The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Lorain, Ohio

The Bluest Eye is the debut novel of the indescribable, amazing Toni Morrison. Morrison went on to write 11 novels and many other pieces of literary work, eventually winning both a Pulitzer (1977) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1993). The Bluest Eye is my third Morrison novel (I’ve also read Sula (1973) and Home (2012)), and I plan on reading all of her works.

The majority of the plot points are told at the very beginning of the novel, so I don’t really consider much of the review as “spoilers,” but consider this a warning for them.

The Bluest Eye follows the tragic story of Pecola Breedlove. She is an 11 year old, poor black girl living in post-Great Depression Ohio. At the beginning of the novel, she is living with the MacTeer family after Pecola’s father tried to burn down their home. Not long after, Pecola is raped by her father and becomes pregnant.

There are a few major takeaways from this novel. The first, which is where the title of the story comes from, is the idea of blackness as ugliness and whiteness as beauty. Poor Pecola is obsessed with the idea of having blue eyes, thinking that would make her beautiful. Pecola suffers a nervous breakdown at the end of the novel, the desire for whiteness eventually overcoming her (as well as hopelessness stemming from poverty and lack of familial support system). The narrator does not share that same belief, characterized by her destruction of white dolls.

Next, there is the idea of how society has failed Pecola. Unfortunately, I can think back to my own childhood and remember those children, usually living in poverty, that couldn’t keep up. They were dirty, poorly mannered, and everyone responded to them with anger, not sympathy. They were passed along year after year even though they were not at an adequate reading level because nobody knew how or simply didn’t want to help them. I thought about that family often while reading this novel. When people respond to poverty with anger, nobody wins, yet that’s what people have been doing seemingly since the beginning of capitalism.

Unlike the example of the family I was referring to, race also accounts for part of the anger towards Pecola from the community. In the United States in particular (but likely throughout the world), black people were told they had to be Twice As Good in order to be accepted into white society. So dirty, poor black people like Pecola brought down the whole race because society as a whole (influenced by white supremacy) is constantly judging each individual black person by the race as a whole. One of my favorite chapters in this book was the one about Geraldine (Chapter 5).

Like most of my favorite books, the plot of this novel is minimal, but there is excellent character development and rich backgrounds for all the characters. It is an important novel that should be continued to be read far and wide.

Review by the Numbers:

Overall: 4/5

Writing: 5/5

Plot: 3/5

Character Development: 4/5

Message: 5/5

Challenges Satisfied:

- Ohio (Reading My Way Around the World Challenge)

- A Book About Black Experiences (My Diversity Challenge)

- A Book Published in the 1970s (My Diversity Challenge)

- A Book with a Black/African American Author (Celebrity Readers 2021 Diversity Challenge)

- A Book Featuring Three Generations (2021 PopSugar Reading Challenge)