The Eyes Have It

The absurd take on the alien invasion motif in “The Eyes Have It” demonstrates the limits of science to explain the totality of reality. In terse, nonfigurative language, Dick examines an ordinary character who is unable to distinguish figurative from nonfigurative language. The results of this misreading are paranoia—which is a hallmark of both science fiction and postmodern literature—alienation, and acedia, or moral laziness. Single-minded, the narrator/the reader is in the domestic space of his home and his family, but his reading distracts him from their presence. Convinced by his reading that an alien species has invaded, infiltrated, and colonized some part of Earth, he reads a paperback novel as though it were a scientific monograph.

“The Eyes Have It” presents, in short form, a fragmented mind; desperate to find meaning, the narrator settles on an absurd misreading of reality. An ironic aspect of this particular piece is that it requires its readers to do an accurate job of interpretation in order to compensate for the narrator’s inability to do so. Despite its brevity, this story offers possibilities for multiple levels of interpretation.

“The Eyes Have It” explores the limitations of both science and the arts—represented here by a paperback book—as ways of acquiring knowledge. Throughout history, these two disciplines have, in multifarious ways, shaped how persons and cultures understand reality. The quaint, domestic reality of the narrator is ruptured, with implied consequences for the family as a whole. Perceiving the fiction of his paperback novel as reality, the narrator upends both his person and his family, becoming incapable of enjoying the novel and incapable of existing as a contributing member of his family.

Having been sent “a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses” (Paragraph 1), the narrator cannot find the capacity or the energy to build a home that will be safe from the invasion he envisions. Morally lazy, or perhaps simply ignorant, he does not know what to do with his new knowledge. He is an ordinary man who blends scientific and artistic ways of inquiry. He reads a paperback novel through the interpretive lens of a scientist, quantifying and categorizing the creatures he believes are being described in the text in terms he can understand. Though he thinks that he has a uniquely accurate perception of his current situation, he does not know how to respond to the knowledge of an alien species disguised as humans.

The story is bookended with different claims to inaction—at first, the man hasn’t “done anything about it” simply because he “can’t think of anything to do” (Paragraph 1). In the end, he decides to keep his knowledge hidden from others: He “want[s] to hear no more about it” (Paragraph 23). Newly acquired knowledge influences the way that a person acts, but the knowledge the narrator believes to be true does not change his basic predicament. At the end of the story, he returns to the room where he began reading the novel. The brevity of the narration and the narrator’s lack of self-reflection heighten the humor of this piece. Readers understand what the narrator does not: His suffering was provoked by misreading, and he is in no danger.

The story’s humor is dark; it is reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s tales and brimming with existential anxiety and alienation. The narrator’s paranoia is not quelled by his reading; rather, reading leads him to develop new fears. Though his initial fear is of an alien invasion, what he really fears is understanding his own being as a fragmented self. This fear is represented through his interpretation of the paperback book’s passages. The “aliens” have removable limbs. Their bodies look human but do not function as humans’ bodies do. Their organs are detached from any necessary permanence to a physical corpus. The narrator’s fear is not immediately about extraterrestrials but about his own inability to be a fully formed and unified being who takes action to change the course of his life.

The narrator’s final paralysis is a kind of warning. It indicates that if a salvific knowledge remains hidden and secretive, there is no guarantee that attaining it will allow any sort of deeper or more meaningful communication with other people, for whom it remains unknown. On the contrary, it may lead only to deeper anxiety and wider alienation, even in the midst of a loving family. The only words the wife utters in the story are, “What’s wrong?”—and the narrator finds himself unable to respond with any objective accuracy.

The story shows that a danger of believing language reflects reality lies within the nature of language itself. Dick demonstrates that figurative and literal expressions rely on each other to create a genuine understanding of reality; if the figurative is misread as the literal, language disrupts the ability to function in the world outside books.