John - The Bluest Eye

Vocabulary

"ministratin"- "Menstruating"- regular shedding of uterine lining in reproductive-aged females

Mary Jane- a common type of peanut butter-flavored candy made by NECCO, picturing a little girl on the label.

Marigold- Type of flower in the Daisy family

Mulatto- individual having one black parent and one white one.

Notable Characters

Claudia MacTeer- A main character and a narrator of the story. She is a young school-aged girl, who comes from a family with a mother and a father and an older sister.

Frieda MacTeer- Claudia's slightly older sister

Rosemary Villanucci- a white girl who lives next to Claudia and Frieda

Pecola Breedlove- A girl from the neighborhood who is sent to stay with Claudia and Frieda. At home, her parents constantly fight and her older brother is prone to running away. Above the Breedlove family live three "whores" named China, Poland, and Miss Marie.

Mr. Henry- The man who rents a room in Claudia and Frieda's house

Maureen Pearl- A new, wealthy, and popular girl and the school Claudia and Frieda attend

Geraldine- A self-described "color" woman who keeps a nice home and raises her son, "Junior."

Summary
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison opens with a description of a common family setting involving a girl named Jane finding a playmate, and the very same text is repeated twice more, the last time containing only the letters without spaces. Some continuation of this is used before new sections in the book Following this, there is a background section told by Claudia, about the marigolds not growing and the more significant event of Pecola having been impregnated by her father. "There is really nothing more to say---except why. Bust since why is too difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how" (Morrison 6). This last quotation in the background section may serve as the question which the rest of the book attempts to answer.
The "normal" section of the text begins in autumn, and gives the story a solid setting. Claudia, Frieda, their parents, Rosemary, and Mr. Henry are all introduced. Claudia begins by listing a brutal series of actions she could inflict upon Rosemary for reasons she cannot really explain. Cholly Breedlove is brought up in conversation, giving further background information of him. Pecola is soon introduced, too. She is living with Claudia's family temporarily until certain problems are solved in her house. The first significant action involves Pecola being frightened by what is happening to her, which she soon finds out is menstruation as she is calmed at first by Frieda and then by Mrs. Macteer.
The thought that Claudia, herself, tells the entire story is questionable, especially in the following sections of the book which give detailed descriptions of The Breedloves' house and situations where Claudia was presumably not present. The Breedlove family is described as "poor and black, and….ugly" (Morrison 38). The house is very unkempt and the family dynamic is not particularly functional. Cholly is an alcoholic and Mrs. Breedlove is constantly wishing for her husband's demise to be brought about in some way that does not directly involve her. Pecola finds herself wishing, among other things, for a pretty pair of blue eyes, reflective of the novel's title, and enviously staring at Mary Jane on the candy box. Pecola also visits the ladies who live above her and further tries to find out about love and how and when babies are conceived.
The next section starts winter, and Claudia and Frieda are in school. Claudia introduces the new girl at school, Maureen Pearl, who is "cute," wealthy, and very popular. Consequently, Claudia and Frieda feel they need to find whatever reasons they can to despise her. At first acting nicely toward one another, Claudia, Frieda, and Maureen agree to walk home together and encounter a gang of boys insulting Pecola, before Frieda breaks them up. Maureen is then especially friendly to Pecola, buying her ice-cream, but ultimately instigating a fight by bringing up the subject of seeing a man naked which is taken by the other girls to be an inquisition into the matter the boys were teasing Pecola about, having seen her father sleep naked (this having been noted earlier in the book). After Maureen runs away, screaming "I am cute," Claudia and Frieda continued home where they find Mr. Henry, who greets them and offers them a quarter to go to the store which Maureen and Pecola had just visited and buy ice-cream cones for themselves. After deciding to buy candy instead, Claudia and Frieda return home and see Mr. Henry with the women who live above Pecola's house. When being questioned by the girls, Mr. Henry claims that the women were in a Bible Study group and tells the girls not to tell their mother, which they decide to follow, seeing as their mother would have a fit about most anything unusual.
The next section of this book begins with a description of a very orderly type of lady, the places she is from, the type of man she marries and the life she leads. The specific lady described, Geraldine, holds a clear distinction between the civilized "colored" and the crude "nigger". She has one son called "Junior," who "learned to direct his hatred for his mother to the cat" as well as other things (Morrison 86). Upon seeing Pecola cut through the schoolyard which is next to his house, Junior threatens her and then invites her into his house, promising her a kitten of her own. While clearly trying to bother Pecola by holding the door shut so that she could not leave, Junior is upset in seeing that Pecola takes comfort in petting the cat. He then throws that cat against the wall and blames the whole incident on Pecola when Geraldine comes to question him and throw Pecola out of her house.

Question

Is there a specific theme that Toni Morrison is trying to suggest trough these stories in the book? If so, what is it?