Below is a table containing some of the major works of Toni Morrison including her novels and her short story, Recitatif. Many of her works deal with poorer socio-economic conditions. Those works detailing the lives of people from a higher social class contain characters who encounter those of a lower socio-economic class and learn life lessons from them.

The Bluest Eye	In 1970, Morrison published her first novel narrated by Claudia MacTeer, a poor black girl from a loving family in Lorain, Ohio. Taking place in the 1940’s, the novel centers around Pecola Breedlove, another young black girl whose home life is abusive and devastating. Pecola longs to be beautiful and have blue eyes like the adorable Shirley Temple and eventually suffers from insanity. The Bluest Eye depicts the circumstances which African Americans must overcome in the face of white cultural standards.
Sula	Published in 1973, the story takes place in the early 1900’s in Medallion, Ohio. Morrison’s second novel centers around two African American friends named Sula and Nel, and follows their friendship all the way through adulthood and up to Sula’s passing. This novel deals with racism and the manner with which African Americans have had plead with whites in order to survive.
Song of Solomon	Morrison's breakthrough novel of 1977 combines myth, and fantasy as Milkman Dead tries to find a missing treasure and come to terms with his identity and black heritage.
Tar Baby	My favorite of Morrison's work, Tar Baby of 1981, tells the story of Jadine, a beautiful African American woman who was orphaned and raised by her aunt and uncle who work as housekeepers in the Street estate. Valerian and Margaret Street provide Jadine with a formal education and encourage her modeling career. When Jadine encounters Son, a black man from Florida who is befuddled by Jadine's "whiteness" she discovers she does not really know much about her heritage.
Recitatif	In 1983, Morrison published her first and only short story, Recitatif, which chronicles the friendship of Twyla and Roberta, a black girl and a white girl, (which is which is unknown), who witness and participate in an African American handicapped woman named Maggie who works at their group home. It is only when the friends are advancing into their adult years do they discuss the abuse of Maggie and unwrap the guilt they have felt from their silence.
Beloved	Morrison's powerful novel of 1987 deals with a black woman who must deal with the effect of murdering her own child rather than having the girl returned to slavery. The spirit of her murdered child returns to seek revenge. Many consider this to be Morrison's best novel as it went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Jazz	Set in Harlem in the 1920s, Morrison's 1992 novel chronicles a triangle involving a middle-aged door-to-door salesman, his mentally unstable wife, and his eighteen-year-old girlfriend.
Paradise	Morrison's 1998 novel is based on a group of former slaves who establish a utopian community in the West. The novel opens in 1976, when the descendants of the slaves are caught in a bitter conflict linking past and present and demonstrating not merely the legacy of racism but the continuing tensions between black men and women, which Morrison has explored in many of her novels.