Toni Morrison, a black American, was born in 1931in Lorain, Ohio. She grew up in an environment steeped in black culture. She had a family that encouraged her to be proud of her origins, believe in herself. At school she was the only black child in the class.
             In 1955 she received a master's degree in English from Cornell University. In 1957 she married a Jamaican architect. Their marriage ended in 1964 when their two sons were little.
             She was a senior editor for the publisher Random House then thought African-American literature and creative writing at Yale University. She has a passion for black history and issues of black identity, an academic and personal interest in race.
             "The Bluest Eye (1970) is the novel that launched Toni Morrison into the spotlight as a talented African-American writer."
             "Her first novel focuses on young girls and the damaging effect of stereotypical white ideals of beauty." The idea for The Bluest Eye came partly from one of Morrison's elementary school classmate, a black girl, whose wish for the eyes of a white girl exposed her disdain for her own racial identity and proposed questions about beauty and inferiority. The Author became interested in the mechanics of feelings of oppression. In Pecola's tragedy Morrison's uses her critical eye to reveal societal and situational forces working against an entirely vulnerable little girl.
             Narrative voices in The Bluest Eye come from several sources which is a way to look at a story from many angles. Much of the narration comes from Claudia MacTeer, a nine year old little girl, but she also reflects on the story as an adult, there is some first person narration from Pecola's mother, and from Morrison herself as an omniscient narrator.
             The Author intentionally kept the protagonist (Pecola) from the first person narration. She wanted to show a little girl as a completely innocent victim of whatever happens to he...