Review of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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Review of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Love is an amazing emotion. A life without love is a life not worth

living. As a child, one has thirsts for love and approval that can

only be quenched by influential adults and peers. If love is not given

during childhood, it will forever taint the individual's life. Toni

Morrison's The Bluest Eye magnificently captures the mind of mature

readers and both genders in its captivating tale of a young black girl

who wants nothing more than to be loved by a society built around

white supremacy, which Morrison derived from her recollection of her

childhood and the deep influence of the Civil Rights Movement of the

1960s.

It is common for writers to emulate their lives in novels rather than

create a new one for a character. In The Bluest Eye, author Toni

Morrison creates narrator Claudia MacTeer's life parallel to her own.

Morrison was born in the town of Lorain, Ohio, which happens to be the

setting for the novel (Morrison 116), (Telgen 75). Already Morrison

has created a connection between herself and the characters by

selecting the location. Then she develops the MacTeer's family to

closely resemble her family through behaviors and episodes from when

she was an adolescent. For instance, Mrs. MacTeer mirrors Ramah

Wofford, Morrison's mother, through her "habits of expounding on a

problem for days" (Moss 54). Wofford and MacTeer would sing songs

"about hard times, bad times, and somebody-done-gone-and-left-me

times" (Morrison 25). She gives the MacTeer mother the same loving

characteristics she grew accustomed to from her mother to create the

same environment for Claudia. Morrison's father, G...

... middle of paper ...

...uty in a racist nation. Beauty has a

different meaning for each race and society, no matter the time

period. It can be based on physical beauty or internal beauty. Beauty

has no limits. Everyone and everything is beautiful in its own right.

Works Cited

Draper, James P., ed. "Toni Morrison." World Literature Criticism,

Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992.

Magill, Frank N., ed. "The Bluest Eye." Masterplots II Vol. 1.

Pasadena: Salem Press, 1991.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Penguin Group, 1970.

Moss, Joyce, ed. "The Bluest Eye." Literature and Its Time, Vol. 4.

Detroit: Gale, 1997.

Telgen, Diane, ed. "The Bluest Eye: Toni Morrison." Novels for

Students, Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1997.

"Toni Morrison." American Writers Supplement III, Part 1. New York:

Charles Scribner's Sons, 1991.

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