Insight on Paul Simon's song "Silent Eyes"

Eyes in Paul Simon’s song Silent Eyes are used to represent the eyes of the reaction-less bystanders who are watching a woman being stoned and burned, and the eyes of God. The song tells the story of how a woman is being stoned and burned to death while no one does anything. The narrator appears to be either the boyfriend or husband of the victim and yet even he does intervene. He along with everyone else just watches and is silent. The narrator knows that he himself, along with the other bystanders, will eventually have to “stand before the eyes of God”, meaning that God will decide whether or not they go to heaven based on their submissiveness. The message that Paul Simon wants to get across in the song is that there are two types of evil people, people who do evil things and people who see evil things being done and do nothing to stop it. Therefore, Simon is saying that the bystanders are just as bad as the people committing the crime. Paul Simon is also saying that it is still a sin if a man chooses not to stop a crime because God, who’s watching from above, simply sees a man not helping a person in need; therefore in God’s eyes the man has committed a sin.

Eyes in Paul Simon’s song Silent Eyes is similar to both Shaffer’s Equus and Ellison’s Invisible Man, but it differs from Shakespeare’s King Lear. Eyes in Equus are similar to the symbolism of eyes in Silent Eyes because in both works of literature eyes represent God’s eyes looking over the world. The two works of literature differ in that in Silent Eyes God sees things directly whereas in Equus God sees the world through the eyes of the animals. Eyes in Paul Simon’s song Silent Eyes is also similar to Ellison’s Invisible Man because in both works of literature characters have chosen to avoid reacting to blatant offenses. In Invisible Man Bledsoe chooses neither to see nor to react toward the obvious racism of life. He chooses not to speak up against racism so he can maintain his power in the community. The Invisible Man is similar to the narrator in Paul Simon’s song Silent Eyes because the narrator chooses not to speak up against the crime so he can spare his life. Eyes in Paul Simon’s song Silent Eyes differs from eyes in Shakespeare’s King Lear because in Paul Simon’s song the narrator chooses not to act on the crime he witnesses, whereas in King Lear when Lear is asking his daughters to praise him, Lear is blind toward his daughter’s phony flattery yet reactionary to their responses, especially Cordelia’s who he yells at for her sincere comments.