The Eyes Have It

“I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses.”

Blending a farcical element with the story’s over-the-top situation, this compound sentence demonstrates the Government's disinterest in the narrator’s concerns. Furthermore, in sending him a pamphlet that he finds useless in response to his report of an invasion by extraterrestrials, the Government reveals its own ineptitude, indicating that both the individual and organizations/bureaucracies are incompetent in relation to reality.

“Anyhow, the whole thing is known; I’m not the first to discover it. Maybe it’s even under control.”

Dismissive of both the situation and his own contribution to it, the narrator suspects that the invasion is part of some larger scheme that he has stumbled upon. Not only is his interpretation of the book deeply flawed, but his reading of others’ reactions is also askew.

“After I’d comprehended, it seemed odd I hadn’t noticed it right away.”

The narrator/the reader surprises himself. Always a poor judge of the situation, he is likewise a poor judge of himself. He has a sudden moment of comprehension, not a lifetime of meaningful study. His dismissal of his reading contributes to the humor of the story.

“Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author.”

The narrator/the reader’s mood comes to the forefront as he begins a methodological examination of these “observations.” The “illusion” that has befuddled others is a thin veneer over reality that he just so happens to be able to see through.

“It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything — and was taking it in his stride.”

The disguise that no longer fools the narrator/the reader now becomes a hidden knowledge that “the author” wrote down. Repeating the phrase “knew everything” suggests that “the author” in fact knows nothing of what the narrator interprets; furthermore, it alludes to how much trust he puts in the “reality” this book “reveals.”

“No one in the story was surprised. That’s what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing.”

For all his misunderstandings, the narrator pays attention to minute actions. Noticing a lack of surprise does not indicate that such a situation is simply ordinary; rather, for him, it suggests an “outrageous” nature. The secrecy of this knowledge is reinforced because its discovery is accidental.

“Yet, to the characters in the book, it was perfectly natural — which suggested they belonged to the same species.”

With another misinterpretation of events, the narrator makes sweeping assumptions from the evidence available to him. Though he is reading about characters in a novel, the narrator/the reader acts like a scientist categorizing those characters as a separate species.

“A slow suspicion burned in my mind.”

This is one of the first instances in which the narrator/the reader speaks in figurative language. While no suspicion can literally burn, the narrator has no other means of expressing what is occurring inside him. The burning occurs not in his physical body, where burns would actually occur, but in his mind.

“The author was taking it rather too easily in his stride.”

Apart from making scientific mistakes, the narrator/the reader also misinterprets the voice and tone of “the author.” The narrator/the reader makes a judgment about the author’s ease and uses it to reinforce the validity of his own interpretation of reality.

“Knowledge like this was too much for the ordinary run-of-the-mill person.”

An instance of elitism, this sentence suggests the Gnostic notion that not everyone will—or even has the ability to—arrive at the hidden knowledge underlying reality. Ironically, the narrator/the reader has already confessed that such knowledge is too much for him, yet here he refers to keeping his discovery from his wife.

“In any case, the full meaning was there, staring me right in the face.”

Returning to an instance of figurative language, the narrator/the reader shifts from metaphor to personification. “Meaning” itself cannot “stare” and has no eyes, yet in the need to express confrontation and proximity, the narrator/the reader resorts once more to the type of figurative language that he cannot correctly understand in the novel.

“My knowledge of biology came in handy, at this point. Obviously they were simple beings, unicellular, some sort of primitive singlecelled things.”

These sentences are humorous and ironic, as the narrator/the reader’s lack of knowledge causes him to misinterpret the passages. He demonstrates knowledge through his use of scientific terminology but is completely unable to apply it to his situation.

“There was no doubt of the thing in the next passage.”

Refusing to acknowledge any prospect of being wrong, the narrator/the reader doubles down by dismissing the possibility of doubt. In a further ironic twist, doubt, which is a prerequisite for genuine scientific knowledge, is the very thing he ought to have here.