Jean Toomer's Eye Fetish

Seeing as I’ve been almost completely unmoved by Toomer’s writing in general, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a closer look at his apparent fascination with human eyes. I have noticed, in “Fern,” “Blood-Burning Moon” and especially “Box Seat,” that Toomer often characterizing the characters within his stories by their eyes. I don’t want to speculate too much on why this is, as I don’t feel I have the proper qualifications to do so, but rather hoped (if anyone aside from Dr. Campbell reads these blogs) I could start some sort of dialogue regarding this topic. So, without further ado, I’ll jump into it.

The first case I noticed of this particular inclination toward eye description was the very opening of “Fern.” Right from the first line, Fern is basically boiled down to one key feature: her eyes. In fact, her entire head seemed nothing more than a vehicle to display them to the world, evidenced in the first couple of sentences, “Face flowed into her eyes. Flowed in soft cream foam and plaintive ripples, in such a way that wherever your glance may momentarily have rested, it immediately thereafter wavered in the direction of her eyes” (Toomer 16). Toomer goes on, for a whole half a page, focused solely on Fern’s eyes and the power they held over the men around her. It’s an interesting way to characterize her, sure, but not necessarily enough for a new reader to realize how preoccupied with eyes Toomer really is. Continuing on, however, the pattern becomes more clear.

In “Blood-Burning Moon,” Toomer uses eyes as his chosen image to portray the power and barbaric nature of Tom Burwell’s death. On page 36, Toomer writes, “Tom’s eyes popped” (Toomer 36). It’s a simple sentence, but the power of the line is derived primarily from that simplicity, and along with the scent of burning flesh from the sentence before, the reader is left without any doubt as to Toomer’s intended emotion within this closing scene. It’s interesting that Toomer would choose the eyes to portray the aural and visual aspects of this scene. This is not the first time a human has been burned at the stake in a piece of literature, but it’s likely one of the only ones to use the eye as that one pivotal image.

Finally, and most noticeably, Toomer’s “Box Seat” is absolutely full of examples for his eye fascination. Mrs. Pribby is characterized by her eyes when she is first introduced, “Her eyes are weak. They are bluish and watery from reading the newspapers” (Toomer 60). Of the “portly Negress” described on page 65, Toomer writes that the “eyes of the woman don’t belong to her” (Toomer 65). The man with whom Dan nearly brawls with at the end of the story is characterized likewise merely by his eyes, as if nothing else even matters, “The man’s face is a blur about two swollen liquid things that are his eyes. The eyes dissolve in the surrounding vagueness” (Toomer 66). The eyes, it seems, are the only vivid characteristics the man has, though even they are threatened by the “surrounding vagueness” that nearly dissolves them (Toomer 66). During Dan’s seeming bout of hallucinations, he even admits to this obvious preoccupation with people’s eyes when he says, “I did see his eyes. Never miss eyes” (Toomer 68). Obviously, Toomer is aware of the descriptive pattern of his, and even seems to comment on it here.

Again, I don’t mean to suggest any meaning behind this eye fascination of Toomer’s, partly because this blog has already gone on far longer than I’d originally conceived but mostly because I’d like to hear other thoughts on this subject. Let’s get some intellectual discourse under way, here. This is certainly a subject that requires a little bit of knowledge about Jean Toomer himself, so hopefully someone has a bit more knowledge about him than I do.

Also, in case anyone is wondering, I do, in fact, see the irony in calling out Toomer for his obsession with eyes while the very ability to notice it requires a similar, if not even more neurotic, obsession. So thank you for noticing.