been collected in useful readers such as Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze's anthology Race and the Enlightenment (1997). The well-read, race-obsessed Soaphead Church in The Bluest Eye is the inevitable product of these theories." These perpetual racist beliefs shape Pecola's self destructiveness, she is suspicious of even her own blackness, and desires the characteristics of a white person, like those in the Dick and Jane primers. As Abdellatif Khayati, professor at the Moroccan Cultural Studies Center, articulates, The Bluest Eye shows how the historic white narrative creates an “epistemic violence of the Other [which] operates through the internalization of the self-as-other. Pecola exists only in the image reflected by the Other.” Just as Pecola's rape is concealed throughout the story, the novel exposes a history of failed pursuits of hiding the racist and sexist establishments that directly provoke each character's hardships. While Morrison was a notable female writer, she was quick to deny her works being categorized as “feminist,” as she believed the title denies the specific necessities of black women. Rather than depict strong female protagonists, Morrison created characters who are actually defeated by the racism and sexism of the historic time period. Anne Salvatore, a professor of English at Rider University, interprets this failure of the "anti heroine" as a stark contrast to the typical bildungsroman, where a male character defeats obstacles and grows from experience. Instead, in The Bluest Eye, Pecola fails to develop an individual identity in the face of an oppressive society, and her self-hatred forces her to retreat from reality completely. The points of view in the novel are also significant to its unique style. Morrison combines many narratives: two perspectives of Claudia at different times in her life, as well as an omniscient third person who connects the many tragedies of the characters. By the end of the novel, the jumbled words of the Dick and Jane primer, as well as the increasingly confusing narratives, hint at Pecola's descent into madness. This breakdown in the novel's structure also represents a destruction of the harmful ideologies which Morrison's stories seeks to debase. Reception The novel received minimal critical attention when first published; however, it was placed on many university reading lists in black-studies departments, which promoted further recognition. Morrison was praised for her handling of difficult themes: critic Haskel Frankel said, "Given a scene that demands a writer's best, Morrison responds with control and talent." The