The Bluest Eye
Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes. In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting. Her father would stop drinking. Her brother would stop running away. If only she could be beautiful. If only people would look at her. When someone finally did, it was her father, drunk. He raped her. Soon she would bear his child...
Stats for nerds
9recommend
21mentions
19people
2008–2025years
43% recommend52% neutral5% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Me too. "The Bluest Eye" - in college.
It was devastating. I'm glad I read it, even though parts of it were really uncomfortable.
- I suggested Toni Morrison and held without a doubt that she was the greatest living writer until her passing last year. She'll likely always hold that top spot in my mind, no one can compare. Go read "Sula" or "Song of Solomon" or "Beloved" or "The Bluest Eye". Her work will make you a better human.
- My heart is breaking. Toni Morrison was one of the greatest writers of our time. I loved Beloved, but The Bluest Eye is my favorite.
- I love reading, but only a handful of books have really changed the way I look at the world. The Bluest Eye was one of them.
Minor spoiler: in the bluest eye a young black girl obsesses over a white female doll with blue eyes. Before I read it, I never considered the impact that the idealization of white beauty could have on minorities. After reading that book, I realized how important it was for children to be able to look up to role models (fictional or otherwise) that look like them.
In my own life, I have had my own share of fantasy role models (I am a huge Tolkien fan, and when I was younger I loved all things fantasy) that shaped my own identity, and after reading The Bluest Eye I had to consider the idea: how would those books have affected me if all characters looked nothing like me? I do not think the effect would have been positive.
- I had to read The Bluest Eye in college. That is one book I'll never read again, and that's because it's so brutally honest about the characters' experiences. It's too real.
Great book. Highly recommended. I'm afraid to read any more of her books, but I probably should.
It contrasts with The Awakening, also required reading. It's like the other side of The Bluest Eye. What did Edna Pontellier's awakening cost the black servants who enabled it?
- My first intro to Morrison was thru 'The Bluest Eye'. Afterwards I read many of her books incl 'Beloved'. I loved all of them.
One thing I could however never understand was how a person with such deep insights into the African American experience could call Bill Clinton, 'the first Black President'. I thought at first maybe there was something I didn't understand. But as years passed, I've been increasingly feeling that perhaps that wasn't the case.
