Reflections in a Golden Eye

Leonora is mostly a reflection. She is the subject of “lively gossip” surrounding her liaisons with different men. (This doesn’t damage her reputation but only makes her more intriguing.) However, her fearlessness and devil-may-care sensibilities aren’t a result of anything dangerous and mysterious, but rather shallowness; she simply neither feels nor thinks deeply enough to experience intense anxiety or despair. She and Major Langdon are both comfortable enough in their roles to not have to step very far beyond them at all.

She is “a little feebleminded” (318), meaning that she somewhat lacks common sense. Because this side of her is only obvious to those closest to her, she enjoys “a reputation as a good hostess, an excellent sportswoman, and even as a great lady” (318). However, it means that Leonora can’t understand the people around her very well; her impressions of them are as warped as others’ impressions of her.

Major Langdon and Leonora Penderton embody what society deems “normal.” Yet even the Major can’t properly conduct domestic life in a “normal” way. He rejects Alison because she is too frail and strange, and he rejected their daughter because she was sickly. The Major is interested only in what serves his ego and redounds to his image; if anything is “abnormal” in any way, he lacks the capacity to handle it.

The Major is very well-liked and has a position of relative authority on the army base. He has no reason to question his life; in fact, questioning it would only lead to instability and upset. He tries to convince himself that Alison doesn’t know about his affair because, if she knew, her reaction would affect his image of himself, which would in turn affect how other people on the base see him. He only fully accepts this—and the role Alison has in his life in general—after she is gone. 

Alison Langdon is, in some ways, the novel’s true murder victim. She is also one of the most fully “alive” characters in the story, in the sense that her internal life extends far beyond the stale patterns of the army base. As soon as the narrative moves to Alison’s point of view, she reveals new aspects of the army base and the world around it, as well as about her husband and the Pendertons. Alison acts as the keeper of meaning and history for all of them, as well as for Anacleto. She remembers and mourns her daughter, and she also remembers that the Major reacted to the death by starting an affair with Leonora. She is at the hidden center of things. When Alison and Anacleto sit together at the fire, they are able to see the distortions in reality and how ugly, sad, and miniscule reality actually is. Nobody can see Alison truly (except Anacleto), but she sees everyone else.

Alison’s point of view also sheds new light on her own character. In the eyes of those around her, she is a dark frail specter—a pitiable liability and nothing more. However, she has significantly more emotional and intellectual depth than any other character. She recognizes and fully feels her emotions, and she understands herself very well. She represses herself due to her circumstances and her role: All others see is a strange person whose strangeness can be attributed to her vague collection of illnesses.

At the end of the novel, when Alison finally decides she can and will escape, her sickness and the Major stop her, just as she feared. She is the most fully realized character in the story, which makes it all the more tragic that she can’t leave and live a different life.

Private Williams is something of an enigma. This is because he moves through his life with almost no self-awareness at all. When he acts, it comes as a surprise to him, even though he unconsciously prepares for his actions beforehand. His actions, similarly, come as a surprise to the reader: Buying the cow, murdering a man, finding God, and joining the military all feel arbitrary, particularly in conjunction with one another. There is also little broader context for what happens around the Private. He seems to move through his own quiet space, occasionally acting and then moving on.

Seeing Leonora is a turning point in the Private’s life. He allows himself to be close to a woman for the first time—his strict religious upbringing taught him to view them as carriers of a horrible disease (320)—but he cannot express his desire in a healthy way. Instead, he stalks Leonora Penderton night after night. The Private changes his behavior for a few weeks after he sees Alison in the house, but when he returns to the house, he seems not very different from his old self, following the same patterns.