Book Study
In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the author confronts the devastating impact of monstrous hatred and demonization of Blackness on the most vulnerable person in society: a Black girl.
The novel invites readers into a story that begs fundamental questions about life and meaning amid great suffering. Where is God? Where is justice? What new insight about God and justice might an engagement with literature yield? In reading The Bluest Eye, we will explore the deadly interaction of racial self-contempt and the desirability and privileging of whiteness to discern potential new insights into the nature of God and justice for our own time and witness.
Join Lead Minister DeWayne Davis to explore the image of God and the presence of justice in The Bluest Eye.
Contact DeWayne Davis at dewayned@plymouth.org.
Session 4
Zoom meeting October 14, 5:30 p.m.
Session 3
Zoom meeting October 7, 5:30 p.m.
Session 2: Winter
Zoom meeting September 30, 5:30 p.m.
Session 1: Introduction through Autumn
Zoom meeting September 23, 5:30 p.m.
Please join the discussion by leaving a comment belwo.
Only your name is required to participate in the discussion. The other fields are optional.
Please ignore the circle with the number. We are not able to change the format. It shows the number of comments in this thread.
Welcome to God & Justice in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Please leave your discussion comments and questions here.
Tonight I will just listen. I haven’t got the book yet, but Discussions That Encounter!, my usual Thursday evening commitment, probably is in everlasting hiatus, For some reason, the circle 1 for Blue Eye is not activated for leaving my name.
Thanks Ann. I’ll Let DeWayne know.
Session 2 addresses the Winter section, and the introduction of Maureen Peel and Geraldine. Questions to consider in your reading:
What does Christian imagery found in the section (church pews, Geraldine’s bible, the portrait of Jesus looking down on Pecola) mean to the characters? What do they mean to you? How does seeing them through Pecola’s eyes inform the meaning?
BCP, page 365. I think Morrison finds the “cup of salvation” in the girls themselves through the process of maturation which allows them to experience or understand birth or re-birth.
This says 5:30 but calendar says 7:00. Will they be recorded fir later viewing/listening.?
Thanks
Questions for Session 4:
How can we let Claudia and Frieda’s response to the story inform our own actions in response to injustice and oppression?
How does the narrative suggest an ethical reconstruction that addresses oppression?
What are the uncomfortable examinations of our own truths that reveal not a Revelation of the Word, but only a rearranging of lies?
Fifty years post publication, the book presents a question of originalism for me. I wonder – (putting this in the context of the era in which it was written and the schools of thought starting to emerge from academia at the time, what was Morrison’s intent with the book and should that simply inform a quaint or antiquated understanding as we move on applying the new theories and rhetoric of our day. Or do we examine the book from the context of 1969 and let it go at that. What would Morrison want us to do? Can we do both?
How does an academic cultural historian approach this book? What questions does he or she pose? Is Morrison’s “cosmology” reliable?
There are no positive portrayals of successful black people who hold together communities – they’ve disappeared, disappearance being a major theme in the book – the doctors, teachers, clergy, merchants, even neighbors etc. The handful of characters are progressively surrounded by absence. As such it has a Lord of the Flies aspect to it, leaving the least of those to fend for themselves. Morrison’s taken a small group, removed it 100% from the broader context and watched it smash apart of its own volition and this isn’t flattering. She’s cancelled the fabric of the commercial and social community. Now what do we have?
There are few white people except for a child Polly tends in a manner that might be seen as performative and the “way back” forebears of Soaphead (who, probably as someone who would be able to pass) is a perverse mess. Morrison’s cancelled the white world quite largely except for outward material manifestations such as doilies and Heidi, a portrait of a sad blonde Jesus, and blue-eyed dolls.
It is my understanding that the black church has long performed a social services role in the black community? Where is it? Where are the church potlucks and the Wednesday night gospel sings? And food drives for Pecola’s family? The black church has been cancelled from the equation in the book as well.
By the end of the third section, I am confused and hope to see a functioning social support put back together at the end of the book. I know that will happen.
I’m glad there is renewed interest in the book which sadly and all too often is posthumous.
I liked the book and was glad to have had this opportunity to discuss it. I am sorry that Pecola’s mind disappeared along the way.