Read complete books and articles on: The Bluest Eye (by Toni Morrison)

Morrison, Toni - 1931–, American writer, b. Lorain, Ohio, as Chloe Ardelia (later Anthony) Wofford; grad. Howard Univ. (B.A., 1953), Cornell Univ. (M.F.A., 1955). Her fiction is noted for its poetic language, lush detail, emotional intensity, and sensitive observation of American life as viewed from a variety of African-American perspectives. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), is the story of a girl ruined by a racist society and its violence. Song of Solomon (1977; National Book Award) established her as one of America's leading novelists. It concerns a middle-class man who achieves self-knowledge through the discovery of his rural black heritage. Her later fiction includes Beloved (1987; Pulitzer Prize), a powerful account of mother love, murder, and the legacy of slavery; and Jazz (1992), a tale of love and murder set in Harlem in the 1920s. Her other novels are Sula (1973), Tar Baby (1981), Paradise (1997), and Love (2003).

Among Morrison's other works are the essay collections Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power and Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (both: 1992); several children's books, including The Big Box (2000), written with her son, Slade; a play, Dreaming Emmett (1986); a song cycle, Honey and Me (1992), written with André Previn; and an opera, Margaret Garner (2003). Awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, she is the first African American to win the coveted prize. Morrison, who was an influential editor at Random House for nearly two decades, has been a professor at Princeton Univ. since 1989 and is the founder (1994) of the Princeton Atelier, a writers' and performers' workshop.

See studies by B. W. Jones (1985) and A. I. Vinson (1985); Conversations with Toni Morrison (1994).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: The Bluest Eye (by Toni Morrison)

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (literary criticism) » Read Now
by Harold Bloom. 258 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

-- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature
-- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism
-- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index
2.

Toni Morrison: A Critical Companion (Chap. 3 "The Bluest Eye (1970)") » Read Now
by Missy Dehn Kubitschek. 203 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison is among our most distinguished contemporary novelists. Morrison describes herself as a "black woman novelist," and all her novels deal with African American characters and communities. Exploring the entire cycle of human life in a...
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Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison is among our most distinguished contemporary novelists. Morrison describes herself as a "black woman novelist," and all her novels deal with African American characters and communities. Exploring the entire cycle of human life in a spiritual context, her novels are also universal in their depiction of families, especially mothers and their children. From her first novel, The Bluest Eye, to her most recent, Paradise, Toni Morrison has explored the African American experience, and by extension, the human experience. The characters she creates linger in our minds long after we have finished reading the novel. This is the only book-length study of Morrison's novels to discuss all of her novels published to date.
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3.

'The Bluest Eye': Notes on History, Community, and Black Female Subjectivity, in African American Review » Read Now
by Jane Kuenz. 11 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...The Bluest Eye: notes on history, community, and black...Jane Kuenz In Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye, the Breedloves storefront apartment is...seemingly hegemonic white...
4.

Toni Morrison's World of Fiction (Chap. 2 "The Bluest Eye") » Read Now
by Karen Carmean. 132 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

"Carmean's analysis . . . guides readers through the complex poetic metaphors toward their meaning. . . . Its annotated bibliography makes this book an important addition to academic libraries."—CHOICE
5.

The Novels of Toni Morrison: The Search for Self and Place within the Community (Chap. III "The Bluest Eye: Selfhood and Community") » Read Now
by Patrick Bryce Bjork. 172 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Novel 17 III. The Bluest Eye: Selfhood and Community 31...is central to Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye . Bombarded and humiliated by images...kinship ties, her characters in...
6.

Becoming and Bonding: Contemporary Feminism and Popular Fiction by American Women Writers ("The Bluest Eye: A Sad Black Girlhood" begins on p. 168) » Read Now
by Katherine B. Payant. 246 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Expounding the view that the feminist movement has both encouraged and enriched literature by women, Katherine Payant examines a large body of immensely popular but, for the most part, critically neglected fiction of the period from the late 1960s through the early 1990s, relating these writers and...
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Expounding the view that the feminist movement has both encouraged and enriched literature by women, Katherine Payant examines a large body of immensely popular but, for the most part, critically neglected fiction of the period from the late 1960s through the early 1990s, relating these writers and works to the women's movement and feminist theories. The study concentrates on popular fiction, which is seen as evidence of the widespread influence of feminism and as a vehicle for dissemination of "mainstream" feminist ideas. Chapters dealing with the 1970s and 1980s survey relevant feminist theories and tie them to representative novels. Chosen for special focus in individual chapters are Marge Piercy, Mary Gordon, and Toni Morrison, who reflect divergent perspectives on feminism. Written in accessible prose, this work will deepen the appreciation of readers of these novelists and increase their understanding of the effect of social movements on the arts.
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7.

