CliffsNotes on

The Bluest Eye

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Book Summary

Toni Morrison Biography

Childhood to Womanhood
Teaching and Writing

About The Bluest Eye

Introduction
Structure of The Bluest Eye

Summary and Analysis by Chapter

Here is the house.
Quiet as it's kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941.
Autumn: Nuns go by as quiet as lust . . .
Autumn: HEREISTHEHOUSE . . . There is an abandoned store . . .
Autumn: HEREISTHEFAMILY . . . The Breedloves did not live in a storefront because . . .
Winter: My daddy's face is a study.
Winter: SEETHECAT . . . They come from Mobile.
Spring: The first twigs are thin . . .
Spring: SEEMOTHER . . . The easiest thing to do would be to build . . .
Spring: SEEFATHER . . . When Cholly was four days old . . .
Spring: SEETHEDOG . . . Once there was an old man who loved things . . .
Summer: I have only to break . . .
Summer: LOOKLOOK . . . How many times a minute are you going to look inside . . . ?
Summer: So it was.

Character List

Character Analysis

Pecola Breedlove
Claudia and Frieda Macteer
Pauline
Cholly Breedlove
Soaphead Church (Elihue Micah Whitcomb)

Critical Essay

An Overview of The Bluest Eye

Study and Homework Help

Full Glossary for The Bluest Eye
Quiz
Essay Questions

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Study and Homework Help

Quiz

1:  Claudia and Frieda want Pecola’s baby to live in order to

a. have someone for Pecola to love

b. validate their own blackness

c. have their own parents adopt it as their new sibling

d. underscore the universal love for white baby dolls
2:  Which of the following works was not written by Toni Morrison?

a. Song of Solomon

b. Sula

c. Tar Baby

d. And Still I Rise
3:  Excerpts of which first-grade primer remind readers to be aware of the dichotomy between the black and white cultures?

a. Dick and Jane

b. Ted and Sally

c. Friendly Village

d. On My Street
4:  Pecola possesses a core characteristic that affects all of the other characters in the novel. What is it?

a. anger

b. passivity

c. self-hatred

d. innocence
5:  The only person to understand the agony of the fixed, penetrating presence of the untouchable and intrusive white society was

a. Pauline

b. Sammy

c. Frieda

d. Cholly
6:  Pecola descends into madness in order to

a. seek out new and accepting friends

b. escape the emotional aftermath of rape

c. get away from Pauline and Cholly

d. rid herself of the ugliness she feels is indelible
7:  The black boys who torment Pecola do so because

a. of their lack of self-worth

b. they were paid to do it

c. they are mean and bored

d. they were forced to
8:  Asafetida bags are used to hold

a. loose tea leaves

b. medicine

c. measured units of grain

d. fetid remains of slaughtered pigs
9:  Who said the following: “I am cute! And you ugly!”

a. Claudia MacTeer

b. Maureen Peal

c. Rosemary Villanucci

d. Della Jones
10:  Who said the following: “I teach my children that there is a part of yourself that you keep from white people -- always.”

a. Maya Angelou

b. Bill Cosby

c. Toni Morrison

d. Angela Davis



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