The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: Analysis
Analytical Essay
Robert Ziglar
Rasmussen College
Authors Note:
This paper being submitted for American Literature as a final project on June 19, 2014
Analytical Essay
The main characters in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison were Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, Claudia MacTeer, and Frieda MacTeer (Morrison, 2007). Pecola Breedlove is an eleven-year-old black girl around whom the story revolves. Her innermost desire is to have the "bluest" (Morrison, 2007) eyes so that others will view her as pretty because that is what the white people have. In the end that desire is what finishes her, she believes that God gave her blue eyes causing her to become insane. She doesn 't have many friends other than Claudia and Frieda. Throughout the book we see how Pecola is picked on by other children her age and then later on abused by Cholly, her own father. Her mother doesn 't care for her either, her actions toward Pecola are not without contempt. Cholly Breedlove is Pecola 's drunken father. He has never known a loving family; his father deserted him and his mother who then left him to die in a garbage can. His great aunt saves him and raises him until her death, which occurred when Cholly was only thirteen or fourteen years old. Cholly himself deserts his family, not physically but he is always in a drunken state and doesn 't provide the family with the barest necessities. Claudia MacTeer is the main narrator in the story. She is about nine years old when they story takes place and is remembering the story. Claudia is black and doesn 't see anything wrong with that. She isn 't like the other girls who think it would be better if she was white, she doesn 't buy into that idea and she destroys the white dolls that she receives for Christmas. She takes apart the white dolls to try and discover the dearness that other people see in the dolls (Vasquez, 2014) Claudia has learned from her mother how to be a strong black female and express her
Robert Ziglar
Rasmussen College
Authors Note:
This paper being submitted for American Literature as a final project on June 19, 2014
Analytical Essay
The main characters in The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison were Pecola Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove, Claudia MacTeer, and Frieda MacTeer (Morrison, 2007). Pecola Breedlove is an eleven-year-old black girl around whom the story revolves. Her innermost desire is to have the "bluest" (Morrison, 2007) eyes so that others will view her as pretty because that is what the white people have. In the end that desire is what finishes her, she believes that God gave her blue eyes causing her to become insane. She doesn 't have many friends other than Claudia and Frieda. Throughout the book we see how Pecola is picked on by other children her age and then later on abused by Cholly, her own father. Her mother doesn 't care for her either, her actions toward Pecola are not without contempt. Cholly Breedlove is Pecola 's drunken father. He has never known a loving family; his father deserted him and his mother who then left him to die in a garbage can. His great aunt saves him and raises him until her death, which occurred when Cholly was only thirteen or fourteen years old. Cholly himself deserts his family, not physically but he is always in a drunken state and doesn 't provide the family with the barest necessities. Claudia MacTeer is the main narrator in the story. She is about nine years old when they story takes place and is remembering the story. Claudia is black and doesn 't see anything wrong with that. She isn 't like the other girls who think it would be better if she was white, she doesn 't buy into that idea and she destroys the white dolls that she receives for Christmas. She takes apart the white dolls to try and discover the dearness that other people see in the dolls (Vasquez, 2014) Claudia has learned from her mother how to be a strong black female and express her
References: Morrison, T. (2007). The bluest eye : a novel / Toni Morrison ; [with a foreword by the author]. New York : Vintage International, 2007. Vásquez, S. (2014). In Her Own Image: Literary and Visual Representations of Girlhood in Toni Morrison 's The Bluest Eye and Jamaica Kincaid 's Annie John. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 12(1), 58-87. doi:10.2979/meridians.12.1.58 Zebialowicz, A., & Palasinski, M. (2010). Probing Racial Dilemmas in the Bluest Eye with the Spyglass of Psychology. Journal Of African American Studies, 14(2), 220-233. doi:10.1007/s12111-009-9100y Constantine, M. G., Alleyne, V. L., Wallace, B. C., & Franklin-Jackson, D. C. (2006). Africentric cultural values: their relation to positive mental health in African American adolescent girls. Journal of Black Psychology, 32 (2), 141 – 154. Saunders, J. (2012). Why Losing a Tooth Matters: Shirley Jackson 's "The Tooth" and Toni Morrison 's "The Bluest Eye.". Midwest Quarterly, 53(2), 193-204. Kohzadi, H., Azizmohammadi, F., & Afrougheh, S. (2011). A STUDY OF BLACK FEMINISM AND WOMANISM IN TONI MORRISON 'S THE BLUEST EYE FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF ALICE WALKER. International Journal Of Academic Research, 3(2), 1307-1312.