“I never know what you are thinking, Griet...You’re so calm and quiet. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes hiding in your eyes.” (Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring 160)
In this quote Chevalier introduces the theme of appearance versus reality and the role of secrecy and the unspoken truth. Tracy Chevalier has Pieter reveal the obvious because he is her love interest and should know the most about her out of everyone – but he barely knows anything.
Griet’s quiet and calm disposition masks her true feelings. Just as Sayuri Nitta had to hide her true feelings of admiration for the Chairman all throughout her career as a geisha, Griet hides her life as a maid for the Vermeers when she is with Pieter and even her family. Griet wants to tell Pieter everything, the painting, how her master looks at her and the earrings - she wants to scream it all out to him - but she can't and she never would. It would be her little secret.
Griet is afraid to reveal to Pieter the truth. The reason why she cannot tell him about anything going on in the Vermeer household is because she’s afraid Pieter would leave her. Her master has been painting her in a provocative way for endless hours each day and Pieter would be jealous, or could assume that Griet would come to have feelings for her master.
Pieter sees the secrecy in Griet’s eyes and like the ongoing themes in A Complicated Kindness and Memoirs of a Geisha, the eyes and their significance play a relevant role in the evolution of the novel. Nomi of A Complicated Kindness finds kindness in the eyes of strangers passing by when they didn’t know what to say, and Sayuri finds kindness in the Chairman’s eyes in a world full of dread and oppression. The eyes, like revealed before are the windows to one’s inner being. They can speak the truth, or reveal a lie, and in this case Griet’s eyes reveal secrecy and a truth that would never be spoken to anyone.
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2 comments:
Superb! =D
Thanks Leona!
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