Customer Reviews

The Bluest Eye

5 star:		(184)
4 star:		(119)
3 star:		(51)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(43)

 

 

This story is about a young African-American girl, Pecola Breedlove, who has a very hard childhood. She is an outcast in school, her parents don't care for her, and she is all alone. She befriends two sisters by the name of Freida and Claudia, who with no questions take her in. Even the girls' mother treats her like her own. Pecola's homelife is another story. Her mother is in church and her father is a drunk, who likes to touch and feel on her. One day he takes it to far and rapes Pecola. With no love from her mother, she had to experience all of this all alone. The excellent writing of BLUEST EYE reminded me of great poetry, while the story and pacing was reminiscent of McCrae in his CHLDREN'S CORNER. This book is very interesting and informing to people who are totally oblivious to these kind of situations. It was very educational and I would recommend this book to anyone!

I originally picked up this book by fluke. I was searching for a fiction novel to use for an English essay and decided to venture outside the suggested reading list - comprised of mostly 19th-20th century British litracists. Wow. Never before have a read such a masterfully created book! And to think this was her first. So well written - it conveys a message to all people of what beauty will do to us and the realities of these despicable societal norms. Well done - and worth the read - I finished it in a few sittings!

i read the book "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison and was both enchanted and devestaded with every paragraph of this sad story. I enjoyed this book very much. It is written beautifully with every character and every thing described to a tee. All her life, young Pecola Breedlove had wanted to be noticed. She saw other kids getting everything they've ever wanted yet she is just left behind is the dust of her family's failures and ugliness. She pines for the one thing that she thinks will help her stand out to the people who ridicule her every day as not just an ugly girl, but a person with real feelings. When Pecola's first experience at being noticed comes, it is by the wrong person with the wrong ideas. This person's drunken decisions soon turn Pecola's life upside down and she must learn to live life and face her downfalls, even when they hurt her so badly on the inside.

African American Women and How They See Themselves
(A critical review of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye)

One of Toni Morrison's greatest works is The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize winning author and has written novels on African Americans and their position in America for several years. The Bluest Eye in particular, depicts how African American women see themselves and how they see white women.

Toni Morrison tells the story through a character named Claudia MacTeer. Claudia is very young while she tells the story of herself, her sister Frieda, Pauline and Cholly Breedlove, and most of all, Pecola Breedlove. As she grows older, her realization of Pecola's terrible fate grows and her empathy for her fills the reader with the same empathy.

Claudia is perfect for the narrator because she is both young and open-minded. Although she is unsure of whether her view is correct, her view seems more correct because her mind is not filled with the corruption of the other characters. Claudia, unlike the other black women in the story, is very comfortable with who she is. She likes how she looks, and instead of adoring Shirley Temple cups and cute, little, white baby dolls like Frieda and Pecola; she despises them, and rips the dolls heads off.

Throughout the novel, Toni Morrison shows several messages that whiteness is superior. Besides the obsession with Shirley Temple and white baby dolls, light-skinned Maureen is more loved and accepted then the other little black girls. The idealization of white beauties in movies and Pauline Breedlove's preference for the little white girl she works for over her daughter are still more ways in which she shows America's obsession with white.

Even grown women depict the views towards white beauty. Pauline Breedlove, although saying she will love Pecola forever, views her as ugly and, as said before, learns to love the little white girl she cares for more than her own daughter. Geraldine, a woman who has grown up hating blacks and regards herself as a "clean black" as opposed to those "dirty niggers," despises Pecola and looks at other black children with disgust.

Above all, Pecola suffers the most from this hatred of blacks. She becomes confused with the way people treat her and begins to believe that beauty brings love. The one thing she wishes for, above all else, is blue eyes, with blue eyes, the bluest eyes in the world, she believes she will be beautiful, and in turn find love and happiness.

Toni Morrison does a terrific job showing how black women view themselves compared to those "white beauties," making her audience shudder from disgust, and weep from the terrible realization of what life once was like, and still is in some parts.

I loved the way Toni Morrison presented The Bluest Eye and will never forget how much her writing influenced me. She's done a great job affecting people with her writing in the past, and it is still affective today.

To be completely honest to Toni Morrison, I had no expectations for this book at all. The title sounded boring, the beginning was slow, and the words were a bit difficult. However, at the end I actually got a lot out of it, realizing that people view ohters many times for the wrong reasons. I never thought about the way people wished they looked like a certain person for just a few physical characteristics.

The Bluest Eye, is a sad story about an ugly 11-year old black girl named Pecola Breedlove,who grows up surrounded by racism and heartbreak. The young girl and her friends go through many different hard ships and struggles because of racial descrimination. Pecola feels that by having blonde hair and blue eyes she will be noticed and accepted by society. On top of her being physically unattractive, her family is dysfunctional and poor. She feels her answer to all this is looking like Shirley Temple, or just having blonde hair blue eyes.

