The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a much more difficult read than one may think. If you read the words for what they are, taking a literal approach to it all, you are really missing out on the actual story. The deeper meanings in almost every aspect of the story create a much more passionate and great read.
One concept that I would like to point out that really changed the novel so far for me is how Pecola and Claudia react to receiving a doll. If you read it as a story, one that states how they reacted, you might assume that Pecola was just happy to be given a doll and Claudia is not appreciative. However, the reason as to why these girls react this way is for us to figure out and it gives the novel so much more power. When analyzing, you learn that Claudia is not a selfish or unappreciative girl that rips up the doll because she thinks she deserves better or anything along those lines. In actuality, she has hatred for what the doll represents-a white girl with blue eyes-something she will never be. She has extreme envy over what she believes is a white girls lifestyle and the doll brings out that anger.
Pecola, while still having the same conception of what a white girls lifestyle is like, reacts completely opposite of Claudia. She takes care of the doll, playing with it constantly. She believes that if she could be white and have those “perfect blue eyes”, she would be better off and in a loving and supportive family.
It is interesting to compare these two characters as they have the same ideas, yet their tactics are completely different, showing the reader how, given the same situation, it can be handled in at least two totally different ways and how that affects them throughout the novel.
In modern times, racial profiling or prejudice seems like a thing of the very distant past, but it really isn’t. To put it in perspective, this is written about the time period of 1941, just before World War II. Another thing to note is that this is the year president Roosevelt signed an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in the defense industry (Encyclopedia). It took until 1941 for this to happen. A perfect example of how this prejudice was displayed is in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird.
It is novels like these that really make Americans realize the prejudice we have shown in our past and how we took so long to correct this behavior. The Bluest Eye really exemplifies how racism affected every thought and action of all Americans, even children.
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