Bluest eye toni morrison free pdf

Pecola is a quiet, passive young girl who grows up with little money and whose parents are constantly fighting, both verbally and physically.

Pecola is continually reminded of what an 'ugly' girl she is by members of her neighborhood and school community. In an attempt to beautify herself, Pecola wishes for blue eyes — a standard that was perpetuated through the gifting of white, blue-eyed dolls throughout her childhood.

Additionally, most chapters' titles are extracts from the Dick and Jane paragraph in the novel's prologue, presenting a white family that may be contrasted with Pecola's. The chapter titles contain sudden repetition of words or phrases, many cut-off words, and no interword separations.

The novel, through flashbacks, explores the younger years of both of Pecola's parents, Cholly and Pauline, and their struggles as African Americans in a largely White Anglo-Saxon Protestant community. Pauline now works as a servant for a wealthier white family.

One day in the novel's present time, while Pecola is doing dishes, drunk Cholly rapes her. His motives are largely confusing, seemingly a combination of both love and hate. After raping her a second time, he flees, leaving her pregnant. Claudia and Frieda are the only two in the community that hope for Pecola's child to survive in the coming months. Consequently, they give up the money they had been saving to buy a bicycle, instead planting marigold seeds with the superstitious belief that if the flowers bloom, Pecola's baby will survive.

The marigolds never bloom, and Pecola's child, who is born prematurely, dies. In the aftermath, a dialogue is presented between two sides of Pecola's own deluded imagination, in which she indicates conflicting feelings about her rape by her father.

In this internal conversation, Pecola speaks as though her wish for blue eyes has been granted, and believes that the changed behavior of those around her is due to her new eyes, rather than the news of her rape or her increasingly strange behavior. Claudia, as narrator a final time, describes the recent phenomenon of Pecola's insanity and suggests that Cholly who has since died may have shown Pecola the only love he could by raping her.

Claudia laments on her belief that the whole community, herself included, have used Pecola as a scapegoat to make themselves feel prettier and happier. When asked about her motivations for writing The Bluest Eye in an interview, Morrison claimed that she wanted to remind readers 'how hurtful racism is' and that people are 'apologetic about the fact that their skin [is] so dark.

For example, Pecola, the main character, wishes for blue eyes as a way to escape the oppression that results from her having dark skin. Through Pecola's characterization, Morrison seeks to demonstrate the negative impact racism can have on one's self-confidence and worth.

As she concluded in her interview, she 'wanted people to understand what it was like to be treated that way. Morrison commented on her motivations to write the novel, saying, 'I felt compelled to write this mostly because in the s, black male authors published powerful, aggressive, revolutionary fiction or nonfiction, and they had positive racially uplifting rhetoric with them that were stimulating and I thought they would skip over something and thought no one would remember that it wasn't always beautiful.

Morrison's writing of the book began because she was 'interested in talking about black girlhood. Jan Furman, professor of English at the University of Michigan, notes that the book allows the reader to analyze the 'imprinting' [7] factors that shape the identity of the self during the process of maturing in young black girls. She references parts in the book where the main characters are taught to feel less than human, specifically when the shopkeeper avoids touching Pecola's hand when giving her candy.

Dick and Jane novels were popular in the midth century, and Morrison includes references to their titles in The Bluest Eye. They promoted the importance of the nuclear family and helped to foster literacy in young children as well.

Morrison presents a more critical view of the novel's family standards. The lifestyle standards found in Dick and Jane were not achievable for many children who shared backgrounds similar to Pecola. Debra Werrlein, professor at George Mason University, contends that the excerpts of 'Dick and Jane' throughout the book project an image of an ideal family that contrasts with the family structures of the main characters.

However, as Werrlein points out, the whiteness of these characters stood to represent the ideal American family. In addition, the string of letters describing Dick and Jane's perfect parents as strong and kind are used to contrast Pecola's parents in the novel. Pecola's father is thus emasculated, Werrlein argues, because his behavior deviates from this standard for American family life.

Thus, racism is a prevalent factor in their broken homes. Bump asserts that the novel reveals the belief that the outside of people ultimately reflects their character and personality.

This belief compromises people's judgement and they act upon internal bias. Morrison is loved by the readers for his work on the harsh consequences of racism against black people living in the United States.

The story of the novel takes place in Lorain, Ohio and revolves around the story of an African-American lady by the name of Pecola who grow up in the times of the Great Depression. Along with this, the novel contains third person narrative which adds inset narratives in the first person of the novel. Because of child molestation, incest and racism the novel is banned in various schools and libraries in the United States.

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Media The Bluest Eye. Format ebook. Publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Release 24 July Search for a digital library with this title Search by city, ZIP code, or library name Learn more about precise location detection. View more libraries The Bluest Eye.