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The Bluest Eye Analytical Essay

552 Words3 Pages

The Bluest Eye was written by Toni Morrison, and published in the year 1970. The novel details the complex life of one black girl growing up in Ohio in the 1940s. In this world, a part of our past, there existed a strong social stratification that separated people by race, by gender and by class. While most people think of the Deep South as the territory where racism and poverty thrived, the truth is that the North wasn’t as good as people think. Racism was a strong force that controlled the lives of everyone, from every creed and color and this book artfully shows the consequences of this Racism. Regarding characters, the main character is Pecola, a young black girl, the primary narrator is another black girl named Claudia, who has a sister named Frieda. Cholly is a drunkard who is also Pecola’s father and Pauline is …show more content…

Mr. Henry is a tenant is a living in Claudia and Frieda’s house. China, Poland, and Miss Marie/Maginot Line are three of the town prostitutes. Character with small roles are Claudia’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. MacTeer, Samuel Pecola’s older brother, Maureen Peal a mixed girl from a wealthy family, Geraldine a light-skinned women disliked black people, and Soaphead Church an advisor for the community that tricks Pecola into believe she has blue eyes. The novel is unique in that as opposed to telling this in a straight forward, chronological manner, from the girl’s perspective, it chooses to tell the story from other’s perspectives with no concern for chronological story telling. Allowing the reader to understand the characters the influence Pecola as well as Pecola herself. The girl’s name is Pecola and you can see how the world around changes her through her interactions with other people. It is these interactions that shapes her as a person and helps explain the misfortune that eventually befalls her. The aforementioned issues of race, gender and class each play

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