Toni Morrison is the author I chose because she is very popular and is recommended by Oprah WinfreyÆs book club which has provided me with suggestions for other authors I ended up admiring and learning from. I chose her work, The Bluest Eye, because it deals with the efforts of individuals to grow and be strong and happy, even though they endure abuse and violence. I have always admired individuals who can remain strong, health, and happy despite having to endure great struggles in their lives. The Pecola family is hard pressed by poverty and live together ôFestering in the debris of a realtorÆs whim,ö (Morrison, p. 34). What I found most distinctive about this book is the authorÆs use of the conventional American primer Dick and Jane. MorrisonÆs use of this device immediately hits home about the distinctions between whites and minorities in American society with respect to their chances for upward mobility embodied by the ôAmerican Dream.ö Pecola lives in a ôbox of peeling grayö with her dysfunctional family, (Morrison, p. 34). As the narrator, Claudia MacTeer, informs us, ôBeing a minority in both caste and class, we moved about anyway on the hem of life, struggling to consolidate our weaknesses and hang on, or to creep singly up into the major folds of the garment,ö (Morrison, p. 17).
The questions I hoped to answer through this research are as follows:
Why does Pecola not survive the same struggles and challenges that Claudia does survive?
How does Claudia survive to grow strong and healthy?
What is MorrisonÆs main reason for telling this particular story with these two main characters?
The Bluest Eye treats us to an in depth view of the Breedlove family, including Pecola. Pecola has so internalized a sense of ugliness because of negative cultural norms aimed at African Americans that she prays for blue eyes. The Breedlove family struggles in poverty. PecolaÆs dad set fire to their house, was...