Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye"

Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye"

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931. Her birthplace was Lorain, Ohio, which also serves as the setting for The Bluest Eye.

Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" is an inquiry into the reasons why beauty gets wasted in this country. The beauty in this case is black; the wasting is done by a cultural engine that seems to have been designed specifically to murder possibilities; the "bluest eye" refers to the blue eyes of the blond American myth, by which standard the black-skinned and brown-eyed always measure up as inadequate.

 The Bluest Eye is a harsh warning about the old consciousness of black folks' attempts to emulate the slave master. Pecola's request is not for more money or a better house or even for more sensible parents; her request is for blue eyes — something that, even if she had been able to acquire them, would not have abated the harshness of her abject reality.