By Will Clark
Visions, dreams, and miracles are common devices throughout Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work. His short story: Eyes of a Blue Dog, creates a dream world where two lovers meet. These two people have never met in the waking world, although they dream of each other every night. Every time they meet, they promise to try to find each other. The man tells her that she will recognize him when he says the phrase: eyes of a blue dog. The conflict of the story is that the man can never remember his dreams and forgets the phrase. The woman remembers the phrase and writes it everywhere, constantly looking for him. She says it to everyone she meets and writes it on walls and notes, hoping that he will find it. The story ends with his continued promise to try to find her, and her resignation to the idea that he may never remember the phrase or his dreams of her.
The story conveys the mechanism of the dream world very effectively. Dream elements are presented as reality and without explanation. In spite of this, the realities of the dream world and the explanations of the waking world are never difficult to tell apart. You feel frustration for the man who never remembers his dreams of her, and pity for the woman always looking for him. The story paints a sad picture. This narrative is poignant, interesting, and well written.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Eyes of a Blue Dog. Blackstone Publishing, 2022.