Morrison's Message

I agree with Chickie's comments about Claudia's new perspectives at the end of the novel. She sees how it was not just Pecola or even Pecola's immediate family who destroyed her; the entire community was to blame. I see the final pages of the novel as a challenge to readers presented by the author. Morrison encourages people to rise above the racism and discrimination that are inherent to society because, as the novel illustrates, it destroys so many young souls. In the afterword, Morrison discusses how The Bluest Eye was inspired by the story of a girl she knew in her childhood. A little girls she went to elementary school with commented to her that she wished she had blue eyes. Later in her life, Morrison saw this girl's reasons for wanting them: "Implicit in her desire was racial self-loathing. And twenty years later I was still wondering about how one learns that" (Morrison 210). She was haunted by the girl she know in grade school and wrote the novel to show how significantly the unconscious prejudices of society can impact the lives of those who are hurt by it. Pecola's story is a cry to society to nurture all of its youth rather than just those who are "pretty."