Blogs
Eyes and Loss
cyclopsI wasn’t really sure what to say about this book, so I’m going to start with a story from my own life about why I feel such a personal connection to Lem Pitkin. I grew up in a rural-ish area, on a completely unimpressive, non-self-sustaining farm with acres and acres of hay fields next to my house. When I was eight, I was playing outside with my brother and somehow managed to get a piece of dry hay stuck in my eye. Most of it broke off right away, but I still had a little piece stuck in there. But after some blinking and some rinsing, it looked like we had gotten it all out. It didn’t hurt really, I didn’t even cry (and I cried all the time). Turns out, it actually wasn’t all gone, and my eye got infected, and I had to go to the emergency room where they said they might need to remove the whole thing. In the end, they were able to take out the infected bits without taking out my whole eye, but I did end losing almost 90% of my vision in that eye. I have terrible depth perception and I’m not allowed to drive when it’s dark out, but I get to have subtitles on small TVs read out loud to me (which I think is pretty awesome, even if it does annoy everyone else in the room) and I never had to play kick ball in high school.
Of course, Lem did lose his whole eye, and his teeth before that, and then his thumb and his scalp and his leg and his money and his life. What Lem’s whole entire life boils down to—and actually, what a lot of this class boils down to—is loss. Lem is just the same as every other guy we’ve read about—he’s Tom Joad and Boxcar Bertha and Tom Kromer. They lost their jobs, their houses, their families, their homes. They travel around, trying to put themselves back together, trying to find whatever it is that can replace the things they lost. I know that this is a satire, and that Lem is supposed to be some kind of commentary of the uselessness of optimism, and that every time Lem pops his eye back into his head after it’s been shattered or stolen or whatever we’re supposed to see the futility of his persistence and laugh at it. What else is he supposed to do besides put back in his teeth and eyes, strap on his wooden leg and keep searching for his fortune? I don’t know what it’s like to lose an eye, but I do know what it’s like to almost lose one, or to lose most of one, and I know that Lem can still see.
And on a lighter note and mostly just to satisfy my love of putting links in my posts, it’s actually pretty surprising to think about how many one-eyed characters are part of popular culture:
First, it was great that you
First, it was great that you shared your own story. Thanks for that. I think the idea of loss, along with tragedy, are present in every reading we've had this semester. And I agree that there is nothing else these characters can do but just go on. They can either give up and succumb to the tragedy around them, or they can fight for hope and happiness, however naive that may be. Putting his eye back in does symbolize the persistence the character has, despite the satire of the story. And maybe the characters are also just blind and can't see that their happy ending won't happen. Which reminds me of Oedipus and the literal gouging out of eyes coupled with his own blindness to truth.
I really appreciate how
I really appreciate how personally you can relate to Lem. And even though it does seem futile for Lem to keep popping his eye back in because it keeps falling out, I think you're right. I think that Lem still can "see" and his will to fight for his own life and for others (Betty, etc.) makes him a noble character. Unfortunately, I am a pessimist, and can not share that same feelings as Lem, but I certainly respect them.