Toni Morrison’s books have been endorsed and especially preferred by the Oprah all these years for, what I can comprehend till now to be, only one reason. Toni Morrison strives to bring out the plight of black people in America or just black people in general. All her novels vividly bring out the REAL, and not what is perceived by others, life of black people.

The Bluest Eye, as expected, is based on the same lines as Toni’s other novels.

The novel’s protagonist Pecola Breedlove, an ugly black girl coming from poverty stricken, shattered beyond repair black family harbours a wish to get blue eyes which are stereotyped as the eyes of beautiful girls. Pecola having been ignored all her life and jeered at by others for being ugly wants to get blue eyes to turn what she believes to be beautiful.

The book is broken into parts and the narrative takes on views of different people at different times. It brings out the intra caste racism prevailing in the black society at the time of Depression in America. Digging deep into the history of Breedlove’s family Toni Morrison dishes out the much talked about black people’s life in America in a succinct and heart rending manner.

However, the bluest eye goes beyond talking about black people and the ordeal that is their life. It delves in critical problems of how people have stereotyped ‘a beautiful girl’ and how anyone who doesn’t fit this image is subjected to jeers and made to feel ugly and how it can devastate a fragile life of 12 year old.

An excellently worded book, The Bluest Eye, will be a pleasant read for book lovers. Every reader would learn something new, something different and something worthwhile.

As for me, I would read it again to find something I missed the first time.