The title is significant for the obvious reason that the main character, Pecola Breedlove, longs for blue eyes. She believes that if she has blue eyes people will love her and not recoil from her. If she had blue eyes her mother, Pauline, would hug her with the warmth that she demonstrates to the little white girl whom she cares for. If Pecola had blue eyes Mr. Yacobowski, the candy store owner, would not try to avoid touching her hand while taking coins from Pecola's palm.

There is not much interaction between blacks and whites in the novel, certainly not of the friendly variety, because generally there wasn't much interaction between the groups in 1940s America. Lorain, Ohio, the novel's setting and Toni Morrison's actual hometown, was not part of the Jim Crow South, but it was a town in which there was de facto segregation--that is, blacks and whites would not have interacted. Having said that, the presence of the white supremacist influence is implicit in the title. Morrison uses the superlative "bluest" to demonstrate that Pecola doesn't merely want to claim a piece of whiteness, blue eyes, but that she wants to surpass other blue eyes. She wants to see the world and experience it as the most beloved little white girl would.

It's important that Morrison begins the story in the fall of 1941, which is when the United States entered World War II. The nation's entry was prompted by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on September 7, 1941. Morrison uses the war, and its fight against tyranny and genocide, particularly in Europe, as an ironic metaphor: why would the United States fight for the liberation of Jewish people and other white minorities in Europe while simultaneously subordinating black people and interning its Japanese citizens? This, Morrison implies, comes from the failure to be white, which makes non-white Americans both vulnerable and burdened by a permanent sense of inadequacy. Pecola Breedlove is the embodiment of this sense of inadequacy which, ultimately, drives her insane.

The title of Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye is very significant to the main theme of the novel. Pecola Breedlove, the central character of The Bluest Eye, is a Black-American girl who longs for blue eyes (in fact, the bluest eyes!). This is because she feels that if she has blue eyes, she will look extremely beautiful, her parents will not fight and, in simple terms, all her problems will come to an end. Pecola's idea of beauty and happiness actually stems from the pressures of White standards of beauty, i.e. white skin and blue eyes, on the Black-American community. Through Pecola, Morrison presents the harsh truth of Black-American community's lost faith and belief in their own beauty and perfectness. Pecola’s deep desire for bluest eyes shows that she accepts that being black isn’t being beautiful and happy. In this novel, Morrison doesn't focus on the ideology of Whites, or the interaction of Whites and Blacks. She is more interested to depict the interaction of members of Black community with each other, and how the Blacks see themselves.

Explain the title The Bluest Eye.What is the significance of title?

Throughout the book, having blue eyes is portrayed as a profoundly socially desirable trait. The society shown in the book values whiteness above all else, and blue eyes are a symbol of that whiteness. The only person in the book who does not subscribe to this value system is Claudia, the narrator, who hates Shirley Temple for her blue eyes. By contrast, the protagonist, Pecola, has a particularly strong desire for blue eyes. At the end, the con man Soaphead Church tricks Pecola into believing that she has blue eyes, a belief that becomes a component of the madness into which she descends by the end of the book. The conversation she has with herself in a later chapter (the exchange where one of the characters' words is italicized) shows that she now believes she has blue eyes. Yet even now, she is still concerned that her eyes should be the bluest in the world, as she shows by repeatedly asking her imaginary conversation partner whether they are the bluest. The significance of the title is that the "bluest eye," as a symbol of whiteness, is the ultimate desire of the central character, due to her having grown up in a society that values whiteness as the supreme positive social characteristic.

Explain the title The Bluest Eye.What is the significance of title?

Blue eyes are a part of a traditional, Western, white-centric conception of beauty. Standards of beauty are one of the major themes in Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye, and the novel's title is the first hint the reader has as to the subject matter the book will be dealing with.

The title is also directly relevant to the plot. The novel's protagonist, Pecola, lacks self-confidence and believes herself to be ugly because she does not meet societal standards of beauty. The blue eyes that Pecola wants (and the beauty she believes she will attain if she is granted them) are symbolic of her desire to be accepted by people and a culture at large that have excluded and oppressed her for the way she looks. She believes that if she only had blue eyes, she would see an end to her pain and loneliness and finally find acceptance in society. Pecola's quest for "the bluest eyes" ultimately drives her to madness.

