NSCC Library: Office of Student Engagement Book Club: The Bluest Eye

Access the Book

The NSCC Library does not have electronic access to The Bluest Eye; however, this is a very popular title and may be accessible from many public libraries. We recommend checking with your local, public library to see if they have electronic copies available. Many public libraries are starting curbside pickup services so you may be able to get a print copy. Please check with your public library to see what options are available to you!

Interviews with Toni Morrison

Interview with Toni Morrison on "The Bluest Eye" and "Paradise" from 1998

Toni Morrison on the motivation behind The Bluest Eye

Literary Criticism

Seeds in Hard Ground: Black Girlhood in The Bluest Eye
This paper discusses several aspects of The Bluest Eye that differentiate Morrison's novel from earlier fictional accounts of African American girlhood, including descriptions of first menses and mother-daughter interactions, "colorism," and the emotional precocity of pre-adolescent girls (1987)
Resisting the White Gaze: Critical Literacy and Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye"
Racism, subordination and collective trauma in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
This paper intends to deliberate on Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye from the angle of postcolonial thought also taking feminist thought into perspective. Rooted in history, reliving the pleasures, pains and horrors of black existence, her works are prisms of life.

INTERSECTING OPPRESSION OF GENDER AND RACE IN TONI MORRISON’S THE BLUEST EYE AND GOD HELP THE CHILD
This study attempts to uncover the intersecting oppression of race and gender in the novels and to explain how African-American women cope with the oppression.
Persuasive Strategies Towards Racial Appeal in Tony Morrison’s the Bluest Eye
In this paper, the author made use of Aristotle’s concepts of ethos, logos, and pathos, as 3 main dimensions of persuasion to determine the strategies used in the novel by the narrator-Claudia. Descriptive qualitative analysis of the novel’s text revealed that the author has made use of all these strategies. Pathos was observed in form of feelings of fear, anger and hatred. Logos was observed in the logic of the grown up society of America about
being white and ethos was found among the black who themselves credited the whites over their own race.

Toni Morrison's the Bluest Eye by Harold Bloom
Concise critical excerpts that provide a scholarly overview of each work - "The Story Behind the Story," detailing the conditions under which the work was written - A biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, an extensive summary and analysis, and an annotated bibliography.
Toni Morrison and Literary Tradition by Justine Baillie
Toni Morrison and Literary Tradition explores Toni Morrison's construction of alternative and oppositional narratives of history and places her work as central to the imagining and re-imagining of American and diasporic identities. Includes the essay: Ideology, Identity and the Community: The Bluest Eye (1970) and Sula (1973)
Toni Morrison's Art. a Humanistic Exploration of the Bluest Eye and Beloved by Sumedha Bhandari
Toni Morrison, describes aspects of human lives, reveals the hope and beauty that underlines the worlds ugliness.
Her artistic excellence lies in achieving a perfect balance between black literature and writing about universal truths. Firmly grounded in the cultural heritage and social concerns of black Americans, her novels focus on universal concerns. This book tries to extend this notion to encompass the problems of whole human community by assimilating blacks in the general drama of life.