The Bluest Eye


Morrison, Toni



This was the 34th most challenged book of the 1990's (which tops Morrison’s other infamous books, Song of Solomon and Beloved which are also used as required reading assignments in the Blue Valley school system). The Bluest Eye contains incest, rape, pedophilia, graphic sex, extreme violence, sexual abuse, physical/emotional abuse, scatological references, sacrilegious references, animal abuse, and bestiality.

The Bluest Eye is also identified at pabbis.com, Parents Against Bad Books in Schools.

The story centers around a 11-year-old black girl named Pecola, who believes that white skin and blue eyes are beautiful and that she is ugly and unloved. Pecola’s mother Pauline is emotionally disturbed. Pauline is glad that her husband Cholly, who drinks and has a bad temper, beats and abuses her, because it reaffirms her skewed notion that she too is ugly and worthless. As a youth, Cholly was humiliated by white men who found him having sex for the first time and made him continue while they watched.

Cholly rapes and impregnates Pecola, his own daughter. Her mother finds her unconscious, refuses to believe Pecola and beats her. Pecola’s baby is born prematurely and dies. Cholly rapes Pecola a second time and then runs away. At the end of the story, Pecola loses her mind.

WHY WOULD ANY TEACHER EVEN SUGGEST THIS BOOK TO A MINOR?

Yet, Communication Arts IV students at Blue Valley West are encouraged to read this book.


Language includes fuck, shit, ass, tit, bastard, whore, nigger, bitch, coon.

• “..staggered home reeling drunk and saw his daughter in the kitchen.. Why did she have to look so whipped?.. her misery was an accusation. He wanted to break her neck - but tenderly. Guilt and impotence rose.. What could a burned-out black man say to the hunched back of his 11-year-old daughter... hatred of her slimed in his stomach and threatened to become vomit. But just before the puke moved... she.. stood on one foot scratching the back of her calf with her toe.... filled him with a wondering softness. Not the usual lust to part tight legs with his own... desire to cover her foot with his hand and gently nibble away the calf with his teeth. He did it...sank to his knees.. Crawling on all fours toward her.. nibbled at the back of her leg. His mouth trembled at the firm sweetness of the flesh... closed his eyes, letting his fingers dig into her waist.. rigidness of her shocked body... better than P.’s easy laughter had been.. doing of a wild and forbidden thing excited him.. bolt of desire ran down his genitals, giving it length, and softening the lips of his anus.. wanted to fuck her - tenderly. But the tenderness would not hold.. tightness of her vagina was more than he could bear.. gigantic thrust he made into her then provoked the only sound she made - a hollow suck of air in the back of her throat... Removing himself from her was do painful to him he cut it short and snatched his genitals out of the dry harbor of her vagina. She appeared to have fainted. C. ..could see only her grayish panties, so limp and so sad around her ankles.. hatred mixed with tenderness.. hatred would not let him pick her up, the tenderness forced him to cover her. ..regained consciousness.. on floor.. [she] was trying to connect the pain between her legs with the face of her mother looming over her.”

• Letter to God by the man who likes little girls: “Let me tell you now about the breasts of little girls. ..buds. The buds on some of the saplings.. mean and tender.. aggressive. Daring me to touch. ..They stuck out at me... Have you ever seen them, Lord? I mean, really seen them?... I couldn’t, as you must recall, keep my hands, my mouth, off them. Salt sweet. ..ripe strawberries covered with the light salt sweat.. Consider: Their hopeful eyes that were outdone only by their hoping breasts. ...someday I will die.. Why do I have to die?.. The little girls are the only things I’ll miss. ..when I touched their sturdy little tits and bit them... I felt I was being friendly... remember how so many of them came back?.. If I’d been hurting them, would they come back? 2 of them,.. they’d come together. I gave them mints, money and they’d eat ice cream with their legs open while I played with them. ..wasn’t any filth...wasn’t any odor.. wasn’t any groaning.. No look that makes you feel dirty afterward. ..With little girls it is all clean and good and friendly."

