For the past few weeks my literature class has been reading Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. The novel is totally the kind of stuff the early romantics were hard core swooning over. The novel is really pretty dark and the love relationship going on inside the novel really isn't very healthy or normal........but never fear I'm not going to sit here and go over the whole plot with you because
1) You've probably already read it
2) or seen the movie
3) or will have to read it at some point in your life
4) and the goal here is not to bore you to tears (no offense Emily Brontë).
But what I will share with you is an interesting point my English teacher made in regards to Mr. Lockwood, one of the novel's narrators. In the beginning of the story, Mr. Lockwood reminisces about a girl he had once claimed to love (even though he had never talked to her). Lockwood described this girl as being a "real goodness in [his] eyes," but only when "she took no notice of [him]." This is what is often referred to in literature as the "male gaze." It is the idea that men were made to look and women were made to be looked at. We see this theme in a lot of older novels: we, the reader, are looking at the male looking at the women. However, things with Mr. Lockwood and his lady did not work out because she had the audacity to return "the sweetest of all imaginable looks," which unfortunately sent Mr. Lockwood shrinking back cowardly. When the roles were reversed and the male gaze became the "female gaze" poor Mr. Lockwood simply could not handle it. The whole idea of the "male gaze" and the "female gaze" is a really interesting concept to me, but to be honest I haven't really thought about it much outside of books or the classroom.
However, today I couldn't help but recall these things back into my mind as I suddenly became very aware of how timid everyone inside of the coffee shop I was sitting in was to look at each other (myself included). However, the obvious avoided eye contact seemed to have less to do with gender and more to do with the fact that everyone was being pretty overly self-aware. Maybe this was just me sitting in a coffee shop by myself over-reading a situation entirely (it's not like it hasn't happened before,) but it sure does seem like we are all pretty concerned with who is looking at us and what they are thinking. A gaze is a powerful thing and it seems to me that the general consensus today is if we gaze too long upon someone or they gaze too long upon us we instantly feel judged or creeped out. So why is it that we get so stingy with out looks? Why was I so concerned about how my hair looked while I was in a coffee shop full of people who would do anything to avoid eye contact out of fear of looking creepy with me anyway? I think it must be because we are so obviously concerned with how we are being perceived. I will be the first to admit that I am the amidst of trying to figure out how to get over the whole "how-do-I-act-like-I-don't-care-what-others-think-of-me-when-I-actually-really-do" notion. I could blame it on being an 18 year old girl, but I can't do that for forever. The truth is no matter what age or gender, everyone is pretty concerned with what others think when they look at them.
We worry and worry about who we are looking at and who is looking at us when the reality is we forget who has always been looking at us. There has been one steady gaze coming down from above on us our whole entire lives, yet somehow this is the same one we so often chose to ignore. But God's gaze is so different than anyone else's: it never judges out of self consciousness or is concerned with how it measures up to you. His gaze isn't even looking at what we look like physically. His is a gaze of love and knowing. How much better life would be if this were the only gaze we focused on. Then maybe we could learn to be looked at without growing uneasy. Perhaps we could learn to look with fresh eyes.
