The novel is suffused with sadness and violence, and reveals so much about humankind. Morrison captures scenes and characters deftly, and has written a highly memorable coming of age story in The Bluest Eye. Pecola was sent to stay with her family by вЂthe countyвЂ™ when the Breedloves became homeless, and her father, Cholly, was taken to prison. The first part of the story is narrated by Claudia. Morrison uses multiple perspectives in The Bluest Eye, which built to create a novel with a great deal of depth. For a time, the Breedloves had lived in an abandoned shopfront, which вЂfoists itself on the eye of the passerby in a manner that is both irritating and melancholy.вЂ™ There was only the muted sound of falling things, and flesh on unsurprised flesh.вЂ™ This physical instability also carried into the familyвЂ™s physical home. Tacitly they had agreed not to kill each otherвЂ¦ They did not talk, groan, or curse during these beatings. Breedlove fought each other with a darkly brutal formalism that was paralleled only by their lovemaking. We learn of PecolaвЂ™s tumultuous and unsettled upbringing, with parents who rarely got on: вЂCholly and Mrs. Aside from Pecola, very few of the other characters in The Bluest Eye deserve the readerвЂ™s sympathy. Using Pecola as a focus, Morrison is able to reveal the myriad prejudices of everyone around her. This sadly makes her an easy target for a lot of different people. Pecola is at a great disadvantage not only is she a vulnerable black girl, who has to contend with racism and violence in her day to day life, she also lives in abject poverty. This, naively, is what Pecola begins to wish for: вЂEach night without fail, she prayed for blue eyesвЂ¦ To have something as wonderful as that happen would take a long, long time.вЂ™ She is cruel about her own appearance, and is taught constantly by those around her that white beauty counts for more than black, and that only the utmost beauty can be attained by those who have blue eyes. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her fatherвЂ™s baby that the marigolds did not grow.вЂ™ Pecola is a young girl when the story begins, and she often tries to make herself disappear. The novelвЂ™s beginning is both striking and shocking: вЂQuiet as itвЂ™s kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. The edition which I read contained an enlightening foreword written by Morrison, in which she comments: вЂThere canвЂ™t be anyone, I am sure, who doesnвЂ™t know what it feels like to be disliked, even rejected, momentarily or for sustained periods of time.вЂ™ She goes on to say that when she began to write The Bluest Eye, she was most interested in the вЂtragic and disabling consequences of accepting rejection as legitimate, as self-evident.вЂ™ Morrison also wished to acknowledge standards of beauty within society, which she says вЂwas not simply something to behold it was something one could do.вЂ™ She focused on вЂhow something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child the most vulnerable member: a female.вЂ™

Pecola, rather heartbreakingly, вЂbecomes the focus of the mingled love and hatred engendered by her familyвЂ™s frailty and the worldвЂ™s cruelty as the novel moves toward a savage but poignant resolution.вЂ™ДЄlthough evidently a piece of historical fiction, there are many parallels which can be drawn with todayвЂ™s society, the majority of which are sadly negative. The Breedlove family consists of parents Pauline and Cholly, son Sam, and daughter Pecola. The Bluest EyeВ вЂchronicles the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in 1940s OhioвЂ™, an era which I am always drawn to. The novel, which is deemed a modern classic, was first published in 1970. This all changed when I came across an available copy of her debut, The Bluest Eye, on my libraryвЂ™s app, and settled down with it immediately.

I have enjoyed a few of Toni MorrisonвЂ™s books in the past, but for some reason have not got around to picking up any of her novels in recent years.

Where does the bluest eye take place