The Bluest Eye

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.

In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
 
Here, Morrison’s writing is “so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry” (The New York Times).

Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/117662/the-bluest-eye-by-toni-morrison/ 

Keywords/Themes 

Beauty standards, racism, internalized racism, identity, self-worth, childhood trauma, sexual violence, family dysfunction, longing, invisibility.

Book Review & Recommended Use in Classroom 

Pecola’s life is narrated through different perspectives—small scenes of her, her family members’, and friends’ lives—all showing a different facet of how she is discriminated against and despised more than anybody else around her, because she is Black, poor, and considered ugly. Reading The Bluest Eye feels like participating in a guilty gaze; as the narrator puts it, “All of us felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her.”
That is why I think this novel could be a good choice for older upper school students, who are capable of taking one step back and reflecting on their own (discriminatory) behaviours. I would read the novel as a whole, but I think individual scenes could also be singled out, read, and discussed—e.g., Cholly’s first sexual experience, disrupted by two white men who demand to watch. After that traumatising experience, Cholly’s rage is directed primarily towards the girl. Why?

(Alexandra, April 2025)

Sensitive Content

This book includes depictions of difficult experiences such as child sexual abuse/incest, physical violence, emotional neglect, racism, and psychological trauma. It also explores complex themes like internalized self-hatred, poverty, and mental illness. These elements are central to the narrative. Teachers should carefully select sections to read with students and provide context.  

About the Author

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio) was a renowned American novelist, editor, and professor whose work powerfully explored African American identity, community, and history—especially the lives of Black women. Growing up in a working-class family steeped in storytelling and folklore, Morrison developed a deep appreciation for language and culture. She earned degrees from Howard and Cornell universities and taught at several institutions before becoming the first Black woman senior editor at Random House, where she championed Black writers. Her fiction, including The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, blended poetic prose with elements of folklore and memory to illuminate the Black experience in America. Morrison’s personal and professional life was dedicated to lifting marginalized voices and reshaping the literary landscape through both her writing and mentorship. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1988 and became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/search?query=toni+morrison