The Bluest Eye: The Maureen Peal Episode

|2 pages |13-12-2010 | | Not evaluated |
Price : €1.80

Presentation

In her novels, Toni Morrison focuses on the experience of black Americans, particularly emphasizing black women's experience in an unjust society and the search for cultural identity. She uses fantasy and mythic elements along with realistic depiction of racial, gender and class conflict. Born Chloe Anthony Wofford, her first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), received mixed reviews, didn't sell well, and was out of print by 1974. Critical recognition and praise for her work grew with each novel. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award for her third novel Song of Solomon (1977) and the Pulitzer prize for Beloved (1987). She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 for, in the words of the Swedish Academy, her "visionary force and poetic import" which give "life to an essential aspect of American reality."

This brief essay analyses an extract from "The Bluest Eye", the Maureen Peal episode.

Extract

Then, through the use of colours, Maureen's wealth is emphasised. Indeed, she's wearing “green knee socks” → she is wearing colourful clothes and this is a sign of her wealth. It is reinforced by the “rabbit fur”, which is very expensive. Toni Morrison contrasts Maureen's clothes and the three girls’ as they are wearing “brown stockings that barely covered the knees”. We can first see a contrast with the “green knee socks”. Toni Morrison describes the same type of clothes to show the social difference between the girls and create a contrast. Moreover, this difference is emphasised by the colours used to describe the three girls' clothes. Indeed, while Maureen is colourful, the three black girls wear “black garters”, “brown stockings” which also remind their skin colour. Colours are therefore used to show the social differences between the girls. In addition, the symbol of nature is very important in this passage to contrast once more the light skinned girl and the black girls. Indeed, the green knee socks make Maureen's legs look like “wild dandelion stems”

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