About this title: In this novel about the nature of black identity, narrated by Pecola's friend Claudia, we learn that Pecola was raped by her father, and is plagued with a desire to be white.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Plume Books
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780452282193ISBN:0452282195
Description: New. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 216 p. Oprah's Book Club (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
"The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison is about a girl Pecola Breedlove. The period of 1941, she really wants blues eyes so she could be pretty and beautiful. In other's eyes and her own she is ugly because she is black. She wants to see the world that the white's see. Growing up in a world where the whites were in control; In a world of racism. In addition, her mother works for the whites and Pecola wants a family like the whites. One day her father came home drunk and he raped her thinking she was the mother, Pauline Breedlove. The worst part was her mother did not believe her and she beat her. I find that very disturbing and it seems like such things could happen to a poor family back in the 1941s. I am glad that in the society that we live in nowadays in our community there is no racism. On the other hand, I do think racism is still going on. Not only other countries but also America, Also, not everyone can have what they want, and if everyone was beautiful white with blue eyes the uniqueness will be gone. On the other hand, i did not like how the book was told in more than one person. To me it's a bit hard to keep up."
"The novel tellingly starts with a Dick-and-Jane story which is repeated without interpunction and without spacing and then is fragmented into pieces that structure the rest of the book as chapter titles. The ideal, harmonious family and middle class happiness is set as the goal to reach in life and contrasts with the story of the dysfunctional, oppressed black families in the novel. We are being introduced to several persons and families with special attention for Pecola's family, and Morrison poetically describes the way black people are oppressed and marginalised, are imbued with white middle-class ideals and standards and consequently start considering themselves inferior and 'ugly'.
Cholly tries to escape the horror of his life by drinking, Mrs. Breedlove represses her initial love for country life and flees from her family troubles by immerging herself in a white middle class household where she is a servant and finds solace in the Bible's promise of a better life after death, some 'fortunate' blacks are upwardly mobile, but rigidly conform themselves to middle class morality and suppress all their passions and affections, (get rid of their 'funkiness'), Pecola tries to disappear to escape her own ugliness and eventually becomes a split personality and Claudia is the only one who never really gets indoctrinated, who is always critically observing and who tells her story as a blues singer , finding happiness in lament and hope in forward movement. She never identifies with mainstream ideals and tries to deconstruct this ideology (quite literally in dismembering the doll).
She, as Cat Moses argues, "bears witness, through the oral tradition of testifying, to the community's lack of self-love and its transference of this lack onto the abject body of Pecola". Throughout the novel, he points out, Claudia's observations are guided by a sharp-edged humor. Her narrative is characterized by the adaptive laughing-to-keep-from-crying perspective that is central to the blues and that Bernard Bell, in his study of the African American novel, terms "double vision." But Pecola's development as a blues subject stops at the first verse: She is entirely defined and consumed by lack. Here the importance of upbringing, family and community are stressed: the different situation of the Breedloves and the McTeers is reflected in the different character development of Claudia and Pecola.
Toni Morrison investigates the destructive power of racial stereotypes and oppression, focusing in more detail on the impact on women and children. With an impressive poetic style, rich symbolism and much feeling for drama and irony, she testifies to the tragedy of withered fruit on an unyielding earth, to the 'botanical aberration', the disruption of nature and its terrible consequences for individual lives. "Quiet as it's kept", there is a drama and the secret of a silent conspiracy, the mute tyranny of oppressive hegemonic values, is unveiled. We are not provided with answers or solutions, but are shocked into awareness of social problems that need to be addressed."
"Excerpt from a reflection I wrote for a course entitled "Gender, Bodies, and the Medical Establishment":
"I think it's interesting to think about the two different layers of illness/disability present in The Bluest Eye; on a very literal level, the characters have their moments of illness, and on a metaphorical level, I think that Morrison is discussing the way in which simply being black is disabling for her characters. It highlights the way in which whiteness (or blue eyes, if we want to reduce it that much) is accepted as the aesthetic norm, and the way in which blackness becomes both the visible opposite to that, and a kind of clock of invisibility.
I thought it very interesting that the narrator explicitly refuses the idea that whiteness is beautiful, making whiteness unintelligible by conflating little white girls and the dolls that she mutilates. She notes that she is not yet old enough to make the change to liking white dolls/girls/people and finding them beautiful, implying that these kinds of aesthetic sensibilities are wholly constructed by society.
Speaking of which, I think it would be interesting to think about age as it relates to disability in this novel, or maybe age and gender-what comment might Morrison be making about little black girls? They certainly seem to be the worst treated in the story; could she be making a connection between each of these identity categories and disability, noting that each piece of these girls serves to displace them in society, make them available to taunts, invisibility, rape? Is each black character in the book disabled from birth, in the sense that society is constructed in such a way to prevent them from living lives like the whites in the story?""
"I just read this today, and the rating system really doesn't apply to my feelings, which are still fresh, on this book : "I like it" "I really liked it", etc. I have NO idea how to rate this book.
I didn't like the book. As the author herself states in the afterward, "...this is a terrible story about things one would rather not know anything about." But at the same time, the story is engrossing, I found the back stories interesting, and really fell in love with the three little girls. Though some of the varying voices that tell their stories don't flow as well in telling their story, the character development is really amazing. The point of view through innocence in the girls makes the horrors and injustices all the more...horrific and upsetting.
This book evoked strong emotions in me, which, according to the author, was the point. She did that job well. I feel a strong sense of loss, disgust, revoltion, sadness, and frustration at not knowing how to "fix" things.
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
