The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison

“I wrote Sula and The Bluest Eye because they are the books I had wanted to read. No one had written them yet, so I wrote them.”

-Toni Morrison

                                                       

Toni Morrison’ s ‘The Bluest Eye’ is a novel written in 1970. The book paints a vivid picture of its eleven year old black protagonist, Pecola Breedlove who pines for Blue Eyes all through the novel. Her story is narrated by a child and adult narrator, Claudia MacTeer. The book is published by Vintage, 1999.

Through her various women characters, Morrison renders triple oppression faced by women in black community, through race, class and gender. In my opinion, Morrison targets both the white and the black communities of America. The book traces the lives of several women belonging to Breedlove, MacTeer and Fisher families. For the first time the horrors faced by black men are brought into limelight by a black women writer. The book swings between the past and present; it passes through the time of World War II where America fights the world against racism but fails to do so in her own country; into the present where Civil Rights Movement was in act. The major part of novel takes place in Lorrain, Ohio.

The language is used in a lyrical sense, adapting true African tradition of writing. She stays true to the language used by characters that is colloquial, slang and abusive. The sadness and the blues of the characters are narrated very-well in this elegy. The complex nature of its narrative technique can befuddle its readers. The major narrator being Claudia MacTeer who narrates the story of young Pecola; Pauline Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove and Pecola who is given two voices of the self which is also a fragmented self. The authorial voice can also be heard in adult Claudia’s narration.

The extensive use of symbols, myths, themes and metaphors make this a phenomenal work of Morrison. The rich and detailed characterization of each of the characters makes them a rounded figure and lets them come alive. The book may be an elegy that does not make its readers sympathize with one character or victimize any one in particular, on the contrary, it awakens its readers, makes them question and makes them look beyond the horizons of the set norms. The book focuses on the racist ideologies set in America that has created a veil where the black community vicariously lives like the white community.

The issue of black women is represented as the victims of the white beauty standards of society, the commonality of this issue has popularized and valorized the standards of beauty.  The core subject matter of the book is racism, classism, sexism, sexuality, incest and rape have been dealt with severity and complexity at the same time. The intricate nature of the language and multifaceted narrative style has made the books’ readership limited.

The book ends in a tragic scenario of Pecola becoming mad after being raped by her father twice also beaten up by her own mother and not believing her. The rebellious nature of Claudia in her childhood against the desire of white beauty finally leads to assimilation towards the end of the novel. The part that was heart rendering for me was the conversation of Pecola with her own self. The book provides the readers with fragments of several lives and Morrison combines all of their blues in “The Bluest Eye”.

Toni Morrison is a renowned African-American writer. She won the Nobel Prize in 1993 for the The Bluest Eye and in 1987 the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved. Her various other works include “Sula”, “Jazz”, “Songs of Solomon” and others. Morrison has also indulged into writing Children’s literature, plays, non-fiction as well. Her novels deal with oppressed black women, Morrison does not identify her works as feminist.