Connolly, Paula T. “Cultured Toys.” The Lion and the Unicorn, vol. 21 no. 1, 1997, pp. 148-151. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/uni.1997.0003

Lois Rostow Kuznets explores the depiction of toys in literature, but also the representation and function of toys as cultural artifacts. She also discusses how their uses have ranged from fetish and sacred object to a way of socializing children. Kuznet also argues that collecting dolls both signals a struggle between adults and children for the meaning and possession of toys and how it cites, for adults, a reaction against the development of technology.  

Bergner, Gwen. “Black Children, White Preference: Brown v. Board, the Doll Tests, and the Politics of Self-Esteem.” American Quarterly, vol. 61 no. 2, 2009, pp. 299-332. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aq.0.0070

In Gwen Bergner’s piece she draws most of her info from the Brown v. Board of Education the Supreme Court case. Psychologist Kenneth B. Clark found evidence that segregation damaged black children’s self-esteem and hampered their ability to learn. Clark and his wife Mamie had tested black children’s “racial preference” by asking them to choose between black dolls and white dolls, interpreting the choice of white dolls as evidence of damaged self-esteem. She also argues against the doll test results that dolls do not have any correlations to self-esteem but argues that black children’s white preference behavior is signifying a form of psychic hybridity or mixed-race identification that eludes our historic

black/white binary.

Roye, Susmita. “Toni Morrison’s Disrupted Girls and Their Disturbed Girlhoods: The Bluest Eye and A Mercy.” Callaloo, vol. 35 no. 1, 2012, pp. 212-227. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cal.2012.0013

Susmita Roye states that Morrison emphasizes that the most imperceptible members of an already invisible black society in a race-segregated world are the little black girls, that are shrunk in stature by the crushingly diminishing combination of their skin color, gender,and age.  In Roye’s article she draws from both The Bluest Eye and  A Mercy which  reflect Morrison’s continued concern for “girls interrupted.” Both novels present a number of ways in which girlhoods are aborted.  By juxtaposing the first and the latest of her novels, Roye argues that Morrison’s feminist ideology accommodates universal girlhood, crossing frontiers of race, class, culture, ethnicity, continents, and centuries.

Frever, Trinna S. “‘Oh! You Beautiful Doll!”: Icon, Image, and Culture in Works by Alvarez, Cisneros, and Morrison.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 28, no. 1, 2009, pp. 121–139. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40783477.

Trinna S. Frever argues that dolls are multifaceted symbol for societal disputes over what it is to be female and contests of cultural and national identity. Frever uses three different depictions of dollhood in this essay which are, Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Sandra Cisneros’s “Barbie-Q,” and the doll dismemberment scene from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. In this essay it is concluded that dolls are more than just a toy but are icons in contemporary society, part of the value system of the U.S.-dominant culture, and its “representation” of womanhood.

Bernstein, Robin. “Children’s Books, Dolls, and the Performance of Race; or, The Possibility of Children’s Literature.” PMLA, vol. 126, no. 1, 2011, pp. 160–169. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41414088.

Robin Bernstein argues that playing with dolls and reading children books has a direct correlation to race. He mentions Uncle Tom’s Cabin  and a little girl Burnett, who took what she read in the book and acted out scenes she felt were most powerful. “At other times, Burnett performed the scene of Eva s death, casting the white doll as Eva and as “all the weeping slaves at once.” And at least once she designated the doll Uncle Tom and cast herself as Simon Legree. For this  scenario, the girl bound the doll to a candelabra stand. “with insensate rage,” she whipped her doll. Throughout whipping, the doll maintained a “cheerfully hideous” grin, suggested to the girl that Uncle Tom was “enjoying the situation” being “brutally lashed.” In the article it is seen that many nineteenth-century white children read books about slavery and then used dolls to act out scenes of racialized violence and forced labor. It is also argued that representational play is performative in that it produces culture. Then the article goes on to argue about animate vs sentient dolls and the question of “what is a person?”

Yancy, George. “A Foucauldian (Genealogical) Reading of Whiteness.” Radical Philosophy Review, vol. 4, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1–29., doi:10.5840/radphilrev200141/217.

This piece touches on the deformities that the characters in the novel The Bluest Eye develop when brought up with the idea of “whiteness” and what it means to be white. The author brings up the idea that whiteness in fact has evolved into the universal code of beauty especially in America, which I believe will be extremely useful in my paper as I delve into how the color of our skin affects who a person is while rewriting history at the same time.

