Review Of ' The Bluest Eye '

After reading Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, I could not help but feel shocked and taken aback by the detailed picture of life she painted for slaves at the time in American history. The grotesque and twisted nature of life during the era of slavery in America is an opposite world from the politically correct world of 2016. Morrison did not hold back about the harsh realities of slavery. Based on a true story, Toni Morrison wrote Beloved about the life of Sethe, a slave and her family. Toni Morrison left no stone unturned when describing the impact slavery on had the life of slaves. She dove deeper than the surface level of simply elaborating on how terrible it is to be “owned” and forced to do manual labor. Morrison describes in detail, the horrors and profoundly negative impacts slavery had on family bonds, humanity of all people involved and the slaves sense of self even after they acquired their freedom.

(1) Toni Morrison’s Beloved takes place after the Civil War during the Reconstruction era, when the violent oppression of the black race continued, with flashbacks to the horrific trauma of the early 19th century slavery period. In Margaret Atwood’s review of Beloved in

Slavery has been a vital part of America’s history since it began in 1619. Such history must be preserved in order to understand its ongoing influence in issues today, but thousands of stories of those enslaved have been lost or forgotten in time. Toni Morrison expresses why the narrative of slavery must be continued on by integrating the life of Margaret Garner into her novel Beloved. In Beloved, Toni Morrison intertwines fiction with the story of Margaret Garner in order pass it on and explore what might have been if the circumstances surrounding Garner had been different.

Drawing inspiration from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Sia Figiel utilizes some of the same techniques and covers similar themes in her novel Where we Once Belonged which primarily centers around Alofa, a girl growing up in a village Samoa.  Although the narrative voices of Claudia from The Bluest Eye and Alofa from Where we Once Belonged differ in their presence and focus, they both offer a young female adolescent’s perspective on life in their communities and how the influences of different cultural expectations affect their own identity.

Finding good qualities in any of the men of The Bluest Eye are hard to come by. There are many factors that come into play that have shaped the personalities of all of these males. The female characters in the novel endured a lot in coping with the males. Toni Morrison does an exceptional job of painting a vivid picture of the social climate of America in the 1960’s and society’s affects on the people of The Bluest Eye. In a variety of ways, the males of The Bluest Eye have many issues in their past that cause them to act very callous, immoral and bring a lot of anguish to those around them.

Not too long ago, my friend and I agreed that a student was beautiful. Her skin was caramel in the light, her face shape was an oval, her style was subtle urban and her eyes were the perfect size. She was indeed beautiful. But why was her beauty more irrespirable than her friends, who was walking right beside her? Many are subjected to the specifications of social beauty. Pecula, the main character of The Bluest Eye, destroyed white baby dolls. The tortures act of dismantling and configuring the baby doll acted as a combination to unlock the beauty within the doll. Soon she finds nothing but a metal sphere. Here I understood the metal sphere to be power. Within the doll was nothing integral, but an innate physically

Beloved is one of the most beautifully written books and Toni Morrison is one of the best authors in the world. After reading the Bluest Eye and seeing how captivating it is, it is not highly expectant to think that Beloved to be just as enchanting. Anyone who has read Beloved would read it again and those of us who have not should be dying to read it. Beloved is a historical fiction novel based on a true historical incident. Beloved is set during the time period of the Civil War . The American Civil War to be exact , which took place between the years of 1861 and 1865., As stated before it is based or should one say inspired by the life of the slave Margaret Garner, who was an African American slave . She attempts to escape in 1856 Kentucky by fleeing to Ohio, which was a free state. A mob of slave owners , planers and overseers arrived to repossess her and her children under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which gave slave owners the right to pursue slaves across state borders. Margaret killed her two-year-old daughter rather than allow her to be recaptured. Morrison links the middle passage with the plight of former black slaves. She links the supernatural and fantasy with historical times. She brings in that old slave religion that many African Americans have continued to used even after slavery. Toni Morrison honors those slaves who died in

Beloved (1987) is a sensitive novel written by Toni Morrison a renowned Afro-American author. It deals with the forgotten era of slavery and the pathos of black slaves. The novel tells a wrenching story of a black female slave, Sethe, who kills her own daughter to protect her from the horrors of slavery. Morrison has excelled in creating her female characters. Her novels show a deep sense of bonding between the female characters. In Beloved the female bonding and the multiple layer of meaning in their relationship makes the story emotionally appealing and according to Barbara Schapira in Contemporary Literature it is the story that, “penetrates perhaps more deeply than any historical or psychological study could, the unconscious emotional and psychic consequences of slavery.”(194). The story touches the social, psychological, philosophical and supernatural elements of human life.

