The Bluest Eye

Rating:
Summary: Simply A Classic
Review: The letter from Soaphead Church to God remains one of the most poignant and brilliant literary passages I have ever read. From season to seaon, this book imprisoned every page with as much unabashed complexity of the human spirit as possible. The way Morrison encircles each character with their own individuality is unmistakable and without pretension. And though the story's focus is Pecola Breedlove and her deplorable end (which may have been hinted from the minute you start reading), you close the book without having any reservations about actually admitting that you've learned something so old, yet assiduously new.

Rating:
Summary: A Sick Novel
Review: Any review you read about The Bluest Eye will tell you that it is a book about a little 11 year old girl who wishes to have blue eyes and blonde hair. However, the entire plot of the novel revolves around the human desire for sex. The book disgusted me with its extensive descriptions of child molesting and prostitutes. I would have thrown the book away if I didn't have to read it for my honors English class. It blows my mind how this book is in many book clubs and how the author won a Nobel award. The entire book is sick, and if I didn't know better, I would say that its main audience purchases it at adult book stores.

Rating:
Summary: Most Beautiful Book I Have Ever Read
Review: I read The Bluest Eye as part of a project during my senior year of high school for AP English. (We had read Beloved as a class, so I was curious to read more books by Toni Morrison). The Bluest Eye is without a doubt one of the most wonderful books I have ever read. I was moved to tears at points throughout the novel, and I am rarely so deeply moved by books. For the record, I believe this to be a better introduction to Toni Morrison's style than Beloved is. Beloved, while extraordinary, can be confusing ... The Bluest Eye is not. I sped through this relatively short novel and was left wanting more. Do yourself a favor and read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Utterly Impressive / Passionate / Real
Review: I First off I would like to note that I previously attempted to read this book in high school and again in beginning years of college, but as many may know Toni's language and word selection can be some what hard to follow so I never completed it, till now!

When I got pass page 3, I was totally engaged to the book. Rarely putting it down, maybe that explains why I finished it in 2 1/2 days. Reading on my travels to and from work.

I must say that this book has gotten me inspired to read (even though a senior in college, reading wasnt something fundamental for me). Even though I didnt grow up in the times of this book. I felt the impact of every character, felt the environmental assimilations, felt the hurt and despair of the overall point that was trying to be put across to the audience.

I myself a BLACK female can truly relate to this book, and if you are looking for something that doesnt sugar coat [possible] real life experiences, and will make you FEEL the despair that some young ladies [mostly minorities] go through, and how a society can influence what others do and how they feel. Then this Book will do just that!

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: "Quiet as it's kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941". If you feel that's a compelling line to start a book with, read it, how it chronicles Pecola's intense desire for blue eyes, and the stories woven therein.

Rating:
Summary: An Inspiring and Literary Work !
Review: All has been said re: plot. What is remarkable, outstanding, and memorable is the simplicity of form and the poetic lyrical narration, rich in its beauty, pathos and imagery. Each page offers the reader heartwrenching and gripping images of the experiences of an undaunted spirit strong in its will to survive.
As one author to another, I can sincerely say, The Bluest Eye is indeed a novel worthy of having received the Nobel Prize in Literature. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this masterpiece of poetic prose devoted to an individual's yearning and the tragedy in her specific desire to make a world that is different.
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Books One - Three

Rating:
Summary: In Search of the Bluest Eye
Review: Toni Morrison's first novel is a very melancholy yet fascinating piece of literature. The Bluest Eye includes a mixture of emotion and torment. This work of fiction, like many of Morrison's other pieces, is extremely vivid and controversial. Though the author herself is African-American, the black society is looked down upon in most of her stories. "Only when the lesson of racial estrangement is learned is assimilation complete," Ms. Morrison says in Time Magazine's "Special Issue: The New Face of America". By declaring this, she expresses her belief that the everyday ordeals in which the black community has endured should be exposed in order for the other races of America to learn more about it.
For instance, this particular piece emphasizes a great deal on the "standard of beauty" which consist of white or light skin, attractiveness, as well as beautiful eyes. The idea that whiteness is superior is implied throughout the novel. "Frieda and she [Pecola] had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was."( The Bluest Eye, p19). Claudia, the main narrator, shows the black girl's adoration for the white girl. Other themes evident in the novel are sexuality and that appearance is everything. Morrison's The Bluest Eye is about particularly one little girl's disheartening transition in life from childhood to womanhood, and all the while, longing to be beautiful.
The novel opens with introducing Claudia's family and reveals right away that Pecola has been impregnated by her father. The reader already gets a sense that Pecola is from a "broken family" and the daughter or a very fraudulent man. She stays with Claudia's family for some time while her father is in jail and she is separated from her mother, Mrs. Breedlove, and her brother, Sammy. Claudia's mother gets frustrated with Pecola living with their family, but they feel sorry for her.
After a while, Pecola moves back in with her family and life becomes more difficult. Her parents are continuously arguing and physically fighting, while Sammy frequently runs away. She also has a hard time at school, because she is constantly teased by white and black classmates as well as discriminated by her teachers. A pretty black girl named Maureen Peal befriends Pecola temporarily, but ends up making fun of her; this is when she realizes that beauty is everything. Pecola is even more convinced if she was attractive, then her life would be better. She assumes that she would have more friends, be liked by everyone, and loved by her parents if only she was beautiful.
The reader later receives insight on Pecola's parents' distressful childhoods. Mrs. Breedlove's feelings towards the white actresses and beauty are similar to Pecola's in that they both long to look like them. They want to live up to their "standard of beauty", but know it can never be. Pecola's father, Cholly, was abandoned as a baby and raised by his great aunt who died when he was in his early adolescence. He was once embarrassed by two white men who caught him having sex and made him continue while they watched. He was careless and naïve when he met Pecola's mother and once they were married he became unhappy with his life from that moment on.
Cholly comes home one day to see Pecola washing dishes and ends up [attacking] his own daughter. Morrison goes into great detail about the ordeal. In the beginning of the novel, Pecola starts menstruating and towards the end she gets pregnant. The story is not just a changing of age, but the maturation of Pecola sexually as well. Claudia and her sister, Frieda, want Pecola's baby to be born, but it unfortunately dies prematurely. Cholly rapes Pecola for the second time, runs away and dies. Pecola is overwhelmed with happiness and believes she has the bluest eyes, meaning she can now be content with her life.
The story of Pecola is overall depressing and reveals that happiness may come in the most unexpected ways. Tony Morrison's works are not for everyone, but if you are looking for a challenge, you will find it in this novel. Morrison discloses African-Americans' views of themselves and other races in the community. As the reader, you undoubtedly learn more on the differences in races and cultures through the eyes of a black girl who envies the white people, but in actuality is simply looking for happiness in life. This a good book for learning about African-American life of the time, but not exactly a thriller or romance. It is a good quality book and a serious read and may not be taken lightly.