• “..one flaw. ...[he] was marred.. by rare but keen sexual cravings. ..could have been an active homosexual but lacked the courage. Bestiality did not occur to him... sodomy .. out of the question.. did not experience sustained erections and could not endure the thought of somebody else’s. ..one thing that disgusted him more than entering... a woman... was caressing and being caressed by a man. ..attentions.. settled on those whose bodies were least offensive - children.... too diffident to confront homosexuality.. limited his interests to little girls.. usually manageable and frequently seductive."

• “ ..mulatto bastard... the bastard’s mother..”

• [man] tricks girl into feeding dog poisoned meat: “..he coughed.. gagged, his mouth chomping the air, and promptly fell down. ..tried to raise himself... half fell down the steps. Choking, stumbling, he moved like a broken toy around the yard. ...[she] covered her mouth with both hands. She was trying not to vomit. The dog fell down again, a spasm jerking his body.”

• “..hear about that girl? What? Pregnant?.. guess who?.. I don’t know all these little boys.. Ain’t no little boy. they say it’s [her father]... That dirty nigger.... ought to take her out of school.. She carry some of the blame. Oh, come on. She ain’t but 12.. How come she didn’t fight him? Maybe she did... You never know... it probably won’t live. They say the way her mama beat her she lucky to be alive herself. She be lucky if it don’t live. Bound to be the ugliest thing walking.”

• “Nuns go by as quiet as lust. ... R. ...sits in a [car] eating bread and butter... When she comes out of the car we will beat her up, make red marks on her white skin, and she will cry and ask us if we want to pull her pants. We will say no. We don’t know what we should feel or do if she does, but whenever she asks us, we know she is offering us something precious and that our own pride must be asserted by refusing to accept.”

• “.. mother comes.. she rubs the Vicks salve on my chest until I am faint... puts it in my mouth, telling me to swallow... later I throw up... What did you puke.. for? Don’t you have sense... think I got time for nothing but washing up your puke? The puke swaddles down the pillow onto the sheet-green-gray, with flecks of orange. It moves like the inside of an uncooked egg... clinging to its own mass... mother drones on.. talking to the puke, but she is calling it my name..”

• “.old crazy nigger she married up with.."

• “Some men just dogs.”

• “..to scare the living shit out of you, you get up at 5:30 in the morning.. see that old hag..”

• “He ever been married to anybody? No. How come? Somebody cut it off?”

• “I destroyed white baby dolls... dismembering of dolls... transference of same impulses to little white girls.. indifference with which I could have axed them was shaken only by my desire to do so. ... If I pinched them, their eyes... would fold in pain... their cry... a fascinating cry of pain.... best hiding place was love. Thus the conversion from pristine sadism to fabricated hatred, to fraudulent love.”

• “You want to go to Mr. H’s room and look at his girlie magazines?... Let’s go to the Greek hotel and listen to them cuss.”

• “P. bolted straight up... whinnying sound came from her mouth... Blood was running down her legs.. brownish-red stain discolored the back of her dress... whinnying, standing with her legs far apart... ministratin’... hold the cotton thing between her legs.”

• “..young boys met there to feel their groins, smoke cigarettes..”

• “..sofa.. fabric had split.. by the time it was delivered... don’t want no tore couch... Tough shit, buddy. Your tough shit...”

• “..she could smell C’s whiskey... had come home drunk.. too drunk too quarrel, so the whole business would have to erupt this AM.. need some coal. it’s as cold as a witch’s tit.. Your whiskey ass wouldn’t feel hellfire.... you think I’m going to wade out in the cold and get it myself, you better think again. I don’t give a shit how you get it.”

• “..discoursing with Jesus about C., pleading with Him to help her “strike the bastard down..” drunken gesture catapulted C. into the red hot stove, she screamed Get him, Jesus!.. If C. had stopped drinking she would have never forgiven Jesus, She needed [his] sins.. lower he sank.. more splendid she and her task became. In the name of Jesus.”

• “When he was.. young, C. had been surprised in the bushes by 2 white men while he was... engaged in eliciting sexual pleasure.. men had shown a flashlight on his behind... stopped, terrified. They chuckled. ...Go on and finish. And nigger, make it good.. For some reason C. had not hated the white men; he hated, despised, the girl.”

