Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

A presentation by

SungHyeog Park, Jacqueline Scher, and Dylan Fowler

The Author: Toni Morrison

• African-American novelist, editor, and professor

• Born in Lorain, Ohio• Wrote ten novels• The first, The Bluest Eye was published in

1970• Has received the Nobel Prize in Literature and

the Pulitzer Prize in Literature among other awards

The Bluest Eye: A Banned Book

• Challenged and banned by several school districts for its explicit sexual content

• Never banned by the Federal Government• Most recent example: • Challenged in 2012 in Connecticut’s Brookfield

High School curriculum

Plot Summary

• The prologue begins by describing a picturesque family and their house

• Claudia, the narrator of the prologue, believes that there were no marigolds in the Fall of 1941 because Pecola was having her father’s baby

• The novel begins with the Macteer household gaining two new members, Mr. Henry and Pecola Breedlove

• Two major moments in Pecola’s maturation occur– Pecola receiving her first period– When Pecola and Claudia begin to wonder how they could get

someone to love them

Plot Summary

• Pecola describes her previous living situation to the reader. • While her parents were fighting, Pecola prays for blue eyes

and says that she has been praying for that for years.• Later, a store clerk refuses to fully acknowledge Pecola when

she is purchasing candy.• Pecola longs to be like the blue eyed blonde haird girl on the

candy wrapper.• Pecola visits the three prostitutes that live above her family’s

storefront apartment

Plot Summary

• The new girl at school, Maureen Peal, enchants her classmates and is the envy of Frieda and Claudia

• On the walk home from school one day, Frieda, Claudia, and Maureen stop a group of boys from bullying Pecola

• The girls have a falling out with Maureen and Maureen calls them ugly

• At home, Claudia and Frieda encounter Henry with two of the prostitutes introduced earlier in the novel

Key words

• Roomer: a tenant (used to describe Mr. Henry)• Outdoors: Homelessness• Switch: A flexible rod used for corporal punishment • Mary Janes: Peanut butter and molasses candy that

depicts a Caucasian girl on its wrapper• High yellow dream child: A light-skinned person of

mixed Caucasian and African heritage (used to describe Maureen)

Themes

• Whiteness as the Standard of Beauty• The Ways Race and Class affect positions in

Society• Sex and Love• Perception vs. How One is Perceived

Modern Version: Ukrainian Barbie

Discussion Questions

• What role does nature play in the novel?

• How does the idea of beauty imposed on Claudia and Pecola affect their actions in throught this part of the novel?

• What are some other modern examples of society’s description of beauty negatively impacting individuals?