Toni Morrison said it herself in the introduction, "touching but not moving". However, This is indeed a tragic and unforgiving story. Melancholy lingered long after I finished the last few pages. The last pages were what brought the whole story to a beautiful, poetic and haunting end. An ending that put into words The hows and whys of human suffering and of human cruelty. Not forgiven, not forgotten but understood. As best as those topics ever could be Toni has made Pecola's story help up to do just that. "Among all the waste and all the beauty of the world - which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty which was hers first and which she gave to us. All of us - all who knew her- felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used to silence our nightmares, and she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our ego on her,padded our character with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength." -page 205 "The Bluest Eye" 
 Does that not explain it all beautifully. Ms. Morrison is a literary force. I can see why people consider her one of the greatest writers of current times.