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison is a historical/fictional novel that deals with the idea of the supernatural and the repercussions of slavery towards a society and the individual persona. The novel explores the wreckage slavery brings upon its characters in all senses of the self. They have been freed from slavery but the psychological trauma endured remains constant; leading them to do the unthinkable. In the novel Morrison utilizes the character of Beloved to represent the ghost of slavery in an entire community. As we learn about the community we come to understand that they are haunted by their past because they refuse to accept it. Most importantly we realize that slavery has led the characters to become completely desensitized with their individuality and sense of self. Yes, they are physically free of slavery, but mentally they are still enslaved. The novel exemplifies how hard it is for the characters to re-discover their sense of self and their own worth. Only through individual and communal healing, are they able to achieve the prior.

Beloved analyzes the materialistic, emotional, and spiritual devastation constructed by slavery, a havoc that continues to taunt many; even those who were set “free”. This negative impact that slavery has left on former slaves stripped them of their sense of self and identity, marking them for the rest of their lives. The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison explores multiple examples, of self-isolation and the haunting of one 's past. To further elaborate such examples, the story of Margaret Garner, told by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, in 'Margaret Garner ': A Cincinnati Story is used to help understand the context of the novel. Slavery having stolen the identity of millions, annihilating their sense of self and all their basic human qualities, is

Beloved is one of the best and most well-known books of writing in the African-American society published in 1987. The novel, for the most part, discusses the black community that is unwilling to incite their past and in this way, irritated by its incarnation (Abdullah 25). Toni Morrison does not dissent suppression. Rather, she is pained by its effect on the souls of the black individuals. Nevertheless, the novel approves Toni Morrison 's ability in creating the free awareness of various individuals who bear the horrible weight of a slavers ' unrevealed wrongdoings. (Balon 149). However, the issue of captivity was killed in Ohio for around ten years. This is the setting where the author puts the characters in the persuasive writing. This novel (Wall) suggests that a black lady, Sethe, is the heroine. It is because he can keep his youngsters from being subjugated (Cunningham 45). The writing further, includes anger, and race as the main sources of social issues. Therefore, one of the social difficulties in the African-American culture, as indicated by Toni Morrison 's book is Slavery.

     The same publication that leads Morrison to conjuring up the characters and the story of Beloved  also surveys the horrors of slavery in the mid 1800's.  Morrison dedicates the book to "Sixty Million and more"(Morrison, i) slaves and acknowledges the freedom that each slave yearned for.   This freedom constitutes having the ability to chose one's own responsibilities and loving other people more than you love yourself. (Taylor-Guthrie, 195-196).  Morrison's characters stand in for all those slaves and former slaves who were 'unceremoniously buried' without tribute or recognition.  As she feels chosen by these slaves to attend to their burial 'properly, artistically', Beloved becomes her effort to accomplish that.  It is an act of recovering the past in narrative, to 'insert this memory that was unbearable and unspeakable into the literature. (Furman, 80).  Even Morrison finds it hard to

As is the case for any work that is derivative of another, stage adaptations of novels are often burdened by their prominent and celebrated origins. The process of bending literature to fit the contours of theater often results in a product that is diluted and far less poignant than the original. However, once in a while, a play like The Bluest Eye surprises us by masterfully redefining the function of the central characters, modifying the nature of the work without unduly sacrificing the vibrancy of the story that it seeks to tell, and rearranging essential elements in juxtaposition to illustrate and emphasize important ideas. Diamond’s script indeed accomplishes her aim of presenting the story “as a tale of the damaging trickle-down

In his essay “When Home Fails to Nurture the Self: Tragedy of Being Homeless at Home”, Leester Thomas argues that, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, is split into four sections; the first section Thomas titles “Outdoors: The Meaning of Such Wretchedness” (53), which is followed by “The First Eviction: Rejection of Self by Mainstream Society” (53), “ The Second Eviction: Rejection of Self by the Black Community” (54) and lastly, “The Final Eviction Notice: Rejection of self by the biological family” (55). I agree with Thomas’ analysis of The Bluest Eye and Morrison herself, along with the more direct analysis of Pecola herself, I will argue that much like the conditions for marigolds to grow, the conditions that Pecola was immersed in didn’t allow for her to grow, and ultimately lead to her destruction.

In our modern day world you should not be so ignorant to believe that racism is not prevalent although some may you experience it. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison truly hits home in conveying this message. Morrison did not communicate this through an adult character no, but through a child, a young and innocent child. In my opinion, this was brilliantly done in that bringing a child into situations like Pecola’s case it highlights the sheer horror of prejudice and rape. With Pecola’s graphic invocation of the craving and loneliness at the heart of her desire, and the tragedy of her satisfied wish, The Bluest Eye is sure to be one of the most affective, powerful, and impactful novels of all the American novels.