This novel upset me because I do not view anyone by how they look. Like the saying goes, "dont judge a book by its cover", I firmly believe in that. I have never, nor ever will chose a friend by how they look. A good personality is one of the greatest things in the world. When I finished reading this I was angry and depressed at the same time. I can understand how people feel when they are being stared at for their physical appearence. I was always one of ridicule because of how small I was,my red hair, and braces. But I had something that everyone should always look at first, a terrific personality. I would retaliate by lauging it off and then coming back with a nice comment myself about them. People respected me for who I was and how I made them feel, not just the way I looked.

All together this book hit me emotionally, and really captured the prejudice that goes on everywhere. Morrison did an excellent job with this book and really surprised me at the end. I actually handed my mom the book and told her to read it. I don't do that very often, so she figured it must be good to keep my attention.

As a senior in high school, I read the Bluest Eye over spring break last year. Having read several of Morrison's novels, I expected nothing less than excellence. What I found exceeded all my hopes and wishes. The Bluest Eye is a novel that, much like Beloved and Song of Solomon, captures the spirit of its main character so tenderly and emotionally that one cannot put the book down. Any reader will empathize with young Pecola's ultimately unattainable want, eagerly devouring the pages of the supporting story. Morrison set the standard of high-quality, strong-character, delicately-drawn writing in this first novel, and does not disappoint in later offerings. A perfect book for a first time reader of Morrison or a long time fan. Obviously, anyone interested in the African American experience MUST read this novel--it depicts the emotional landscape of the soul better than any of its predecessors. Read The Bluest Eye and savour Toni Morrison's rich language and emotional commentary!

Eleven year olds shouldn't have a care in the world. They should be free to play and dream. Life never was like that for Pecola Breedlove. She learned that it wasn't fair; that it was even less fair the darker your skin was, the darker your eyes were and the uglier your were perceived to be. According to those around her, Pecola has all those things going for her. She did have a glimmer of hope, a very unreasonable one. She knew that the girls with blue eyes had the best of lives, heck, even the baby dolls had blue eyes and everyone loved them. Pecola just knew that if she had blue eyes it would make all the difference in her life.

This was a difficult story to read. Each of the characters started life with a reasonable shot at happiness. But the smallest change in circumstances can have a huge impact that seem to magnify over time. I wouldn't have thought that by injuring her foot, Pecola's mother's life would take such turns that would lead to a husband who would be the one to lead to Pecola's final break.

I can't say 'good book' nor 'bad book'; it's one of those books you need to read and decide for yourself. In 2000, Oprah selected this for her book club.

This is a brutal, sad story. On the surface it is the story of being black and poor in the forties. It is also a story of rape, incest, racism, and self-loathing. I found the writing beautiful and the style very intriguing. This book is written in several voices switching from the main narrator to different character points of view. The tale is also not told in a linear fashion but jumps back and forth from one incident to another and at times stopped to tell a character's life story from beginning to end. I really enjoyed this format which gave us insight into all the major players. There were a few parts that were extremely difficult to read including a few pages of a pedophile's point of view. These are graphic scenes and will make this book not for everyone. I don't know if 'enjoy' would be the proper term but I did experience this book and do recommend it with the above reservation noted.

I was a little shocked to see how well THE BLUEST EYE is selling. This, because it's one of the most beautiful and profound pieces of literature on the planet and most people want a page-turner with car chases. This novel expresses some very serious issues and will cause you to look at society and yourself quite differently. The most gut-wrenching part of the book was about Pecola Breedlove and how she prayed for blue eyes. If you like serious, touching literature with beautiful prose and a powerful message, look no further--this it is.

Also recommended: BARK OF THE DOOGWOOD--equally powerful, beautiful,and heart-breaking.

I'm not normally one for anything but a bestseller, tending to stick with things like "Da Vinci Code" or "Bark of the Dogwood," but lately I've been veering off into what is unchartered territory for me. "The bluest Eye" is one such example. Brought to life by Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye is an extremely powerful story that tackles some of the difficult challenges people face to this day. I thought the tale was an unforgettable one. Toni Morrison uses just enough detail to let The Bluest Eye stick out in a person's mind for a lifetime. The way the author writes allows a person to understand things very clearly. The Bluest Eye is the story of Pecola Breedlove, a very unfortunate looking, young black girl living in Ohio in the early 1900's. Pecola's one main wish in life is to have blue eyes, hence the title of the book. She spends her entire childhood praying for these blue eyes so she may look like Shirley Temple and the other blonde haired, blue eyed, white girls in school. Throughout the story, are small tales of Pecola's family past, and explanations of why her life is so horrible. The various tales are written in block form, though, and therefore are very easily distinguishable from one another. As I read this book, I was saddened by the horrific events that this poor girl has to encounter, and shocked by the way people treated African American girls in the past. This story relates to many problems teenagers, adults and children still have now days in our society. Racism, family problems and loving your heritage are highly discussed issues in this book.
I would recommend The Bluest Eye to anyone interested in reading books that tell true life stories. Though I thoroughly enjoyed this book, not everyone will. If you are not the type of person drawn into stories that may make you feel depressed or upset at the way things used to be, then I would not tell you to read this book. To like this book, you have to enjoy reading back to what things were like a couple decades ago, and the hardships people went through in public situations and at home. Also recommended: BARK OF THE DOGWOOD--A Tour of Southern Homes and Gardens.