Why I Chose "The Bluest Eye"

I love Toni Morrison. Though "The Bluest Eye" is the very first novel I have read by her! I was familiar with her contributions to social justice, intersectional feminism, and bringing awareness to issues of race relations in this country prior to reading the novel. I ended up falling in love with "The Bluest Eye" almost immediately. My first comment on her writing was that "every line is poetry". There's some major irony in this, as I was reading an interview with Morrison and she stated that her "poetic" writing is a common compliment and that she despises it! Morrison explains that "poetic" is not a compliment: "Morrison's novels are often described as difficult, or poetic, neither meant as a ompliment, and it drives her crazy. She writes at a ground level, she says, in the vernacular of a people - poor, black - who, if their speech is unfamiliar to white readers, is not on the novelist's head" (Brockes). In other words, The Bluest Eye wasn't written for White people; it wasn't written for me. This is why I knew choosing to focus on this novel as my capstone project would be difficult: I had to be very careful in my approach. If you ask a feminist of color how to be a good ally, you can be sure that you'll typically receive the same advice: "Be quiet". White feminists have been speaking over Black feminists sincet the emergence of the first wave, and it hasn't been since the 2000's that Black feminists have had mainstream agency to speak out on intersectional feminist issues. It was important for me to recognize although i adore this novel, I will never truly understand this novel on the level that a person who was born less privileged can, so my approach to this project needed to reflect that. I'm doublemajoring in psychology and women's studies with a minor in African studies, so basically, I study racism. For this reason I felt as though this novel was one I could analyze in the most depth, despite being more difficult to do so as African American literature is both foreign to me and not wirtten for me. I knew I needed to stay away from pitying the characters in the novel, so I decided I wanted to write my thesis on why it's important for White readers, such as myself, to avoid feeing "too sorry" for Pecola, just as Morrison advises.

Working on this project has been an eye-opening, personal development journey that, though challenging, has been extraordinarily rewarding.

#ToniMorrison #feminism #racism #intersectionality