Rating:
Summary: a poignant account
Review: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye consists of a series of interrelated stories, told from the perspectives of different characters, that revolve around the novel's protagonist, Pecola. Pecola is a young black female who longs for love and acceptance, two desires that go unfulfilled by her dysfunctional family and the racist world around her. Pecola believes her problems would be solved if she had the "superior" blue eyes characteristic of white children. Pecola holds to her dream of possessing blue eyes as a way out of the isolation and misery she suffers. Her mother Pauline hates her own home and turns to maintaining one of a white family. Her father Cholly betrays Pecola and impregnates her.
At times the novel is somewhat graphic in its depiction of the disturbing behavior of Cholly and Soaphead Church, a man who takes pleasure from little girls. Morrison succeeds in creating a novel rich with emotion. The plight of Pecola is heart-wrenching and poignant. Her harrowing ordeal evokes sympathy from the reader. Although Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, two young black sisters who befriend Pecola, have been exposed to some of the more vulgar aspects of life, they still possess a sense of innocence. Unlike everyone else, the two want Pecola's baby to live. In a touching scene the sisters sacrifice their bicycle money and plant marigolds, hoping that if the flowers grow, so will Pecola's baby.
Although parts of the novel are quite unnerving and depressing, as a whole, I found the novel to be very moving. I would recommend it to others. However, I prefer Morrison's later work, Beloved, to this novel. I thought this novel flowed nicely and somewhat loosely but I liked the interwoven structure of Beloved. Nevertheless, I would give Toni Morrison high marks on her first novel, The Bluest Eye.

Rating:
Summary: The "Shirley Temple" Life...
Review: Racism. Inequality. Inferiority. Toni Morriosn included this and more in her book, The Bluest Eye. Pecola Breedlove is an 11 year old black child living in the same small town of Lorain, Ohio that once held the presence of the books author. Presented with obstacles beyond her young ability to overcome, Pecloa Breedlove looks for an open door, a way out. Cholly Breedlove, her drunken excuse for a father, is of no use to Pecola. She feels his hurt more than his love, and his figure through Pecola's eyes isn't what the typical American father should be. The perfect American family would consist of a mother, a father, "Dick", and "Jane", a dog, a house with shutters, and love glowing from inside. The one thing Pecola wants more than anything, more even than to be accepted by her father for who she is, are blue eyes. Blue eyes, blond hair. That's the perfect American girl. Pecola struggles within herself, as well as with decisions forced upon her. She looks for a way out, a way to see the world from blue eyes, but she just can't. It's as if she's overcome with the sheer disillusionment of it all. This book was a puree' of fantasy and truth, serenity and mere weakness. It's a dark look at the true reality, and ways of the early 1900's.
When Toni Morrison wrote this book, she wrote from deep within. Anyone who can use words to make someone shiver as read, has to have some type of related experience from their past. Personally, I believe that she was faced with a few of the same roadblocks as the characters that appear in her book(s). She's a talented author, and after reviewing her, an amazing woman. Though I don't fully understand it all, maybe her writings are just at a level that she can relate with. Writings do reflect part of an author, though maybe not directly, it does reflect.

Rating:
Summary: A Weird Book
Review: Several of Toni Morrison's books have been noted as strange. The Bluest Eye does not fall short of all the others.
The book goes into vivid descriptions of everything, including the episode of the Pecola Breedlove being raped by her father. Morrison also uses the omniscient point of view to let you know the thoughts of all the characters, from the gossiping women of the small black town of Lorain Ohio, to the thoughts of Cholly, Pecola's father, while he is raping her.
Throughout the book Morrison gives you flashbacks into the characters life to help you understand why they think the way they do now. I found this style of writing confusing. I thought the book would be all about Pecola and her struggle, although it was quit the opposite; Morrison spends more time telling the sad and tragic story of many characters throughout the book.
This will stick with me for a long time, but only because I was left with a lot of questions. Not about Pecola and her desire for blue eyes, I understand that perfectly. I'm wondering about the author, and how she concocted this sad, odd, and very tragic story in her head.