Burcar, Lilijana. “Imploding the Racialized and Patriarchal Beauty Myth through the Critical Lens of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” Vestnik Za Tuje Jezike 9.1 (2017): 139-158. Web.

This second article illuminates Americas unconvential beauty standard and how from a young age these little girls begin to internally hate their bodies and themselves due to not being able to achieve these impossible standards. This article made me realize how for my paper I need to incorporate both The Bluest Eye and The Invisible Man in order to really follow through with a substantial analysis.

Booth, W. James. “The Color of Memory: Reading Race with Ralph Ellison.” Political Theory, vol. 36, no. 5, 1 Oct. 2008, pp. 683–707.

This journal discusses the idea of race as a color as well as an identity which is rather evident because at times our society makes it to be that race is all that can define us. This article makes a note on the fact that memory and social justice also tie a factor into the larger color of whiteness as well as it masquerades the wrongs it has achieved.

Bump, Jerome. “Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: A Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism.” College Literature, vol. 37, no. 2, 2010, pp. 147–170., doi:10.1353/lit.0.0108.

This article discusses the use of racism in this novel and how it evokes a sense of anger and emotion into the main characters and readers, as well as how the age is a major factor of how the characters can react to how they are cheated as it is even mention how Pecola is aware she is being wronged at times but cannot comprehend the extent of it.

Works Cited

DuCille, Ann. The Coupling Convention: Sex, Text, and Tradition in Black Women’s Fiction. Oxford University Press, 1993.

• This book compares the patterns of white and African American writers. It draws an historical account of the black literary tradition, focusing mostly on black female writers, in order to examine their use of tropes, such as the marriage plot, popularized by white authors, and how they rejected and reworked such tropes to the end of reclaiming their sexuality. It further sketches out cultural attitudes towards non-traditional relationships throughout history.

Malmgren, Carl D. “Texts, Primers, and Voices in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 173, Gale, 2003. Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/apps/doc/QKPMSE517876176/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=04d83dce. Accessed 29 Apr. 2019. Originally published in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 41, no. 3, Spring 2000, pp. 251-262.

• This article looks at how Morrison uses a variety of diverse voices and perspectives in The Bluest Eye. From a much more technical perspective than many of the other sources, it analyzes the text to determine Morrison’s intent in using her many different techniques.

Moses, Cat. “The Blues Aesthetic in Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” African American Review, vol. 33, no. 4, 1999, pp. 623–637. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2901343.

• This article looks at the ways in which The Bluest Eye acts as a piece of music. In the course of doing so, it analyzes the characters of the three prostitutes, coming to find that they represent reclaimance of female sexuality as opposed to victimhood, as many others  argue.

Pal, Payel and Neelakantan, Gurumurthy. “Morrison’s Prostitutes in The Bluest Eye.” Notes on Contemporary Literature. Volume 44. Pages 4-7. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261527825_Morrison’s_Prostitutes_in_The_Bluest_Eye

• This article analyzes the role of the characters of China, Poland and Miss Marie in The Bluest Eye, looking at the facets of life these women give us insight into that no other characters are able to show us. It argues that in many ways they better adhered to society’s standards than many of the other characters.

Rickard, Wendy, and Merl Storr. “Editorial: Sex Work Reassessed.” Feminist Review, no. 67, 2001, pp. 1–4. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1395526.

• This article explores efforts to shift negative attitudes towards sex workers by giving insight into the hugely diverse life experiences sex workers go through. It provides anecdotal evidence of how sex workers are regarded and gives a modern account of social attitudes, likely most directly applicable to the time right after Morrison would have been writing The Bluest Eye.

Saleem, Taqwaa Falaq, “The Village Mother in Selected Works of Toni Morrison” (2010). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 180. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/180

• This article examines the “surrogate mother” characters in Morrison’s novels. In looking at China, Poland and Miss Marie in The Bluest Eye, the author concludes that they are the most prominent motherly figures in Pecola’s life, and looks at the implications of this evaluation.

Scott, Lynn. “Beauty, Virtue and Disciplinary Power: A Foucauldian Reading of Toni Morrison’s the Bluest Eye.” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 173, Gale, 2003. Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/apps/doc/SNXFMQ391694420/GLS?u=cuny_hunter&sid=GLS&xid=65607942. Accessed 5 May 2019. Originally published in Midwestern Miscellany, vol. 24, 1996, pp. 9-23.

• This article looks at the historical and cultural context surrounding The Bluest Eye to better examine the power structures at play. Although it does not contain an analysis of Morrison’s prostitutes, its historical discourse and analytical method are both very informative.

