rivalry between Heed and Christine, middle part is showing a friendship that existed once to these two women as children and their deep feelings towards the end of the novel. The women try to come together and find out about this communication situation on why they are not friends. Christine asks “Was he good to you, Heed?...Mind you at eleven I thought a box of candied popcorn was good treatment. He scrubbed my feet til the soles was like butter.”( Morrison 186) The misunderstandings of being young and ignorant, having no one to explain important things in life to them leads to the characters living the life they have. She started blaming everyone for a lot of things that were happening around her. Having…
The theme of the story, “The Bluest Eye” written by Toni Morrison, demonstrates the connection between the self-esteem of African-American people (beauty and ugliness), racism and hate. The reason why this theme is discussed was because, we can go back to the origins of African-Americans, it relates to the African diaspora, Jim Crow era, and how people negatively look at blacks today in society, and white supremacy destroyed black imaginary. But before this goes on furthermore, the audience needs to understand the importance of the dominant society which strongly removed the identity of African-American. Claudia and Maureen play perfect roles during the story. They show…
One reason critics praise Toni Morrison’s, The Bluest Eye is because of the way the novel accurately portrays the way society views itself and others (Hoffman). She precisely shows in her work, that mankind is flawed in this aspect. Similar to that, Toni Morrison asks the novel’s readers “to think about perspectives of all types” (Hoffman). With the book’s inclusion of racism and self loathing the author wants the readers to connect with the protagonist, on an emotional basis, and try to first-hand understand Pecola’s perspective. Perhaps the most significant reason critics cite in favor of the novel not being banned is the story’s potential to incite analyzations about self-esteem and body image (Lalami). Readers and educators alike could read the book in detail, and have discussions about the author’s…
Chloe Anthony Wofford, better known Toni Morrison, was born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. She is a Noble Prize- and Pulitzer Prize- winning American novelist. Her well known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. She is the second oldest of four children. Her father, George Wofford, worked as a welder but he also had other jobs to support his family. Her mother, Ramah, was a domestic worker. She wasn’t aware of racial divisions until her teenage years. In the future she majored in English at Howard University in 1953. Later on completed her masters in 1955 at Cornell University. She then went to work at Howard University to teach English. She found her true love, Harold Morrison, and got married in 1958 then had her…
To begin, "The Bluest Eye" is Toni Morrison's first novel. This novel tells a story of an African American girl's desire for the bluest eyes, which is the symbol for her of what it means to feel beautiful and accepted in society (American). In the novel, women suffer from the racial oppression, but they also suffer from violation and harsh actions brought to them by men (LitCharts). Male oppression is told all throughout the story, but the theme of women and feminity with the actions of male oppression over the women reaches its horrible climax when one…
A three-hundred-year history of slavery in America led to a psychological oppression of black people in America, which still exists today. Toni Morrison decides not to delineate how white dominance has affected African-Americans culturally yet she challenges American standards of white beauty and how that beauty is socially constructed within our culture. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison uses society’s image of beauty to demonstrate how the value of black beauty is diminished by racial prejudices and dilemmas through the lives of Pecola Breedlove, Claudia and Freida MacTeer, whose young minds were affected by this internalized idea that the color of your skin determined how perfect or worthy you were seen, not to yourself and on the inside, but…
Toni Morrison (Chloe Anthony Wofford) is an American novelist, editor, play writer, and professor. Her nickname, Toni, came from her baptismal name, Anthony. She became Catholic and received this name at the age of 12. She is the first African American who won the Nobel Prize in literature. Morrison also won many other honorable awards. Her novels are famous for epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters.…
The Bluest Eye is a novel by Toni Morrison that takes place at the end of the Great Depression in Ohio. In the novel, the MacTeer family first takes in a young boarder named Pecola Breedlove after her father Cholly has attempted to burn down the family home, but she is soon reunited with her own family despite their hardships. The MacTeer family are essential to the novel because one of the young daughters, Frieda, seems to suffer from a much less severe racism than most other characters, going as far as to destroy a white doll she is given. Cholly drinks, and Cholly and Pecola’s mother Pauline are physically abusive towards each other, leading her brother Sammy to run away from the home.…
While Toni Morrison was growing up she has also experienced prejudices similar to Twyla. Toni Morrison’s family moved to Ohio to get away from the dangers and economic struggles of the south (Kubitschek 5). As Toni Morrison grew up, she wondered what it meant to be black. She has said that when someone was born black they had to “decide to be black” (3). What Morrison said goes beyond skin color and refers to what the world views (3). This gives insight on why Morrison decided to write this short story. Both women Twyla and Roberta have preconceived views of each other based on world views. Once they build an emotional relationship with each other, they forget what the world has always told them about each other.…
The Bluest Eye is a complex novel written by Toni Morrison, an African American literary theorist. Morrison evokes a society still plagued by the premise of slavery and the exposes this mode of white inferiority through The Bluest Eye. “Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe”, Morrison endows these last couple of sentences with a lyrical quality that makes the readers truly understand the depth of Cholly’s character and the “freeness” he experiences. Morrison initially introduces Cholly Breedlove as the antagonist, a drunk and very abusive father; any man who would beat his wife, set his house on fire and rape his daughter couldn’t…
The Bluest Eye, written in 1970, is novel by Toni Morrison. It is Morrison's first novel and was written while she was teaching at Howard University. The Bluest Eye tells the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl growing up in Morrison's hometown of Lorain, Ohio, during the hard times following the Great Depression. In this novel, Toni Morrison addresses a timeless problem of white racial dominance in the United States and points to the impact it has on the life of black females growing up in the 1930's.…
Beloved by Toni Morrison sets place in Ohio during the post-civil war era. Morrison publishes the novel in 1987 to remind the public of slavery in the United States. She implies that the past events also affect future events. Morrison dedicates the book to “Sixty Million and More” slaves. Similar to Beloved’s grave, the novel serves as a memorial to remember the black slaves in the United States.…
The author of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses a number of literary elements in order to illustrate Pecola’s desperation to try and become beautiful and thus improve her life. One of the most important literary elements used is setting. The setting of the novel as stated earlier is Lorain, Ohio during the 1940s when discrimination for being black was rampant. Located in the Midwest, Pecola grew up knowing that she was not beautiful, because she was black. Everywhere she went everyone looked down upon her and mocked her and her entire family.…
I was not able to attend a live jazz performance due to my work schedule, so instead I watched a performance of my favorite jazz artist Nina Simone on Youtube. In this video she performed “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life” in London, 1968. I chose Nina Simone because I felt that whenever I watch her performances on Youtube I get the feeling that I’m actually there, watching her. I’ve never heard this song before watching this video.…
Viewing life through a lense that focuses on race and physical features, rather than one that looks deeper than the skin distracts you from seeing all someone or something has to offer. In the story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison, the author purposely tests the reader as to what lense they are viewing the story through by never revealing the race of any individual character. In the beginning of the story, when Big Bozo first introduced Twyla and Roberta, Twyla says, “My mother won’t like you putting me in here,” and, “we looked like salt and pepper standing there.” (204) Readers may often see this imagery provoking piece of dialogue as meaning Twyla is white. Readers often jump to this conclusion as it is a stereotype that, in earlier times when…