The majority of this novel is told from the perspective of Claudia, who, as a friend of Pecola Breedlove, watched the majority of the events unfold, and therefore is an appropriate choice of narrator. At times, Claudia speaks from her perspective as an adult in the present, looking back at the events that happened to Pecola and herself as a child, but also she speaks from her perspective as a young girl, experiencing the events in the novel as they occurred. However, as well as Claudia's voice, occasionally the novel shifts to a third person omniscient narrator. Interestingly, these occurs in the chapters talking about the Breedlove family and Soaphead Church. Such a shift in the point of view allows the voices and stories of other characters to be disclosed to the reader. The reader would never know, for example, about Cholly's sexual history, and Soaphead's journey from the West Indies, if the story was told from Claudia's point of view. Note, for example, what insight the omniscient narrator is able to give the reader about the character of Soaphead when he discovers Pecola's wish for blue eyes:

Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty... A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles.

The omniscient point of view therefore allows the reader greater insight into the lives of other characters and their histories. Morrison does this to explore the way in which even characters such as Soaphead and Cholly have suffered because of their skin colour in their past, and this perhaps helps the reader to understand their actions in the present. 

What is the significance of the point of view in The Bluest Eye?

I personally think that the point of view of this excellent and challenging novel is the most interesting aspect of this story. The character of Claudia MacTeer is the "I" of the first person point of view, though it is important to realise that at various stages in the novel she relates incidents to us from the eyes of a nine year old girl and then as an adult who is looking back at what has happend to her.

The adult narrator is used by Morrison to indicate points of reflection for Claudia when she is able to use her vantage point as an adult to understand more than she did as a nine-year-old. A perfect example is when Claudia reflects on the way Pecola was shunned by both Claudia and her community and she recognises that Pecola was mistreated as a result.

However, in addition to this first person retrospective narrator, at the same time, there is a third-person omniscient narrator who fills us in on certain points of information, such as the backgrounds of Cholly and Pauline. Such omniscient narration allows us to comprehend how Pauline and Cholly have ended up hating themselves so profoundly.

However, the main focus of the narrative is that of the narratino of Claudia as she experiences flashbacks as an adult to her life as a young girl. This pervasive narration is evidenced by the dividing of the novel into four seasons, as nine year old girls would use them to chart the passing of time rather than days, weeks or months.