Toni Morrison has seen the damage societal norms can do; At an early age she encountered a fellow African American girl who wanted more than anything to have blue eyes. Eventually this desire to conform and look "beautiful" overtook the girl, who serves as inspiration for the main character of The Bluest Eye, Pecola. In the novel, Morrison examines the events that lead to Pecola's demise.
The foreword takes on a memoir-like quality in which Morrison explains how she came about writing the novel. Her goal in profiling her young friend and using her story is to achieve verisimilitude and to truly "move" people, rather than just to "touch" them (xii).
While others might say that each person has the power to change our views about ourselves, the novel shows just how much influence society can have on the manifestation of "racial self-loathing" (xi). But really, who can blame the young girl for her self-hatred? She was raised in the 1960's, when life was a casino; You never knew exactly what would occur, good or bad, and you were forced to gamble against the odds of being discriminated. At the same time, the malicious fire between races was raging and the most representation colored people got in television was as the incompetent sidekick of the valiant white Lone Ranger. This racial intolerance and hatred is what Pecola deals with in The Bluest Eye.
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| The valiant white guy with his dumb sidekick |
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