Coping by Blaming in The Bluest Eye In The Bluest Eye, Morrison creates dynamic and in-depth characters that keeps readers invested in the characters’ stories and the book overall. The characters in Morrison’s story have a lot of different circumstances in each of their lives. Most of the characters do not deal with the matters at hand and just blame others. Although, some of the particular issues in the story may not occur in normal everyday life, conflicts exist at any time frame and in everyone’s life. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses characters such as Claudia, Cholly, and Soaphead to claim that individuals sometimes blame others as a coping mechanism when they are unhappy with themselves or their lives. Upon the start of The Bluest Eye, Morrison introduces readers to Claudia and her major character conflict, her distain towards society’s idea of beauty. Society and media in the 1940’s presented the idea of beauty as a white, blue eyed child. Claudia looks at a cup with Shirley Temples face on it, her reaction can be immediately known; “I hated Shirley. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles…who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chucking with me” (Morrison 19). Claudia states she does not hate Shirley for her looks, but solely her actions or her happiness; this statement is proven not credible when Claudia refers to Shirley as “old squint-eyed Shirley” (19). Claudia contributes a negative and untrue descriptor to Shirley’s appearance.