Perspective 74
The Gaze
I’m surprised by the number of times I’ve seen the word ‘gaze’ lately. It’s not just looking, but a long look that searches and even penetrates. Have you ever looked up in a crowd and found someone staring or gazing at you? It’s often uncomfortable or were you one the one doing the gazing? I gathered some famous ‘gazes’ starting when Jesus looked at Nathaniel from afar. (John 1) Jesus gazed at him and observed him and his character. That was a look of love, hope, and potential. Most gazes are not, but the best one is.
1—Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet meets Darcy at a country party. She (age 20) is looking at him and he (age 27) has gazed at her long enough to have formed an opinion of her.
Darcy to his friend Bingley, in a passage famous to Austen fans. “…turning around he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, ‘She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.’” Overhearing this Elizabeth retold the story “With great spirit to her friends for she had a lively--playful disposition which delighted in anything ridiculous.”
2— F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Gatsby, immense eyes from a billboard ‘see’ Tom Buchannan and his girlfriend Daisy Wilson and later sees the fatal car accident that killed her. Is twisted justice the result of that gaze?
“The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg on the billboard overlooking the Valley of Ashes represent many things at once: to Nick they seem to symbolize the haunting waste of the past, which lingers on though it has irretrievably vanished, much like Dr. Eckleburg’s medical practice. The eyes can also be linked to Gatsby, whose own eyes, once described as ‘vacant,’ often stare out, blankly keeping ‘vigil’ over Long Island sound and the green light. To George Wilson, Dr. Eckleburg’s eyes are the eyes of God, which see everything.” The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Symbol in The Great Gatsby | LitCharts
3—Jean Paul Sartre Notes from Tim Keller: East of Eden.
Sartre looking through a keyhole secretly at someone feeling powerful and then he was astounded to realize that someone was looking at him. Now he’s traumatized and outraged as if naked. “Is God watching me? I must defy him!” Sartre is content to look through the keyhole, but “No one can watch me, not even God.” He almost admits that he is flawed and needs to resist by taking control.
“All those eyes intent on me. Devouring me. What? Only two of you? I thought there were more; many more. So, this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is other people!” From Being and Nothingness.
4—Augustine From Christopher Watkin (2002)
When any finite thing becomes essential to us, we gaze on it and make it the only thing. We get anxious when it is threatened as these (false gods) always implode. They are good, but not as main things. When we overload those desires, we fall into anxiety. Time and life erode these things, but God never erodes. David in Ps 27 cries out that he will gaze on God’s beauty. What’s the benefit of your career becoming that only thing? It’s too frail. So is your money, talent, looks, success, or even your spouse. Want to know your idol? Just ask what make you anxious for fear of losing it. We must gaze on God’s beauty. Commune with God…not just a set of substitute obsessions.
We try to come to grips with our deep need to know while still protecting ourselves from being known. This is not healthy, but it is to be expected from people, like us, broken and lost people who have fallen in to deep imperfection. We will work to escape the ‘gaze,’ but the gaze can only be removed by turning it into a look of love. Ask Elizabeth and Darcy. Ask anyone who has come to know Jesus. Ask Nathaniel or Jean Paul.