Individual’s transition in The Blue Bouquet

In “The Blue Bouquet,” Octavio Paz discusses the idea how a traumatizing event can affect an individual’s transition from innocence to experience. Octavio Paz demonstrates how the transition from innocent and immaturity to experience and maturity is ultimately necessary. The main character in this short story is put into a dangerous situation where is maturity is questioned. In the end he makes the transition from innocence to experience due to the events he faced. Due to the man’s immaturity, he decided to take a walk that night which is what ultimately put him in a dangerous situation.

In the short story “The Blue Bouquet,” Octavio Paz discusses the idea of an individual transitioning from innocence to experience due to a traumatic event. An individuals experience shapes the way they act and perceive the world. When something traumatic is experienced, an individual sees the world in a new light and acts accordingly. The experience that the man goes through changes the way he views and feels about the town. At the start of the story, the man is very innocent which is demonstrated by the fact that he decides to take a walk late at night.

His view of the town is very positive which is demonstrated by the line “One could hear the breathing of the night, feminine enormous. ” This shows the calmness and serenity the man sees in the town. By the end of the story, the traumatic event he experienced with the man wanting blue eyes changed the way he felt about the town, resulting in him becoming more experienced and ultimately deciding to leave town. When he decided to go for a walk, he felt safe and secure and disregarded the boarding-house owners warning. During his walk he felt “free and secure” and was not expecting the man to point a knife in his back and ask for his eyes.

His feelings of security and freedom all correlate to his innocence and inexperience regarding the world and life in this town. FINISH THIS PARAGRAPH Secondly, the author shows the transition from innocence to experience through symbolism. The symbolism of the boarding-house owners missing eye demonstrates foreshadowing to what events the man may experience when he goes for a walk. The missing eye symbolizes the boarding-house owner’s transition from innocence to experience. The fact that the antagonist is searching for blue eyes specifically, is very symbolic of the fact that everyone views situations and the world in a different way.

When the antagonist says, “She wants a bouquet of blue eyes. And around here they’re hard to find,” suggests the idea that people in this town all have the same point of view and do not possess blue eyes which represents a differing view. But people not from this town have a different view point which is shown through the fact that they have blue eyes. When the antagonist says “Don’t try to fool me mister. I know very well that yours are blue,” this demonstrates that he obviously notices a difference in the man’s appearance. Even though his eyes are not blue, it is still symbolic of the way he views things.

Eyes are the device humans and many other animals use to see the world and the fact that the antagonist realizes that not many people in his town have blue eyes makes them more desirable and the differing colours represents differing views. The protagonist mentions that “the night was a garden of eyes,” which demonstrates that everything is watching or affected by everything else. For example if the day did not change into night, the stars would not appear, much like, if a traumatic experience did not happen in an individual’s life, they would not have the same feelings, actions and views of the world.

The mention of “garden of eyes,” foreshadows the bouquet of blue eyes. All of these symbols lead up to the man deciding to leave town. He became more experienced and lost his innocent and naive view of the town. Another way the author demonstrates the transition from innocence to experience is through the setting. The setting of the story is in a foreign town at night with extremely hot weather. The protagonist could not sleep due to the weather being too hot. He had woken up from his sleep “covered with sweat,” and proceeded to bathe himself and head out for a walk.

When the man went for his walk, he “plunged into the darkness. ” This illustrates an eeriness to the town and the fact that it was very late at night. The author also describes the town as being a little beat up when he wrote “lighting a white wall that was crumbled in places,” this shows that the maintenance of the town has not been kept up and allows the reader to infer that the town is not very wealthy. The author also describes the town as “feminine and enormous,” but also deserted which shows the contrast between the man’s feelings at the beginning of the story compared to his feelings at the end of the story.

His immaturity allowed him to have a positive and peaceful view of the town which made him feel secure when deciding to take a walk. He brushed off the boarding-house owners warning which is demonstrated by the author writing “shrugged my shoulders, muttered “back soon,” and plunged into the darkness. ” This line demonstrates the stubbornness and immaturity of the man because he feels safe enough to go for a walk even though he has been warned.