Abstract
This paper focuses on racial discrimination in Toni Morrison?s The Bluest Eye. There are comparisons of white and black races in different areas, such as family dynamics, economics, etc. The author also discusses on the individual?s search for self-identity.

From the Paper:

"Racial discrimination had a great impact on characters, plot, and themes in Toni Morrison?s "The Bluest Eye". Morrison illustrates the effects of prejudice on teen-aged girls throughout an exceptionally segregated period. The parable is weaved through the many woes of a hardworking, African-American family. Pecola Breedlove, the main character, registers the differences between race-separated classes, but longs for just one luxury that is primarily associated with whites; blue eyes. Through this scenario, Morrison explores the effects of the image paradigm held by whites on the self-esteem of the average African-American teen."

Tags:breedlove, morrison, pecola, toni, race, macteer, cholly, class, polly, maureen

Abstract
This paper discusses how whiteness blankets almost everything in the novel "The Bluest Eye", from the pop culture references to the language, to superstition and mysticism. The paper focuses on the idea that through the dominant gaze, whiteness appears perfect and the norm- when in actuality it is far from normal.

From the Paper
"Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" seeks to discuss power and impotence through language, superstition and popular culture. All these examples of power and impotence in the novel form a perception that the whiter and more Aryan, the more perfect a person is: this is the idea that the dominant gaze is white, promoting whiteness. Toni Morrison really hits home with how destructive these predominant, oppressive ideas can be on a family and a community that is "other," or "outside" what is perceived as normal. The book itself tells the story of Pecola, a young African-American girl living in Lorain, Ohio. She moves in with a family that includes Claudia..."

Tags:toni morrison, the bluest eye, the dominant gaze

Abstract
When it first burst onto the literary scene in 1970, Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" became an immediate sensation that brought to light the quiet desperation of many African-Americans living in the twentieth-century United States. With that in mind, this paper examines the issues of beauty, sexuality and male perversion that inform Morrison's text. In so doing, the paper examines the curious relationship between sex and beauty in the novel as well what it means for the tragic character of Pecola. Additionally, the paper looks at what racially-charged models of beauty mean for young African-American women and how the ugly idea that beauty could only be beautiful if it was/is white impacts Pecola's life in ways that are ultimately devastating.

Tags:american, identities, morrison

Abstract
This paper is a critical analysis of Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" and its social commentary on racism and being African American in America. The paper also touches on issues of women's perception of beauty and how societal demands for physical perfection can adversely affect the individual psyche. The paper specifically discusses how the writing style of the book is used as an effective literary vehicle for propounding these themes of prejudice and racism towards the African-American community.

From the Paper
"Morrison uses Claudia's perspective as a way to relay her view on society and what it can do to an individual's psyche. Pecola's life becomes an image for readers of a destroyed soul that has been driven to madness because of something she cannot control. Like any other human being, Pecola did not choose what she would look like or what racial background she would belong to, yet she is punished for it by a society that fails to accept her for who she is. Morrison uses Pecola's story to investigate the standards of beauty in America that blacks have been somehow forced to assimilate into. According to the story that she tells in The Bluest Eye, this forced assimilation has made it nearly impossible for blacks to have their own identity that is shaped by what it means to be black, not white."

Tags:african americans, black culture, racism, dick and jane, toni morrison

Abstract
The paper discusses how in "The Bluest Eye", the opening section is called "Autumn," and it first evokes one of the major seasonal events of childhood for that time of year, that being going back to school. The paper examines the section that follows, an introductory section creating a mental image of the first days of school when children learn to read. The paper discusses how the author does this by using the form of the first-grade reader known to generations of children by its simple story of Dick and Jane and their parents.

From the Paper
""The Bluest Eye" was Toni Morrison's first novel. The opening section is called "Autumn," and it first evokes one of the major seasonal events of childhood for that time of year, that being going back to school. The section follows an introductory section creating a mental image of the first days of school when children learn to read, and the author does this by using the form of the first-grade reader known to generations of children by its simple story of Dick and Jane and their parents. In this case, though, the evocation is also skewed, for the story is told three times in an increasingly rapid way, showing a certain degree of desperation as the author recalls that story and links it to the family in..."

Tags:morrison, novel, memory

Abstract
This writer of this paper discusses Toni Morrison's first novel 'The Bluest Eye', which was published in 1970 and was the first link in a long chain of novels all focusing on the pressing issues of white dominance and its impact on the psyche of black people in the United States. Though racial hatred and discrimination is not as intense now as it must have been in the writer's childhood, this story has been developed and told in such a manner that it arouses sympathy for the black child. This paper examines Morrison's writing style, which the writer of this paper admires, yet contends that the author is too often obsessed with the plight and suffering of her community which tend to make her books often very distressing and disturbing. This paper explores the plot of the novel which revolves around the young child Pecola, who belonged to the Breedlove family while the narrator, Claudia MacTeer, a young girl from MacTeer family observes life around her and presents it as she views it. Morrison is considered master storyteller and "The Bluest Eye" is a classic example of her genius.

