In Toni Morisons novel The bluest eye we find a genuine description of American culture of 1940s and the process of cultural changes. The events take place in northern America, Ohio in the black community. The novel describes many ethnic problems and social changes of that time. The historical background is the moving of the African American people to the North and their integrating into the society. As they moved they brought their culture and that resulted in opposition and even conflict between white and black cultures.

The main conflict is depicted through the Breedlove family and their complicated relations with the society. As they moved to Ohio they lost their usual surrounding and that can be already a stress factor, and that is shown through the thoughts of Pauline Breedlove when she recollects people and acknowledges that she liked them more. In the north this family faced the poverty and social rejection which destructs the family life and brings to the personal tragedies. They lived under the oppressive white culture dominance, and it is pity, but they did not have enough understanding, wisdom and strength to oppose this dominance and work out their own defense.

This can be observed in the personal stories of Cholly, Pauline and Pecola. Cholly feels oppressed by the white people and impotent before them and thus before this life. So he finds his escape in drinking and hatred which he cannot direct against his real enemy so he pours it on his wife and daughter abusing them.

Pauline experienced tragedy in her life being abandoned as a child she cannot become source of love and support for her family since she herself needs it, that is why she hates her family and moves from them into the white familys house as a servant, it makes her forget about sad things in her family. She hates her husband and children, but she can also love, we see that in her attitude to the white girl whom she calls her white daughter. The character of Pauline represents the main attitude of that time when all the standards of beauty and dignity were built by the white population, and according to them the white people were worthy and right, while the black people were like outsiders and the society left them only role of servants or marginal parts. At that time the balance of black and white cultures was not created yet, and that is why the white possessed more power springing from the American history and determined the role of the African Americans in the society. It is sad how this idea was deeply rooted in the minds of the white and how it influenced the black. This can be seen in Chollys fear of when he was found by the white hunters with his first love, and how powerless he felt that could not show his anger and poured it on Darlene.

The dominance of white culture is especially evident in Pauline. She rejected her children and found her happiness in serving in the house of the Fishers, she felt power in the kitchen where her talents were realized. She is much influenced by the movies, and that is one more factor that created her attitude. Because the movies present the beautiful worlds with white heroes and happy ends. It was created by the white people and presented their ideas and it is sad how Pauline bases her understanding on this perspective. This culture industry created her world picture and influenced Pecola. It also shows the great influence of the film industry at that time and how it created the peoples perception and life. I think, Pecola took this idea of blue eyes also from the movies her mother watched.

The strange desire of Pecola to get blue eyes and become beautiful is another expression of the white culture influence. In that world all the standards of beauty were dictated by the whites, and the ideal for the black was Shirley Temple, ironically they could never achieve this ideal just because of the skin color. Pecola hated her skin color because it made her even uglier as she thought. It is difficult to find beauty in the black where all the beauty standards are white produced, where girls play with white dolls and admire white actresses. And this is really tragic as we see it in the story of Pecola.

Another problem of the book is the racism, it is even more touching since shown through perspective of a child. Pecola is ridiculed at school because of the color of her skin. It is so sad to see how worlds stereotypes appear in the children and how cruel they can be to the people that are not like them. The representative of society is Mr. Jakobowski who ignores Pecola and this is how she gets the idea of her unworthiness and ugliness. We can say that Pecola faces racism from different social parts, and even from her family where her mother rejects and beats her, it seems to me that she sees the evil of the world in her family and children because they failed to make her happy.

It is remarkable that black is associated with bad in the minds of the society as well as in the attitude if Pauline, Pecola and Geraldine. This is especially striking in the attitude of Geraldine who being black herself does not want to have anything common with the blacks and shouts at Pecola when finds her in her house. I think, this attitude is produced by her fear to be associated with blacks, and she tries to escape the problems of the life by forgetting the race she belongs to. She does not want to be black just as Pecola does and it is expressed in her hatred and arrogance.

The main subject of the novel - Pecolas desire to get blue eyes represents the main conflict of acceptance. There is no personal acceptance because many try to be not what they are, and the black people try to become white. There is no social acceptance since the whole ethnic group cannot find its place in the society and equal rights. The tragedy is shown through life story of Pecola but sure there were much more people who longed to change their identity, their race or origin in order to be accepted by the society.

Thus this novel handles the problem of individual and ethnic identity in the situation of the African Americans in the white culture of the 1940s. Toni Morrison refers to such cultural processes as integrating of the black population into the society, the oppressive power of the white culture, the increasing control of film industry, the economical situation and its influence on the personal, family and social stability. This novel is not only personally enriching but also historically significant since it gives rich material on the history of American culture of the 1940.