"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison - Analysis

Essay by lxcanadyHigh School, 11th gradeB+, January 2007

download word file, 6 pages 4.0

"The Bluest Eye" takes place in the state of Ohio around the Depression in a poor African American neighborhood. The two characters who enter the story's names are Claudia and her older sister Frieda. Claudia and Frieda live in a house with their mother and father, who take in two strangers into their home. A young girl their age name Pecola Breedlove and a man named Henry Washington. Henry Washinton previously lived with a old woman who grew very old and senile for him to live with. The reason why Pecola was sent to stay with Claudia and Frieda's family was because her father was in jail for attempting to burn down his family's house. As the two sisters start to make friends with their new roommate they notice that Pecola had a strange craze to drink milk and a even more strange attraction to their Shirley Temple coffee mug.

Claudia fully illustrates how much she hates Shirley Temple and every toy doll that has blue eyes and blonde hair. She is puzzled by why everyone believes that blue eyed and blonde haired toy dolls are beautiful. The story continues on describing how ugly the Breedlove family were thought to be and their home which is a storefront. Pecola's parents always fight because of her fathers drunkenness and her mother's trying to seem self-righteous. As her parents fight, Pecola feels sick and unhappy; she pretends that her body is disappearing except her eyes. The Breedlove's neighbors in an apartment above theirs, live three whores who are friends with Pecola their names are, China, Poland and Miss Marie; whom Pecola visits all the time. One day when Pecola went to visit her neighbors, she was very interested in their boyfriends - who are really their customers. Miss Marie...