The Bluest EYE Toni Morrison The Breedlove family has moved from the rural south to urban Lorain, Ohio, and the displacement, in addition to grinding work conditions and poverty, contributes to the family's dysfunction. Told from the perspectives of the adolescent sisters, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, Morrison's narrative weaves its way through the four seasons and traces the daughter's (Pecola Breedlove) descent into madness. Through flashback and temporal shifts, Morrison provides readers with the context …showed first 75 words of 441 total…

…showed last 75 words of 441 total…by moaning "something awful" to teach the doctors that "[j]ust 'cause I wasn't hooping and hollering before didn't mean I wasn't feeling pain." While the doctors have their "story" about Pauline, she resists their version, retelling it, "talking back" to medicine and to readers. This section raises important questions about assumptions and the ways social factors such as race, class, and gender can get in the way of hearing stories and understanding patients' lives.