The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye

• Genre: Fiction; historical
• Originally Published: 1970
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 920L; college/adult
• Structure/Length: 4 parts; foreword and prologue; approx. 224 pages; approx. 7 hours, 6 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Morrison’s first novel is set in the 1940s in Lorain, Ohio. Its central narrator, a teen Black girl named Claudia MacTeer, tries to make sense of the tragedies endured by Pecola Breedlove, a local Black girl alienated by those in her community and by society at large after being raped and impregnated by her father.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Racism and racial conflict, including internalized racism; sexism; poverty; sexual abuse, including rape and incest; sexual content; profanity and racial slurs, including the “n-word”

Toni Morrison, Author

• Bio: 1931-2019; born in Ohio; attended Howard University and Cornell University; taught at Texas Southern University; became the first female Black fiction editor at Random House (1965); published first novel (The Bluest Eye) in 1970; earned Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (for Beloved; 1970) and Nobel Prize in Literature (1993); tapped to give the Jefferson Lecture, the highest honor awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (1996); awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (1996); received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012); inducted to the National Women’s Hall of Fame (2020); known for honest and moving portrayals of Black history and experiences in her work
• Other Works: Sula (1973); Beloved (1987); Paradise (1997); Love (2003)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Black Female Identity
• Black Respectability and the Family
• The Nature of Love

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the social and psychological contexts that influence the novel’s character development.
• Study paired texts and other brief resources to make connections to the text’s themes of Black Female Identity and The Nature of Love.
• Create and defend a culturally responsive definition of beauty.
• Analyze and evaluate the plot, setting, character, and theme to draw conclusions and make inferences regarding women, family, community, and love.