Hunter said that these passages raise discomfort by forcing parents and students to have uncomfortable conversations. Jernigan said that the issue of incest makes the book “hugely challenged” as it’s a sensitive topic that’s easy to point out.
The American Library Association also notes that challengers of the novel often describe it as “sexually explicit.” Past Ohio Board of Education president Debe Terhar and former Alabama State senator Bill Holtzclaw have even described the novel as “pornographic” and “divisive.” The novel contains one scene with incest. Hunter said that discomfort from this novel may reside more with families and parents rather than students, given that primarily white neighborhoods may not have had discussions around race and probably do not have the tools for them. Many school districts where the book has been challenged are areas populated by a white majority. Morrison makes her readers uncomfortable from start to end: Reading her writing is not “supposed to be a vacation,” said Jernigan. Yet these discussions are often resisted - Jernigan said that the dominant culture in American society relies on maintaining the American dream, a dream that has no room for discomfort. ”‘The Bluest Eye’ takes a bold but extremely necessary step in destigmatizing the perpetuating harmful narrative imposed on people of color and begins conversation and efforts to empower and craft positive visuality for people of color,” Lu wrote. Lu wrote that this perspective has aided racism in becoming “rooted into the backbone of American history” learning about racism from the viewpoints of those who were victimized and marginalized, like Pecola, “is the most important step in prompting change.” Janice Goerun Lu ’24, who read the novel in high school, wrote in a statement to The Daily that books usually assigned to high school students tend to present a “narrow one-dimensional perspective” that doesn’t cover the perspectives of those struggling to make sense of their identities. “Anytime Black people move up in any way and challenge their oppression, we have this backlash,” she said. PWR lecturer Donna Hunter said that she found the backlash to the novel unsurprising. Novels such as “Huckleberry Finn” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” instead examine stories where “white eyes and white hands and white pens still control the narrative of Black life,” said Jernigan. Jernigan said this may be the case because “The Bluest Eye” is an instance where a Black person narrates Black life in a way that creates “a Black world in which white people exist on the margins.” However, other books on school syllabi that contain similar language have not faced the same level of opposition. Opponents have cited “offensive language” as a reason for banning the book, according to the American Library Association. Most recently in February, Colton High School in California banned teachers from assigning the novel after multiple complaints from parents. On the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books, the novel took fifth in 2006, second in 2013 and fourth in 2014. “The Bluest Eye” has faced many book-banning controversies. “Are there any Nobel Prize-winning authors who are challenged as much in the classroom as Morrison is challenged?” “What exactly depicted about Black life through Black eyes has ever been fully accepted into the American canon?” asked Jernigan.
This novel is “Morrison’s first time saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ in her own accord,” according to Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) lecturer Harriet Jernigan.
“The Bluest Eye” is a fictional novel about the experiences of a Black girl named Pecola Breedlove in post-Great Depression America. 5 a year ago, Stanford educators and students criticized the decision of many high schools to ban “The Bluest Eye” from their curricula. Following the anniversary of author and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s passing on Aug.