• “..threw [water] in C’s face. ..naked and ashen, he leapt from the bed, and with a flying tackle, grabbed his wife around the waist and they hit the floor.. picked her up and knocked her down with the back of his hand. ...struck her several times in the face.... hit his hand against the metal bed frame when his wife ducked... S. ...began to hit his father about the head with both fists, shouting “You naked fuck!” over and over... S. screamed Kill him! Kill him!”

• “Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of her ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school..”

• “3 whores lived in the apartment.... P. [little girl] loved them, visited them, and ran their errands."

• “..them bandy little legs of yours is every bit as old as mine. Don’t worry ‘bout my bandy legs. That’s the first thing they push aside. All 3 of the women laughed.”

• “Oh, Lord. How that man loved me!.. Then why he left you to sell tail? Girl, when I found out I could sell it - that somebody would pay cash for it, you could have knocked me over... my auntie whipped me good that first time when I told her I didn’t get no money. ..Money? For what? He didn’t owe me nothin’... The hell he didn’t!”

• “..did not belong to those generations of prostitutes created in novels, with great and generous hearts... Neither were they sloppy, inadequate whores who, unable to make a living at it alone turn to drug consumption and traffic or pimps... these women hated men, all men, without shame, apology... abused their visitors with a scorn grown mechanical from use... took delight in cheating them... lured a Jew up the stairs, pounce on him, all 3, held him up by the heels, shook everything out of his pants pockets, and threw him out the window. Neither did they have respect for women, who.. deceived their husbands... Sugar-coated whores they called them.. not young girls in whores’ clothing, or whores regretting their loss of innocence. They were whores in whores clothing, whores who had never been young and had no word for innocence.”

• “Into her eyes came the picture of C. and Mrs. B. in bed. He was making sounds as though he were in pain, as though something had him by the throat... Terrible as his noises were, they were not nearly as bad as the no noise at all from her mother. It was as though she was not even there. Maybe that was love. Choking sounds and silence.”

• “..looked into the.. window.. saw Mr. H and 2 women.. he was sucking the fingers of one of the women... other women was buttoning her coat.. These were the fancy women of the maroon nail polish that Mama hated. And in our house. ...The sight of him licking her fingers brought to mind the girlie magazines in his room.”

• “..she will give him her body sparingly and partially. ..enter her surreptitiously, lifting the hem of her nightgown only to her navel. He must rest his weight on his elbows when they make love, ostensibly to avoid hurting her breasts but actually to have to keep her from having to touch or feel too much of him. While he moves inside her, she will wonder why they didn’t put the necessary but private parts.. in some more convenient place... like the armpit.. or the palm of the hand. Someplace one could get to easily, and quickly, without undressing. ...hopes he will not sweat... that she will remain dry between her legs - she hates the glucking sound they make when she is moist. When she senses some spasm about to grip him, she will make rapid movements with her hips, press her fingernails into his back and pretend she is having and orgasm. ...might wonder again.. what it would be like to have that feeling while her husbands penis is inside her. ..closest thing to it was [walking] her napkin slipped free of her sanitary belt... moved gently between her legs... a slight and distinctly delicious sensation collected in her crotch.. delight grew, she had to stop... hold her thighs together to contain it... but it never happens when he is inside her. When he withdraws, she pulls her nightgown down, slips out of bed and into the bathroom with relief.”

• “..she sits reading.. cat will jump into her lap. She will fondle that soft hill of hair and let the warmth of the animals body seep over her and into the private areas of her lap. ..she opens her legs just a little.. perhaps shifting a little together..”

• “White kids; his mother [told him] did not like to play with niggers. ..difference between colored people and niggers... easily identifiable... Colored people were neat and quiet; niggers were dirty and loud. Even though he was light-skinned ..line.. was not always clear.. watch had to be constant. [he] used to long to play with the black boys. ..wanted to feel their hardness pressing on him, smell their wild blackness, and say ‘Fuck you’ with that lovely casualness. ..In the toilet he wanted to share with them the laurels of being able to pee far and long. ..More and more [he] enjoyed bullying girls. It was easy to make them scream and run. How he laughed... The nigger girls he did not pick on very much. They usually traveled in packs...”