Putnam, Amanda. “Mothering Violence: Ferocious Female Resistance in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, and A Mercy.” Black Women, Gender Families, vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 25–43. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.2.0025.

Black Women, Gender & Families analyzes, Black Women’s Studies paradigms. It centers the study of Black women and gender within the critical discourses of history. It also has an article specifically about Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Grogan, Christine. “Morrison Responds to the Psychological Community in The Bluest Eye.”  Father-Daughter Incest in Twentieth-Century American Literature: The Complex Trauma  of the Wound and the Voiceless. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2016. 75-94. EBSCOhost,  search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2016383186&site=ehost-liVe.

This work traces the development of father–daughter incest narratives in the Bluest Eye and Ellison’s Invisible Man. This work explores what Toni Morrison has called the “most delicate,” “most vulnerable” member of society: a female child; and, what happens when the trauma is not just a one event but numerous experiences. Some traumatic experiences, namely father–daughter incest, are culturally reduced to the untellable, and yet accounts of paternal incest are readily available in literature.

PIPES, CANDICE. “Failed Mothers and the Black Girl-Child Victim of Incestuous Rape in The Bluest Eye and Push.” Toni Morrison on Mothers and Motherhood, edited by Lee Baxter and Martha Satz, Demeter Press, Bradford, ON, 2017, pp. 183–200. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1rfzz5n.14.

This work explores a lot of Toni Morrison’s novel and examines the ways in which Morrison’s work deviates from western culture’s ideological norms of mothers, motherhood, and mothering. Pecola’s mother plays a big part in Pecola’s life and how she became who she was at the end of the book so this work which shows how Morrison challenges the concept that mothering, and motherhood will help when writing my essay. This work looks at Morrison’s work through an array of interdisciplinary approaches.

Zender, Karl F. “Faulkner and the Politics of Incest.” American Literature, vol. 70, no. 4, 1998, 739–765. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2902390.

This work examines Faulkner’s depiction of incest, finding it to be religious and oedipal. It is said that both Morrison and Ellison were influenced by Faulkner, this could therefore be used to analyze Morrison and Ellison.

1) Burcar, Lilijana. “Imploding the Racialized and Patriarchal Beauty Myth through the Critical Lens of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.” Vestnik Za Tuje Jezike 9.1 (2017): 139-158. Web.

https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/Vestnik/article/view/7635/7266

Burcar argues that The Bluest Eye exposes the devices manipulated to contrive the Western beauty myth, which whether racialized or gendered, targets African Americans through objectification and disempowerment while sustaining whiteness. She analyzes various examples in the novel where the characters experience this culturally on a regular basis, allowing for the naturalization and perpetuation of these ideologies within American society.

2) Koch, E. “Hollywood’s Terror Industry: Idealized Beauty and The Bluest Eye.” Sanglap 1.1 (2014): 147-57. Web.

http://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/37/27

Koch analyzes the role of Hollywood as a social institution and as an agent of cultural normalization which defines beauty standards. Koch also emphasizes how these standards function in the novel in order to not only expose their harmful effects towards the black community, but to reveal their illusory sense of attainability.

3) Yancy, George. What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. London: Routledge, 2004. Web.

In chapter 5 of his novel, Yancy analyzes the construction of whiteness through a genealogical framework, as well as emphasizes how whiteness is constructed to oppose blackness while claiming “universality.” He then reveals how this ideology drives Pecola’s descent into self-hatred and acceptance of her perceived “ugliness.”

4) Pal, Payel and Neelakantan, Gurumurthy. “Morrison’s Prostitutes in The Bluest Eye.” Notes on Contemporary Literature. Volume 44. Pages 4-7. www.researchgate.net/publication/261527825_Morrison’s_Prostitutes_in_The_Bluest_Eye

These authors argue that China, Poland, and Marie resist capitalist culture through prostitution while also transforming their impoverishment into a form of empowerment which grants them freedom. They also argue that Morrison critiques the black community’s skewed sense of justice in capitalist America by condemning the prostitutes while respecting pedophilic white men.  

5) Jha, Meeta. The global beauty industry: Colorism, racism, and the national body. Routledge, 2015.

In her novel, Jha examines the role beauty plays in creating structural and individual privilege, as well as contributing to discrimination and inequality. She takes an intersectional approach by taking gender, nation, race, color, ethnicity, sexuality, and class hierarchies into consideration when focusing on women’s everyday experiences and practices of beauty.