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A Researched Analytical Essay: The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

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A Researched Analytical Essay: The Bluest Eye

In the novel “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, we are provided an extended interpretation of how whiteness is the standard of beauty, which distorts the lives of black women and children, through messages everywhere that whiteness is superior. The theme of race and that white skin is greater is portrayed through the lives and stories told by the characters, especially the three girls Claudia, Pecola and Frieda. Through the struggles those people have endured, Morrison shows us the destructive effect of this internalized idea of white beauty on the individual and on society.

“The Bluest Eye” has a number of elements that relate closely to Toni Morrison’s own personal life. The story is set in Lorain, Ohio, the town in which Morrison grew up. Lorain’s population in considered ethnically unequal. Segregation was still legal, but the community was mostly integrated – both black and white children would attend the same schools, and neighborhoods were commonly interracial. The novel is also narrated by a …show more content…

As stated by Lynn Scott in her literary article “Beauty, Virtue, and Disciplinary Power: A Foucauldian Reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye”, the intended purpose of the historical reflection in the novel is “to not romanticize the past, or to justify the present, but to unmask structures of power.” Claudia MacTeer, the narrator in the novel, makes this clear to the reader by stating that she wishes to discover the how of the story rather than the why and all of the intentions. Claudia finishes her introduction by stating, “There is really nothing more to say – except why. But since why is so difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.” (9) Claudia would rather just come up with a more functional description rather than delving deep into the reasoning of society and life’s

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