The Bluest Eye

Univerzita Hradec Králové
Pedagogická fakulta
Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury

Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye

(American Literature)

Seminární práce

Autor: Zuzana Lišková
Studijní program: Učitelství pro 2. stupeň ZŠ
Studijní obor: anglický jazyk - český jazyk

Hradec Králové 2010

First novel of Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, tells a story of a tragedy of the black girl Pecola, who is abused and raped by her own father. It is not only the story about the girl herself, but also about American society during the Great Depression (beginning of the 1940’). It shows, among many other things, the superficial conviction of the American society which has had one of the greatest problems with racism and equality of rights of the black people.
It is no wonder   the book was written by a black author who could more than anyone else go under the surface of the problem itself and portray what lives of black people were/are like. Toni Morrison is the first Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist of an Afro-American origin. The Bluest Eye was published for the first time in 1970, around the time when the fight against racism took another turn and the term “black beauty” started to be more frequent in the United States. This can signify one of the meanings Morrison hidden in the story of the girl who loses her sanity in order to obtain something she cannot have. Morrison perhaps wanted to show the absurdity of what is perceived as beautiful on the surface. This motif could be implied easily on the society of nowadays. Although it no longer deals with racism as it did in the past, ideals of beauty has shifted from the tone of skin colour to other features of human body, for instance slimness and obesity.
It is questionable if the novel contains autobiographical features. It is set in a town Toni Morrison grew up and she could have been same old as Pecola in the year the novel takes place, but Morrison grew up in the loving family...