Mrs. Elms
English 9, Block B
12 September 2014
Blinded From Jealousy The wife from the fable “The Blue Eyes”, by Isak Dinesen, is a lady that is caught up in her jealousy and greed that she is blind to the obvious. For example, the wife in the story is constantly jealous of the figurehead on her husband’s boat, “You think more of the figure-head than of me”, she said to him. “No”, he answered, “I think so highly of her because she is like you, yes, because she is you yourself. Is she not gallant, full-bosomed; does she not dance in the waves, like you at our wedding?” (1). Clearly, the wife is too focused on being the center of attention, and not wanting to share the spotlight with even a figurehead of herself that she cannot see that her husband loves her. This demonstrates that the skipper’s wife is overrun with feelings, compelling her to take the eyes off of the figurehead. Later in the fable, she becomes so envious of the figurehead that she steals the beautiful blue “eyes” from it,
Now she has your blue eyes too.’ ‘You had better give me the stones for a pair of earrings,’ she said. ‘No,’ he said again, ‘I cannot do that, and you would not ask me to if you understood.’ Still the wife could not stop fretting about the blue stones, and one day, when her husband was with the skippers’ corporation, she had a glazier of the town take them out, and put two bits of blue glass into the figure-head instead, and the skipper did not find out, but sailed off to Portugal. (1).
This passage illustrates that the skipper’s wife is so desperate for all of his attention that she goes to the extreme of stealing the gems so she can wear them as earrings. This act shows that she is so stricken with greed that she hired a glazier to install the blue glass to the figurehead and take down the pure blue gems just to have them for herself to wear as earrings. One of the last main events that happened in the tale, is the point where she starts loosing her vision,