The Bluest Eye

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The Bluest Eye (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)

Form and Content

The Bluest Eye tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl immersed in poverty and made “ugly” by the American culture of the early 1940’s that defines beauty in terms of such actors as Greta Garbo, Ginger Rogers, and Shirley Temple. Her mother beats and abuses her, and her father rapes and abandons her. Toni Morrison introduces the novel with a two-page parody of the Dick-and-Jane reader; the monotonous sentences of the reader repeat with increasing speed until the words run together. The parody is followed by a one-page...

[The entire page is 3240 words long]

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• The Bluest Eye (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
• The Bluest Eye (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
• The Bluest Eye (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
• The Bluest Eye (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
• The Bluest Eye (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)

See Also:

• Toni Morrison (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
• Toni Morrison (Long Fiction)
• Toni Morrison (Dictionary of World Biography)
• Toni Morrison (Identities and Issues)

See Also:

• - For teachers, the The Bluest Eye Lesson Plan.
• - The Bluest Eye summary and study guide in the eNotes.