I am reading The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The story is about an eleven-year-old girl named Pecola Breedlove. She is an African American who has a love for blond, blue eyed children. She wishes that her eyes would turn blue so that she will be beautiful. Pecola does not have a good home life, her father is a drunk and her parents fight often. They lived in a storefront below the apartment of three whores, China, Poland and Miss Marie. Pecola visited them and did errands for them. Pecola is now staying with Claudia and Frieda's family, her mother is staying with the woman she works for and her brother Sammy is with some other family because Cholly, her father, is in jail. Frieda and Pecola are the same age and Claudia is younger.
I think its kind of wierd that an elleven year old girl likes children with blond hair, blue eyes. Does it ever tell why she likes children that fit this discription?
ReplyDeleteI dont understand does she want to be a blue eyed blonde haired girl? Or why does she like children like this?
ReplyDeleteHannah and Megan,
ReplyDeleteUsually Toni Morrison's novels deal with the struggles of African-Americans during slavery, segregation, etc. I'm guessing that Pecola is African-American and wants to achieve the Anglo standard of beauty, which we still see in the media today. Am I right Ivy? How is the book so far? Is it a tough read?
Ms. Shank
Hannah and Megan,
ReplyDeletePecola belives that she is ugly, eventhough she isn't. She prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be beautiful like Shirley Temple.
Ms. Shank,
So far i like this book, it was alittle confusing because it jumps around to different characters and times but its starting to make more sense now.
-ivy
I think that if you stay with it, Ivy, you'll be glad you did. You'll get used to the way Morrison writes and the whole book will make more sense. It's agreat story...I really liked it. Of course, I haven't read it in 15 or 20 years. Perhaps I should read it again-perhaps I will.
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