The Blue Bouquet by Octavio Paz


I Read this text at my Graduation.




Dreams and mysteries usually happen in human life. Otherwise life will be boring. ‘The Blue Bouquet'' of Octavio Paz is an interesting story which deals with dreams and mystery. There are abundant situations in everyday life where your life is in the hands of an enthusiast who wants to kill you or attack you to satisfy his fragile dreams and desires. The anti-hero of the following story is such a character that is in search of blue eyes to present a bouquet of blue eyes to his beloved. It shows the amount of absurdity and cruelty that meaningless love and passion can sometimes involve. The story also makes us to ponder over suspended fear in everyday life. An actually calm moment can turn evil and stage chilling parts. A bouquet of flowers can turn into a bomb to defeat us. A warm trip can conclude in a disturbing incident to bash our memory. This story beautifully captures this trouble that pervades in our everyday life.
The short story unfolds the tragic opposition of an ordinary man in a strange and mysterious world in the hands of a supporter who set out in search of fulfilling the strange need of gifting his beloved with a blue bouquet.
The narrator on an ordinary night like any other is wakened up from sleep sometime during the night due to excessive heat. He is soaked in sweat and there is a "warm vapor rising from the red tiles" of his room. This is a room in a hotel and from the description it is obvious that it is probably a basic kind of accommodation in some remote part. There is a moth going around a "naked bulb" and the narrator is careful about not stepping on a "scorpion" as he is barefoot, and when he is getting dressed he makes sure that there are no "bugs “prowling in his clothes. Standing at the window of the room the narrator is tempted by air from the fields and the "feminine breathing of the night" and so decides to take a walk outside. He is warned by the hotel keeper, blind in one eye not to scheme out as there are no street lights at that place. Ignoring this advice the narrator steps out, and into complete darkness and initially gropes his way along the street.

         The nature received him with sweet and mild moonlight and colorful twinkling of stars arranged with the vocals of crickets and with the addition of sounds of leaves and insects. He felt that the whole universe was a grand system of signals where he was only a part of that world. The twinkling and moony night with the fragrance of the tamarind trees took him in to a world of illusion where he could hear the great lips speaking so clearly and happily that he felt safe and free though he was alone in that street. He felt that the night was a garden of eyes.



The story is rich in ironic sorrow, humor, cruelty and metaphor.

We know almost nothing about the man threatened with the loss of his eyes, since the basis of the story is not biography but conflict- that moment of danger in which the man finds himself, a moment such as any of us could experience. Faced with such danger, he loses whatever fragment of individuality he may have for us, and all that matters is the color of his eyes.
He was walking along the dark road. Suddenly he heard someone following him. He heard the cold silent words ''do not move''. Mysterious is the demand of the stranger. He needs his blue eyes for his beloved. Mysterious is the ways of love. The long machete glittered in the moonlight. The stranger didn't believe the words of the narrator. He examined his eyes in the candle light.


        The world we live in is a hell of mystery. And this story is built up with some mystery. This is the winning point of the story. It makes the reader attention.
        The images in the story also are uncomfortable. Dark warm room, one-eye blind keeper of the hotel, moonlit night – all creates a sense of horror and mystery in the mind of the readers.

 At the end I would like to say that this story is very similar to "The tell tale heart" by " Edgar Allan Poe". In Tell tale heart and in Blue Bouquet, there is a similarity. In Tell tale heart also that servant had hatred towards the vultured eye of an old man.

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