The Fourth Face: The Image of God in Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye,' in African American Review » Read Now
by Allen Alexander. 11 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...image of God in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye. by Allen Alexander...intriguing or perplexing than in The Bluest Eye. And of the many fascinating religious...God affect her...
8.

The Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, in African American Review » Read Now
by Cat Moses. 16 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye. by CAT MOSES The blues...of Toni Morrisons first novel, The Bluest Eye, are often so overwhelmed by the...music... "...
9.

Refiguring the Father: New Feminist Readings of Patriarchy (Chap. 6 "The Naked Father in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye") » Read Now
by Patricia Yaeger, Beth Kowaleski-Wallace, Nancy K. Miller. 322 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Naked Father in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye Vanessa D. Dickerson 108 Part...Naked Father in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye." For the narrator of Morrisons...Geraldine in...
10.

Focusing on the Wrong Front: Historical Displacement, the Maginot Line, and The Bluest Eye, in African American Review » Read Now
by Jennifer Gillan. 16 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...displacement, the Maginot Line, and The Bluest Eye by Jennifer Gillan...hyperembodied, Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye can be read as a commentary on the...critique Morrison...
11.

The Artist as Outsider in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf (Discussion of The Bluest Eye begins on p. 53) » Read Now
by Lisa Williams. 198 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

On first consideration, Nobel prize winning African-American author Toni Morrison might seem to have little in common with Virginia Woolf, the British writer who challenged Victorian concepts of womanhood. But interestingly enough, Morrison wrote her masters thesis on Woolf and William Faulkner, and...
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On first consideration, Nobel prize winning African-American author Toni Morrison might seem to have little in common with Virginia Woolf, the British writer who challenged Victorian concepts of womanhood. But interestingly enough, Morrison wrote her masters thesis on Woolf and William Faulkner, and in that thesis, she gives special attention to issues of isolation. For Woolf, Morrison notes, isolation brings a sense of freedom that the attached can never comprehend. In her own novels, Morrison redefines Woolf's concept of isolation in terms of American racism, and both Woolf and Morrison examine the obstacles the female artist must overcome before she can create art. This volume looks at the similarities that link Morrison and Woolf together despite their racial, ethnic, national, and historical differences. At the same time, it analyzes how differing structures of domination define their art.
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12.

Writing the Subject: Bildung and the African American Text (Chap. 3 "A Double Code: Language and the Female Subject in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Gayl Jones' Eva's Man") » Read Now
by Gunilla Theander Kester. 182 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Female Subject in Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye and Gayl Jones Evas Man 73...of clothing. Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye 1970 remains the most wrenching...Invisible Man ...
13.

Race, Gender, and Desire: Narrative Strategies in the Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker (Chap. Three "Racial Discourse, Aesthetics, and Desire in Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Sula") » Read Now
by Elliott Butler-Evans. 227 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...author. The passages from The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison are used here...Aesthetics, and Desire in Morrisons The Bluest Eye and Sula , 59 FOUR...Aesthetics, and Desire in...
14.

Unflinching Gaze: Morrison and Faulkner Re-Envisioned (Chap. 9 "Black Matters on the Dixie Limited: As I Lay Dying and The Bluest Eye" and "Untold Stories: Black Daughters in Absalom! Absalom! and The Bluest Eye") » Read Now
by Carol A. Kolmerten, Stephen M. Ross, Judith Bryant Wittenberg. 248 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

A critical examination of the Faulkner-Morrison literary connection.
15.

Representation, Race, and the "Language" of the Ineffable in Toni Morrison's Narrative, in African American Review » Read Now
by Abdellatif Khayati. 12 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...note in passing the scene in The Bluest Eye in which Pecola is raped by her father...from a dualistic perspective in The Bluest Eye, where projections of African...
16.

Toni Morrison and the Burden of the Passing Narrative, in African American Review » Read Now
by Juda Bennett. 14 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...paragraphs and often with indirection. The Bluest Eye, for example, features a dark-skinned...representation of passing for white, The Bluest Eye artfully reinforces its...