Analysis Of The Bluest Eye By Toni Morrison

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The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, is about a young African American girl named Pecola who has the desire to be white. However, the book is narrated through the eyes of Claudia, another little African American girl who is acquaintances with Pecola. The two of them struggle with their identity because they struggle with their race. Pecola wants to be white and have blue eyes, and Claudia hates caucasians because of all of the attention that they receive; the attention that she does not receive. To help the readers identify these inner feelings that these characters have, Toni Morrison strategically utilizes various conflicts to develop their lack of self acceptance.
The first example where the reader can see that Pecola is struggling with accepting herself is when she is contemplating what makes her so unlikeable. Morrison describes Pecola as, “ … looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of her ugliness… that made her ignored or despised at school…”(Morrison 45). It can be inferred that Pecola does not admire who she is because she has accept the …show more content…
As justification to destroy her doll, Claudia says she wanted, “ To see of what it was made of, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me…”( Morrison 20). This helps readers understand that she struggles with herself because she wants to find what makes her so different from the doll, and caucasian people. To add on, she thinks, “What made people look at [caucasian girls] and say, ‘Awwwww’, but not for me?”(Morrison 22). This clearly shows the struggle Claudia has with her race because she has to question what makes her different from caucasian girls. Claudia desires attention from others, but she does not attain what she wants because of her skin color, therefore showing that she does not accept herself because of how her ethnicity prevents her from obtaining what she
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