The Eye in Our Wives Under the Sea: Transformation and Revelation

The Eye as a Site of Encounter

The eye is the novel's most persistent image of contact between the human and the non-human. It appears in several forms: the vast eye of the creature that rises from the chasm, the small etched eye on the submersible's panel, Leah's own eyes as they change and dissolve, and Miri's mother's failing eyesight. Each recurrence shifts the eye's meaning — from revelation to transformation to the limits of knowledge. In Our Wives Under the Sea, the eye is where the human meets the deep.

The Creature's Eye: Revelation Without Explanation

The most dramatic appearance of the eye comes in chapter 39, when Leah describes the creature rising from the chasm below the submersible. Its eye and face fill the windows, seeming to fill the whole ocean by itself. This is the moment of revelation — the thing that has been 'here all along' finally shows itself. But the eye doesn't explain anything. Leah looks into it and feels there would never be any way of knowing whether they had come intentionally, whether they had been pulled down or pushed. The eye is a site of revelation that reveals only the limits of knowledge.

The eye also holds a 'strange, anticipatory expression' as the craft ascends (chapter 41). This suggests the creature expected their departure — or expected something else entirely. The eye is not passive; it watches with intention, even if that intention remains opaque. Matteo moves back from the window, but Leah stays, too exhausted to move — the eye holds her in place.

The Etched Eye: A Symbol That Resists Meaning

Before pressing her name to the window, Leah passes her hand over the small etched image of an eye that was not the Centre's logo and 'did not appear to stand for anything at all.' This detail is striking because it's a symbol that resists meaning. The Centre's logo would signify institutional authority; this eye signifies nothing official. It's a private mark, perhaps left by a previous crew, perhaps meaningless. The eye as a symbol that doesn't symbolize — or whose meaning is inaccessible. This connects to the novel's broader concern with the limits of knowledge: some things cannot be read, some signs do not signify.

Leah's Eyes: The Body's Transformation

Leah's own eyes are a site of oceanic transformation. In chapter 2, Miri describes Leah inspecting her eyes in the bathroom, her skin appearing waterlogged. By chapter 32, Leah is in the bath, 'the pale wash of her remaining eye beneath the surface' — she has lost an eye. The eye is the most visible sign of her change. Her skin grows transparent 'like a window wiped of mist' — the body becoming a window, parallel to the submersible's window through which the creature's eye appeared. The eye is where the human meets the non-human, where identity erodes. When Miri finally releases Leah into the sea (chapter 40), her body dissolves into the water — the transformation the eye began is complete.

The Act of Looking

Looking is a form of encounter throughout the novel. In chapter 15, Leah and the crew stare at torches, which leave white lines across the backs of their eyes. In chapter 39, Leah stares into the creature's eye for hours. The act of looking is transformative — it leaves physical traces, it changes the looker. Leah's 'sunken thoughts' (chapter 3) — the quiet spells Miri named — suggest a mind turned inward, but the eye is turned outward, toward the deep. To know the ocean, Leah reflects in chapter 9, is to recognize the teeth it keeps half-hidden — and the eye is one of those teeth, revealed at last.

The Eye and Communication

The comms panel goes offline in chapter 3 — the crackle of contact from the surface cuts out, and Leah realizes the comms had not faded but had been switched off. The eye is a different mode of communication. Leah writes her name in the logbook and presses it to the window 'so that the creature could see.' This is an act of self-revelation — offering her name to the eye. Whether the creature reads it is unclear. The eye is a site of communication that may fail, just as the comms failed. This connects to the theme of failure of communication and support systems.

The Eye and the Mother

Miri's mother has eyesight degeneration (chapter 18) — she might be eligible for experimental surgery to reverse the degeneration. Her vision is failing, and she squints at toast. This connects to the theme of limits of knowledge — the failure of sight as a metaphor for the failure of understanding. Miri imagines her mother meeting Leah (chapter 40), a meeting that never happened. The mother's failing eyes and Leah's dissolving eye are parallel — both are sites of loss, of the inability to see clearly. Juna, Miri's sister, helps bring Leah to their mother's house by the sea — the journey toward the mother's failing sight and Leah's dissolving body.

The Eye and the Octopus

When Leah sees the creature's eye, she remembers the octopus she cared for at the aquarium (chapter 39). Octopuses have remarkable eyes — intelligent, alien, familiar. The memory connects the creature to something Leah has known and cared for. But the creature is not the octopus; it's something older, deeper. The eye is a point of connection that also marks the distance between the known and the unknown.

The Eye and the Wandering Jew

In chapter 17, Jelka tells Leah the story of the Wandering Jew — sometimes the journey is a quest for the holy land, sometimes a punishment. The creature's eye watches the crew's descent and ascent, a witness to their journey. The eye is the witness that cannot be escaped, the thing that has been 'here all along.'

The Eye and Themes

The eye connects to several of the novel's central themes:

• Oceanic transformation: Leah's eye dissolves as her body becomes water. The eye is the site where the human becomes non-human.

• Failure of communication and support systems: The comms panel fails; the eye is a non-verbal mode of contact that may not be received.

• Limits of knowledge: The creature's eye reveals without explaining. Leah cannot know whether they were pulled down or pushed.

• Erosion of memory and identity: Leah's 'sunken thoughts' and her forgetting of the octopus's name (chapter 29) suggest a mind eroding. The eye is where identity is lost.

• Ambiguous grief: Miri's grief for Leah — the woman who returns but is no longer the same — is bound up in the image of Leah's remaining eye beneath the water.

Study Questions

1. How does the creature's eye function as a site of revelation in chapter 39?

The eye fills the submersible's windows and seems to fill the ocean. It reveals the creature's presence — the thing that has been 'here all along' — but doesn't explain it. Leah's uncertainty about being 'pulled down or pushed' remains unresolved. The eye is a revelation that reveals only the limits of knowledge.

2. What does the etched eye on the panel suggest about the limits of symbolism?

The eye 'did not appear to stand for anything at all' — it resists official meaning. Unlike the Centre's logo, which would signify institutional authority, this eye signifies nothing. It suggests that some symbols don't signify, or that their meaning is private and inaccessible.

3. How does Leah's own eye change over the course of the novel?

From inspecting her eyes in the bathroom (chapter 2) to the 'remaining eye' in the bath (chapter 32), Leah's eye is a site of physical transformation. The body becomes water, the skin grows transparent 'like a window wiped of mist.' The eye is where the human meets the non-human.

4. How does the eye connect to the theme of communication failure?

The comms panel goes offline (chapter 3); the eye is a non-verbal mode of contact. Leah presses her name to the window — an act of communication that may not be received. The eye is a site of contact that may fail, just as the comms failed.