[Review] The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

Title of Book: The Bluest Eye
Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Vintage International
Publication Year: 2007
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 206

Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife.
A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison's virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.
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The Bluest Eye tells the story of two young African American, Pecola Breedlove and Claudia MacTeer, growing up in the 1940s in Ohio. This book is told from multiple point of views, mainly from the eyes of Claudia. It follows them through four seasons, Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer. The book opens with an excerpt from Dick and Jane text which is a series of books used to teach children to read in the 1940s America. The text illustrates the ideal white middle class family. A variation of the text appears in the beginning of every chapter in the book. This text is important to the story since the characters in this book show the difficulties of growing up in a less than ideal society-defined environment.

The title refers to the ideal that the society has on beauty. In the book, Claudia and Pecola learned how the worth of someone is defined by her/his appearance. Through their peers and adults, they learned the more light-skinned and pretty you are the more you’ll be valued. One time, when Claudia was given a doll with white skin and blue eyes as a gift, she tore it apart to see why it’s considered as cute. This book shows the difficulties of growing up in a society that doesn’t value you. It’s horrible. In this book, it leads Pecola to believe that having blue eyes would give her more value. Even right until the end when Pecola was abused, instead of helping her, the neighbors gossip about her which traumatized her more.

Reading this book was not easy for me; so was writing my thoughts on it. The narration is rough. I thought it’s because this is the first published book by Morrison. The more I think about it, perhaps it’s intentional considering it’s told from the perspective of a child. The narration can also be confusing at times. It goes back and forth with no mark and jump from one character to another abruptly. The theme discussed here is also not easy to read but important and I’m glad that Morrison pointed that out loud. This book shows how definitive and scary social construct on beauty is. We have two young African American who grew up in a similar yet different situation. The outcome is of course different as shown in the ending where we have Pecola trying to deal with her trauma by creating an alter-ego and believing that she achieved what she believed was the key to become ideal and worth to be loved by society. Yet, she still wasn’t satisfied because her trauma wasn’t addressed properly. With Claudia, we have her reminiscing the past as the narrator, telling Pecola’s story, giving her voice which she wasn’t given to the entire time.

Overall, though the book discusses heavy topic, I think it’s worth to read. I have several Morrison’s books on my TBR and I’m glad I finally brave myself to read one. Keeping in mind that this book is her first one, I’m enthusiastic to read her other books. If you’re looking for a heart wrenching story with a powerful message within, I recommend this book to read.

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