Before 1970, most depictions of rape in American fiction offered the perspective of the perpetrator enjoying the violence and pain he forced upon a woman. Morrison’s first novel also inaugurates a new genre of American fiction called the rape novel, which I describe in Writing the Survivor. The novel appeared on the American Library Association’s “Top 10 Most Challenged Books” list as recently as 2014 for content deemed too graphic for impressionable young people-for Morrison’s novel depicts the rape of a Black girl by her father, the birth and death of her baby, and her fall into madness.

The novel is now often taught in high schools and universities but with its popularity comes criticism. As Morrison’s literary star rose, The Bluest Eye was recognized for its nuanced depiction of racism and the fetishization of white beauty standards. Toni Morrison’s masterful first novel received accolades in Kirkus Review, which called the book a “quiet chronicle of garrotted innocence.” Morrison’s novel about three little Black girls was “perhaps the least likely, least commercially viable story one could tell at the time,” according to Hilton Als in The New Yorker.

The Bluest Eye was released on October 29, 1970. In this blog post, Field reflects on the power of Toni Morrison’s debut novel The Bluest Eye, to mark its 50th anniversary. New from Clemson University Press, Writing the Survivor by Robin Field explores how rape novels place survivors at the heart of narratives of sexual violence rather than the perpetrators.

Toni morrison the bluest eye