Explain the title The Bluest Eye.What is the significance of title?

This question has already been answered here on eNotes.  Here is a link for you:  http://www.enotes.com/bluest-eye/q-and-a/what-significance-bluest-eye-91597

Explain the title The Bluest Eye.What is the significance of title?

The title of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is significant because it relates directly to the themes of the novel.  Literally speaking, "the bluest eye" is a reference to the wish that Pecola makes to Soaphead Church.  She dreams of having the bluest eyes because she believes that it will make her beautiful and wanted.  Soaphead Church tells Pecola that he will grant her wish if she poisons the dog.

Figuratively speaking, "the bluest eye" is a metaphor for standardized notions of beauty that are discussed throughout the novel.  Early in the text, Claudia says that she does not like to play with white baby dolls because everyone thinks they are so cute, and this is a reflection of the standards of beauty that are perpetrated by the media and society.  Pecola grows up believing that she is ugly, and she thinks that her family's troubles are a result of their ugliness.  Again, the physical characteristics of the characters are metaphors for the family's place in the socioeconomic hierarchy.  The novel portrays this complex web, and "the bluest eye" is a symbol for it.

What is the significance of the title, The Bluest Eye?

The title refers to the desire of the central character, an African American girl named Pecola Breedlove, to have the bluest eyes in the world. Of course blue eyes commonly occur in Caucasians rather than people of African descent, and many examples are given in the novel of the African American characters admiring physical characteristics associated with Caucasians. These include the Shirley Temple cup (with white skin and blue eyes) owned by one of her friends (Pecola is scolded for drinking so much milk at their house--in truth she just wants to use the cup), the white, blonde dolls given to the girls, and the favoritism (even among children on the playground) granted to a light-skinned African American girl named Maureen while Pecola is constantly told she is ugly because she has dark skin (essentially because she looks African rather than European).

The very unhappy life of Pecola (her father is an alcoholic who eventually rapes her) is contrasted with the happy lives of white characters in the movies (her mother Pauline idolizes Jean Harlow) and in children's books. Eventually she becomes mad as the only way to escape from this world. But it is not only Pecola's particular misfortunes which doom her; she also subscribes to the false values of her community which make her unable to value herself and her own individual characteristics. She wishes to have blue eyes to see her world in a new light, a wish which cannot literally be granted, and she is unable to accomplish the necessary mental adjustments to see the world differently (granted she is a child and is adopting the values of her community).

But Pecola's acceptance of the community's standards of beauty is contrasted with that of Claudia, the novel's narrator, who dislikes Shirley Temple and dismantles a white doll she is given for Christmas.

What is the overall significance of the "bluest eye" in light of your reading of Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye?

The Bluest Eye is a novel written by Toni Morrison. It was first published in 1970. The novel follows Pecola, an African-American woman living in America in the early 1940s.

In my opinion, this book is a very important contribution towards highlighting the way black people were treated in the United States. Even during the 1960s, black people were often seen as inferior to white people. As a result, they were often subjected to racist abuse. Morrison clearly saw the need to highlight this by writing a book about the way black people were treated.

The fact that the novel was published in 1970 shows us that the author may have been very heavily influenced by the “Black is Beautiful” movement. This movement tried to encourage black people to move away from the stereotypical perception that the physical features of black people were considered ugly. Instead, black people started to focus on their own beauty, moving away from the fact that one had to be white in order to be considered beautiful.

In the novel, Pecola wishes for blue eyes, which explains the title the author has chosen for the book. As blue eyes are a unique feature of white girls, Pecola sees blue eyes as the ultimate sign of beauty. As a result, she perceives her own eye color as ugly.

This novel is a very important novel, as it does not only highlight how black people were treated, but it also shows the reader the effects that this racial mistreatment had on black people. The author wants to urge black people to be proud of their roots and their heritage, instead of striving for physical ideals dictated by white people.