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The Pigeon House
The narrator looks to see whether anyone around him has green eyes to confirm whether or not he is on a “real” adventure. While much of the adventure imagery in “An Encounter” relates back to the Wild West, green eyes are likely a reference to Homer’s Odyssey: Odysseus, the protagonist of The Odyssey, is a sailor, soldier, and adventurer as well as a prototype for the ideal masculine hero. The narrator first mentions green eyes after crossing the River Liffey, scanning the faces of the foreign sailors around him to see if any have green eyes. When he is disappointed to find that none do, the implication is that his adventure is not living up to the lofty expectations for adventure that he has gleaned from books and epics.
He doesn’t actually encounter anyone with green eyes until he meets the strange old man. However, the old man creeps the narrator out so much that he hardly looks at the man as he talks about beautiful young girls and goes off to the other end of the field to masturbate. The narrator then only notices that the man has green eyes after the man describes his shocking desire to whip young boys. Noticing the man’s green eyes at the moment the narrator thinks he is completely out of his depth and possibly in danger drives home the idea that while “real” adventures does mark a departure from the dull daily routine, the adventure won’t necessarily be wholesome or even heroic. It can instead be strange, disappointing, frightening, or even cruel or perverted.
Green Eyes Quotes in An Encounter
The An Encounter quotes below all refer to the symbol of Green Eyes. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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An Encounter
Quotes
When we landed we watched the discharging of the graceful threemaster which we had observed from the other quay. Some bystander said that she was a Norwegian vessel. I went to the stern and tried to decipher the legend upon it but, failing to do so, I came back and examined the foreign sailors to see had any of them green eyes for I had some confused notion….
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After an interval the man spoke to me. He said that my friend was a very rough boy and asked did he get whipped often at school. I was going to reply indignantly that we were not National School boys to be whipped, as he called it; but I remained silent. He began to speak on the subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if magnetised again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new centre. He said that when boys were that kind they ought to be whipped and well whipped…I was surprised at this sentiment and involuntarily glanced up at his face. As I did so I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from under a twitching forehead. I turned my eyes away again.
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Green Eyes Symbol Timeline in An Encounter
The timeline below shows where the symbol Green Eyes appears in An Encounter. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
An Encounter
...foreign sailors mill around, he looks at them to see if any of them have green eyes but finds that none of them do. He watches one sailor with green-ish eyes entertain...
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...narrator glances up at the man and finds himself looking directly into the man’s “ bottle-green eyes .” The man’s forehead twitches in response and the narrator quickly looks away again.
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