Same Color, Different Fates: On the Themes in The Bluest Eye

Abstract

In her first novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison tells the tragic fate of a black girl named Pecola Breedlove. Simultaneously, the healthy life of the narrator, another black girl called Claudia, is also presented in the story. Though they are black-skinned, their fates are totally different. By exploring the causes, this paper aims to reveal the major themes embodied in this work: the white voice is inappropriate to dictate the contours of African-American life and it is their ethnic culture that can bring them a better future.