Episode 8: Banned Book Review #1: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustration frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators that I had while I was raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to know how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. If you're looking to find out more about the current topics in education that could affect you or your children and the practical actions that you can take to address these issues, then you're in the right place. In today's episode, I will be reviewing one of the books from the Band Book list that I mentioned in an earlier podcast episode. This focus will be on the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. The intent of this and other monthly book reviews is to examine, to analyze, to investigate why these books were on on the banned book list of K 12 public school reading. I'll first start out with a brief summary about the book and then I'll end with my overall observations and implications. Claudia and Frieda are the sister characters in the book and they are the two main characters and in some ways they tell the story through their experiences. Most of the story centers around the Breedlove family. There are other colorful characters in the book as well, like Mr. Henry, Soap Head Church, and Aunt Jimmy. The author gives detailed background about the main characters in the book. The richness of the characters come to life with the extensive descriptive background that Toni Morrison provides. Pecola Breedlove was a particular case that came to stay with Claudia and Frida and their family until Pecola's family was reunited. What happened was that her father was physically abusive to her mother. He seemed to be really a scoundrel. In this book, the author accurately and humorously depicted the dialogue of a black moment, especially the Southern black vernacular and dialect. The Breedloves lived in a stark apartment in an empty storefront in a small town called Lorain, and this was in Ohio. That's the setting for the story. They lived there because they were poor and black, but they stayed there because they believed they were ugly. Their ugliness was unique. The father's, whose name was Charlie Ugliness was his behavior. The rest of the family, Mrs. Breedlove, Sammy Breedlove and Pecola Breedlove wore their ugliness, although it didn't belong to them. Pecola, in fact prayed for blue eyes because she thought that having blue eyes would make her beautiful. She didn't see herself as beautiful. She only saw herself as others perceived her through their eyes. In fact, this family had an overall contempt for their own blackness. Pauline Breedlove, who was Pecola's mom, was introduced to physical beauty through the movies. She would find ways to get to the movie shows every so often and she would just be over the top in identifying with the characters in the movies. She thought physical beauty was the end all be all and actually preferred it to romantic love. Probably the most destructive ideas in history of human thought were romantic love and physical beauty. They thrive in insecurity and are ended in delusion. When one equates physical beauty with virtue, their mind is stripped and they end up having self contempt. Pauline Breedlove regarded love as possessive mating and romance as the goal of the spirit. In this book, Toni Morrison provides descriptive sexual intercourse or interactions between the husband and wife characters. The main storyline in the book is when Charlie, in a drunken stupor one night, confused his 11 year old daughter for his wife, Pauline, and he raped his daughter in the kitchen of their home while she was washing dishes. He also raped her a second time while she lay on the sofa reading. Pecola became pregnant, however, she lost the baby and subsequently she lost her mind. In her crazed state, she believed that she had the bluest eyes. The sad truth of this is, as depicted in the story, that her mother, Pauline, didn't believe when she told her what her father had done. In the end, Charlie died, Sammy Breedlove, who was Pecola's brother, Left Home and Mrs. Breedlove and Pecola lived on the outskirts of town. An isolated life as victims and objects of pity and mockery. My overall impressions of the book follow. Pretty much everyone knows what it's like and what it feels like to be disliked, even rejected, either momentarily or for sustained periods of time. In this book, Toni Morrison was interested in the tragic and disabling consequences of accepting rejection as being legitimate, as being self evident. Most people outgrow rejection. There are those, however, who collapse silently and anonymously with no voice to express or acknowledge their feelings of being rejected. They are invisible. Toni Morrison states that the death of self esteem can occur quickly, easily, for children before the ego has legs, so to speak. Coupled with the vulnerability of youth with indifferent parents, dismissive adults, and a world which, in its language, laws and images, reinforces despair and the journey to destruction is sealed. This book dives into and delves into a variety of complex issues, including racism, self hatred, poverty, incest, and other human struggles that also include judgment, envy, and ridicule, all which focus on emphasizing the differences that we perceive between each other. Toni Morrison connected the dots between the relationships of the characters and wove the threads of their lives together in such a way as to present a compelling story about the main characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the book as the reading was captivating and engrossing. The descriptive ways that the author presented the characters, described events and circumstances, and the humorous tongue wagging dialogue took me back to the Southern diction and dialect that I was very familiar with growing up. The book provides ample subject matter for which the high school English teacher could delve into a variety of topics and discussions with their students. Some of those topics are infrequently addressed. Nevertheless, the discussions would invite a broadening perspective for a high school student. I think that some of the reasons why this book was on the banned book list is because of the topics that I mentioned, like racism, spiritual arrogance, and incest. However, overall I think it is well worth reading. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please subscribe to my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a comment or a review and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. By the way, if you have an urgent question about a current issue or specific topic topic that you'd like for me to cover and explore, shoot me a quick email at kimiberation through education.com to let me know what your question is. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day.

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