The Bluest Eye

The narrator tells us that the marigolds she and her sister planted would not grow that fall. They had hoped if the marigolds grew, it would bring about a magic and everything would be all right. Unfortunately, nothing grows and everything is far from all right in the life of their friend Pecola. Pecola wants to be like Shirley Temple — so much so that she drinks three quarts of milk so that she can drink out of the Shirley Temple cup. This is the ideal of beauty: a little white girl, one who is named Jane and lives in a green and white house with Dick, Mother, and Father. They are pretty and live in a pretty house. Nothing like the life of Pecola Breedlove, who has been forced to be outdoors — the ultimate disgrace. Pecola is taken in by the sisters Claudia and Frieda’s family, who although poor, have stability and parents who love them. Claudia’s character is a foil in many ways to Pecola. She does not like Shirley Temple; in fact, she has an “unsullied hatred of all the Shirley Temples of the world” (p. 19). She describes how she dismembers the white, yellow-haired, blue eyed dolls she is given for presents. Claudia goes on to transfer this hatred to little white girls. She can’t see what makes them so special and not her.

Discussion Questions

1. Although Claudia has much better circumstances than Pecola, she also suffers a powerlessness. Do you think so? How?
2. Why do you think Morrison runs the lines from early Dick and Jane readers into a big jumble at the beginning of chapters?
3. Why does Morrison dedicate so much description to the Breedloves’ storefront apartment?

—Ryan Steed