The Bluest Eye explores the effects of racism on the most vulnerable members of society, children. On pages 19-20 Morrison writes: "It [Claudia's hatred for all the Shirley Temples of the world] had begun with Christmas and the gift of dolls. The big, the special, the loving gift was always a big, blue-eyed Baby Doll....I had only one desire to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me."
I think Claudia's desire to dismember the blue-eyed Baby Doll represents in miniature Toni Morrison's intention to deconstruct the mystique of white models of beauty--beauty that Morrison regards as destructive. The whole novel invites readers to understand how seemingly harmless ideas and objects (like beauty and the Baby Doll) have a tremendous effect on young minds.