Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye'

Toni Morrison was the eighth American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Her novel are characterized by epic themes, elaborately sketched African-American characters and vivid dialogues. She won Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 for her novel, 'Beloved'. Her other famous novels include 'The Bluest Eye', 'Song of Solomon'.

The last book I read was Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye'. In 2000 this novel was selected for Oprah's Book Club.

The story has been narrated from the perception of Pecola, her mother, her father, her friend Claudia and Soaphead Church. This book has been attempted to be banned in schools and libraries because of its controversial nature of its themes of racism and child molestation.The way she begins her story saying that there were no marrigolds that season, suggests that there was something evil happening on that land. It also reminded of T.S. Eliot's line: "April is the cruellest month"('The Wasteland').

Morrison writes in 'The Bluest Eye':

"The damage done was total. She spent her days, walking up and down, her head jerking to the beat of a drummer so distant only she could hear. Elbows bent, hands on shoulders, she flailed her arms like a bird in an eternal, grotesquely futile effort to fly. Beating the air, a winged but grounded bird, intent on the blue void it could not reach - could not even see - but which filled the valleys of the mind."

What beautiful lines yet so poignant! They summarize the tragedy of Pecola.