• “We got some kittens. You can have one if you want. ..nobody here. My ma’s gone out, and my fathers at work.. want to see the kittens? ..’Here is your kitten! he screeched. And he threw a big black cat right in her face... felt fur in her mouth. [she] touched the scratched place on her face and felt tears coming.. started toward doorway...J. leapt in front of her. You can’t get out. You’re my prisoner.... snatched cat by one of its hind legs and began to swing it around his head in a circle. ..screaming [she] reached for [his] hand.. heard her dress rip.. both fell.. let go of the cat.. thrown full force against the window.. slithered down and fell on the radiator.. few shudders, it was still.. only the slightest smell of singed fur. [then boys Mom comes home] .... Get out.. You nasty little black bitch.”

• “..went to look for F. I found her... crying.. What happened.. Mr. H. ...he touched me. Where?.. pointed to [her] tiny breasts.. Really? How did it feel?.. What’d he do? Just walk up and pinch them?... said how pretty I was... and touched me.”

• “C. poked fun at me, and we started fighting again. I tried to kill him. He didn’t hit me too hard, ‘cause I were pregnant I guess..”

• “..lift his head, turn over, and put his hand on my waist.. knead my stomach.. lean his head down and bite my tit... I want him to put his hand between my legs.. turn to him, but not opening my legs. I want him to open them for me. He does, and I be soft and wet where his fingers are strong and hard.... don’t want his hand between my leg anymore... stretch my legs open, and he is on top of me.... puts his thing in me. In me. In me. I wrap my feet around his back so he can’t get away.... He puts his fingers in mine, and we stretches our arms outwise like Jesus on the cross. I hold on tight.... know he wants me to come first.. Not until he does... put my hands on his behind... feel like I’m laughing between my legs.. afraid I’ll come... And I do... lasts and lasts and lasts... gets off me and lies down to sleep.... ain’t like that anymore... he’s thrashing away inside me before I’m woke, and through when I am.. his stinking drunk self.”

• “..father of the family lifted the melon high over his head.. wondered if God looked like that. No. God was a nice old white man.. must be the devil who looks like that - holding the world in his hands, ready to dash it to the ground and spill the red guts so niggers could eat the warm sweet insides... strong black devil.. ready to split open the world.”

• “White women said Do this. White children said Give me that. White men said Come here. Black men said Lay down... When white men beat their men, they cleaned up the blood and went home to receive abuse from the victim... The legs that straddled a mules back were the same ones that straddled their men’s hips.”

• “In his sleep the foul odor of an old woman’s stools turned into the healthy smell of horse shit,... In a dream his penis changed into a long hickory stick.. hands caressing it...”

• “..were on top of each other in a moment... under her dress.. hand in her bloomers.. [she] pulled down her pants.. [he] dropped his pants to his knees... excitement collecting inside him.. her moans.. felt an explosion threaten.. [she] froze and cried out.. 2 white men.. Hee hee hee hee... flashlight all over [them].. Get on wid it nigger.. make it good, nigger...lifted his gun down from his shoulder.. he pulled her dress up and lowered his trousers and underwear... Hee hee.. simulate what had gone on before... could do no more than make believe.. flashlight made a moon on his behind... Come on, coon. Faster. You ain’t doing nothing for her... almost wished he could do it - hard, long and painfully, he hated her so much... the coon ain’t comed yet.. he have to come on his own time. Good luck, coon..”

• “Tell that bitch she get her money.. get the fuck outta my face!”

• “..his bowels.. opened up.. liquid stools running down his legs.”

• “..he had already killed 3 white men. Free to take a woman’s insults, for his body had already conquered hers. Free even to knock her on the head, for he had already cradled that head in his arms.”

• “To be required to sleep with the same woman forever was a curious and unnatural idea.. expected to dredge up enthusiasms for old acts.. wondered at the arrogance of the female... in drink there was some break... oblivion.”