Table of Contents:
Abstract
Research Outline
Research: "The Bluest Eye"
References

From the Paper
"The book is essentially about colonization's impact on a child's psyche. Morrison was of one of those black writers who believed that the best way to fight discrimination and segregation was through psychological training. In the bluest eye for example, she focuses on the reactions of many black Americans to the white culture and concludes that black are oppressed not only because of intense racism but because of the perceptions regarding white skin color that perceived within the black community. Malin Walther Pereira writes, "Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, focuses intently on the colonizing effects of white female beauty on a black girl and her community. In her 1993 Afterword to the novel, Morrison explicitly ties the issue of beauty in The Bluest Eye to the politics of racial beauty and identity in the 1960s. She writes: "the reclamation of racial beauty in the sixties stirred these thoughts [about beauty], made me think about the necessity for the claim."

Tags:literature, racism, african-american, black, perception, america

Abstract
This paper analyzes Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye". The writer explains how this book doesn't belittle the characteristics of its individuals, nor does it place judgment on their actions; rather, the book emphasizes the influence of past suffering and circumstances - exploring how things came to be instead of why they came to be. The writer suggests that "The Bluest Eye" is a quintessential demonstration of the inflexibility of the world. The writer further discusses how Morrison keeps herself from blaming the plight of characters like Cholly and Pecola on any one person or action. The writer concludes that the characters' sufferings construct themselves from a mesh of negative events that were woven together by circumstances; circumstances that were created from Morrison's world - a world that seems more inclined to create misery than it does to create joy.

From the Paper
"The universe of The Bluest Eye is the bigot; it is the spawn of prejudice, the breeder of hate and racism; it shrivels the seeds of flowers just as easily as it shrivels a human baby. Morrison constructs a world hostile to human life, one that sets up humanity to suffer by endorsement of the cruel and perversion of the beautiful.
Pauline's dream is beautiful. She dreams of a male protector, an ethereal and heavenly thing that will wash away her worries and lift her up into happiness. He is a "Presence, an all-embracing tenderness with strength and a promise of rest....She had only to lay her head on his chest and he would lead her away...forever" (113). This dream seems fulfilled when Cholly happens upon her on the side of the road one day, but this chance encounter is a cruel ploy of circumstance."

Tags:racism, child, molestation, suffering, prejudice, existential, nature, evil

Abstract
This paper explains that the strong maternal characters in Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" and "Sula" each have different ways of mothering their children, yet have something in common with one another. The author points out that each woman has had to endure some sort of suffering, which helped create the type of woman she is within the novel. The paper relates how Morrison depicts the internal suffering, which leads Pauline Breedlove in "The Bluest Eye" to be strong and Eva Peace in "Sula" to be powerful.

From the Paper
"Pauline's suffering as both a young girl and a woman causes her to become hard and strong with her family, The Fishers and her community members. Pauline is ostracized by the black women in her community, so she embarrasses them by becoming a better Christian than they are. She is humiliated by Cholly and the ugliness of her children, so she works for a rich white family with a pretty little girl. This suffering enables her to become a harder worker and a stronger mother figure to both her children and the Fisher's little girl."

Tags:inadequate, childhood accident, worker money, one leg

Abstract
This paper explains that, in the novel "The Bluest Eye", Toni Morrison expresses the helplessness of the girls, who face racial discrimination and hate white culture but imitate it anyway because the white culture is considered good and beautiful and the black culture is considered bad and ugly. The author points out that Morrison in her own life was not from the poor class but rather from the African-American middle class, like the McTeers. The paper relates that the rape of Pecola by her father is not autobiographical but may have been based on things Morrison could have seen or believed possible, within the poorer parts of the African-American community in her own childhood in the 1940s.

From the Paper
"The main characters in the story are three girls, Claudia and Frieda McTeer (sisters in a black family), and Pecola Breedlove, a poor girl who is staying with the McTeers because of abuse at her house. One of the first traumatic things happens in this book is when Pecola gets her first period. This is a normal thing, but it is traumatic for Pecola because she never heard about it at home. So Pecola thinks she is bleeding to death. Mainly as far as the future parts of the book, this means if she is raped again she could have a baby (forshadowing). Later in the book, after Pecola goes back home, she is raped again by her father, gets pregnant, and later goes mad. This shows how black girls in this environment never have a chance, even in their own houses. "

Tags:white, rape, father, middle-class, imitatation

Abstract
This paper examines Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" in the context of how race, class and gender intersect as systems of domination and subjugation. Morrison emphasizes the theme of racial discrimination, which intertwines with the issues of gender and class in the oppression of women under capitalist patriarchy. In many respects, therefore, "The Bluest Eye" complements Marxist feminism, since it adds the dimension of racism to the realities of how classism and sexism marginalize women in society at large.