Plot

Claudia and Frieda MacTeer live in Lorain Ohio, they

are two African American girls

Their parents take in Pecola Breedlove because her

father burned down her house.

Pecola is a very troubled girl, she believes she is ugly

aand that she will become pretty by having blue
eyes

She moves back with her family, but there are a lot
of problems, such as her fathers drinking and her
mothers hate.

Plot
One day, Pecolas father rapes Pecola, but her

mother hates her so much that she doesnt

believe her
Pecola starts to get obsessed with having blue

eyes but feels as if God doesnt listen to her, so

she goes with a priest to ask him for blue eyes.
Pecola gets pregnant but loses the child, but later

on she is raped again by her father.

Plot

Pecola goes crazy and starts

to believe she has blue eyes,
she even believes of having
an imaginary friend

She is so isolated that people

in town start to gossip and
they find out she is pregnant
again

Pecola has the baby, but she

is so mentally ill that she ends
up alone

Characters

Claudia: African american girl that hates light skinned

people

Frieda: Claudias sister, her family adopts Pecola at the

beginning of the novel

Pecola: Main character, she is a very troubled girl who

believes that having blue eyes will make her pretty and end
her unhappiness

Mr Breedlove: Pecolas father, he is a troubled man who is

very violent and hits his wife, he rapes Pecola

Mrs Breedlove: Pecolas mother, she is very unhappy and

hates her life, she blames Pecola for her unhappiness

Setting
A poor neighborhood in

Lorain, Ohio, at the end

of the Great Depression
All black neighborhood
Violent and racist

environment
Homes were filled with

violence and hate

Late 1960s

Climax

Pecola is raped by her father and

gets pregnant

People in town start to judge her

and assume she will become a
prostitute and have an unhappy life

She gets so obsessed with having

blue eyes that she starts to
imagine them

She goes crazy, starts to have

conversations with an imaginary
friend

Cultural background
In the late 1960s, African American people

suffered from racism and segregation

Black is Beautiful movement
Issues such as incest, prostitution, domestic

violence , child molestation and racism were very

common in black communities

Author
Toni Morrison was born in Lorain

Ohio in February 18, 1931

She is an American novelist

known for the epic themes and

realistic characters portrayed in
her novels
She won a Pulitzer prize in 1988
Nobel Prize winner in 1933
Most of her stories are based on

events of her earlier life

The Book
In this book, the author wanted to portray typical

problems that black girls faced in the late 60s.

She was inspired by an event that happened in

her childhood, when she listened to one of her

school friends saying that she wanted to have
blue eyes because they meant beauty
The book portrays a cruel reality that was very

common in that time, she wrote about things that

were real and common